A half-hour's drive from the site of the 1992 United Conference on Environment and Development, past Rio de Janeiro's most wretched favelas (slums), another summit was opening its doors-a parallel conference of 7,892 registered citizens' groups that called itself the '92 Global Forum. Beset by last-minute money problems, it had gotten off to a wobbly start. But thanks to the frantic efforts of its coordinators, Warren Lindner of the US and Tony Gross of Brazil, and the propellant energy of thousands of activists from 167 countries, it soon steadied itself. It was a dizzyingly diverse gathering, including, for example, a contingent of Esperanto proponents from Rotterdam, a sheet-metal and air-conditioning contractors' association from Sïo Paulo and a guild representing filmmakers in Kazakhstan. But it was made up mostly of people representing causes close to the hearts of most nongovernmental organizations: environmentalists, women, the young, business people, scientists, industrialists, trade unionists, farm and plantation workers, religious and spiritual leaders.
The forum was also the sponsor of the one of the first world conferences of indigenous peoples, whose highlight was a meeting of loinclothed hunter-gatherers, which took place in a down-to-the-last-detail Amazonian village specially constructed for the occasion near the Earth Summit site. But the Global Forum's main business was conducted in Flamengo Park, a seaside expanse of green and white tents near Rio's business district, where seminars, debates, speakers' forums, seances, teach-ins, prayer services, parades and the like went on virtually round the clock for 12 days. For those who spent most of their time at the forum, it might as well have been Carnival time-a blur of marches, parties, concerts, demonstrations, revelation, inspiration, no sleep, bad food and good fun.
By: David E. Pitt, (excerpt from Safeguarding the Environment), from: A Global Affair: An Inside Look at the United Nations, published by Jones & Janello, copyright 1995, all rights reserved.
