Local children will get lessons in looking after the planet this week from the head of an international environmental organisation.

Friends of the Earth chairman Ricardo Navarro is set to arrive in Bermuda from Baltimore today for a three-day stay.

He will have dinner with Premier Jennifer Smith and Environment Minister Arthur Hodgson tonight at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo before visiting four secondary schools tomorrow where he will talk to students on the importance of preserving and protecting the earth.

Environmentalist Dick Johnson is one of a group of people who have succeeded in bringing Mr. Navarro to the Island.

He said: "We are very much looking forward to his visit. It will be very good for the pupils when he goes into the schools.

"His subject will be environmental issues facing the world today and the impact they have on Bermuda, such as global warming. It will be very educational.'' On Friday, Mr. Navarro is set to visit Nonsuch Island with Government Conservation Officer David Wingate.

He will also be taken on a tour of the Island with stops at Spittal Pond, Paget Marsh and Walsingham.

Members of the public are invited to hear Mr. Navarro give a talk at the Bermuda Biological Station for Research on Friday at 7.30 p.m. Admission is $10.

Mr. Navarro, who is from San Salvador, has worked for Friends of the Earth for ten years and recently became its chairman. In 1970, he co-founded El Salvador's Commission on Human Rights and also set up a number of bicycle factories in his home country, which led to him being credited for the growing use of bicycles as a mode of transport there.

EDUCATION ED