EURO-ECO 2007 Hanover 4 - 5 December 2007	Environmental and Engineering Aspects for sustainable living
	European Academy of Natural Sciences, Hanover European Scientific Society, Hanover Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Moscow

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Geoethics - i.e. application of ethics in the field of earth sciences - has been established to solve various serious dilemmas of an ethical character in problems of the daily life. A constant stream of new presentations with a larger and deeper output proves the continuing development and growing importance of this relatively new interdisciplinary approach both in theory and in practice focused on problems of mineral resources as well as on various natural hazards with strong ties to ecological ethics and problems of sustainability.

Geoethical infrastructures started to be created at various levels:

1. Regular international meetings on geoethics have been organized as part of the Mining Pribram Symposia in the Czech Republic since 1992. Until 2007 altogether 239 papers or abstracts on various geoethical problems were published at 9 sessions of that forum by authors from 21 countries of Europe, Asia and America. A very large spectrum of problems and aspects in the presentations and discussions covers both theoretical backgrounds and practical applications of geoethics - going from a local scale up to regional, global and even universal scale - as problems of exploration and exploitation, ecology, economics, climate changes, etc. The presented and discussed problems of geological education and outreach, international law, contacts with religions, media, etc. seem to be of special value for the further development of geoethics. Further direct contacts with organisers possible: lidmila. nemcova@quick.cz and/or marcinikova@diamo.cz .

2. Since 1992 geoethical problems started to be regularly presented also in the frame of the International Geological Congresses. The development of the discipline at this high world forum is impressive. Whereas at three Congresses since 1992 until 2000 altogether 18 abstracts to geoethics were published, in the latest Congress in Florence 2004 altogether 24 geoethically oriented abstracts were published what proved the growing interest for and the increasing need of the new discipline. An appropriate space for geoethics has been already confirmed for the following IGC (August 6 - 14, 2008; Oslo, Norway - all needed information at the IGC web site www.33igc.org) with the special symposium IEE-7 on Geoethics. A new wave of interest for geoethics is expected just in connection with the coming International Geological Congress as well as with the International Year of Planet Earth.

3. Regular or ad hoc meetings on geoethics elsewhere (including special section on Geoethics in Moscow as part of regular biannual conferences “New ideas in Earth sciences” since 1997).

A needed institualization for geoethics has resulted in 2004 by establishing a special working group under the umbrella of the Association of Geoscientists for International Development (AGID). This working group is using for its activities the existing above mentioned international platform for geoethics at the Mining Pribram Symposia. More detailed information about AGID: www.bgs.ac.uk/agid/. Regular GEOETHICS NEWS are just planned to be included at that web site.