Balancing Conservation and Visitor Presence: The HUMANITA Summer School Experience

Et homines dum docent discunt (Seneca).

The recent Summer School held as part of the Interreg Central Europe Humanita project, held on July 14-17, and brilliantly organised by CUAS University, perfectly illustrates this warning.

Over 20 young participants from eight different countries deepened their understanding, and ours, of the vital importance of monitoring our environment today, to ensure protection that is both objective and grounded in scientific evidence. An experience centered on curiosity, the driving force of cognitive aspiration and a defining trait of those who, in the act of teaching, are fully aware that they are also engaged in learning.

At the heart of the Summer School was also the importance of language, as a means of narrating the world in ways that can move and inspire, especially in a present increasingly flattened by linear and standardized forms of communication.

Engaging in dialogue beyond the boundaries of the scientific community, particularly with those who may one day become part of it, is a practice often neglected. Yet, doing so helps preserve a vital connection with the tangible realities of the world that can offer an unconventional and enriching perspective on our daily work.