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Dr.Claude Martin at Luphisi village permaculture centre, Republic of South Africa
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Progress since the Earth Summit* five years ago has been painfully slow and desperately disappointing, as was highlighted at the special session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGASS) in June. The checklist of serious international failures includes the lack of action on protecting forests and halting illegal logging; the absence of a commitment to a clear and early reduction in carbon dioxide emissions to hold back climate change; and the undermining of commitments on the use of finance and trade to fuel sustainable development. It is almost as if there was so much to be done that governments did not know where or how to start.
The inaction of the international community has also led to the dissipation of much of the hope and enthusiasm that followed the Earth Summit, and of the belief that governments were ready to take collective responsibility for the global environment. But perhaps one positive element that emerged from the inelegantly termed UNGASS, and the post-Rio process, is a recognition that the power to act has moved away from governments, and that the real force for environmental improvement lies with people.
WWF has always believed that individual and community action are crucial to effecting change. This is why we devote so much effort to field conservation, learning from grassroots experience, demonstrating what can be achieved, and building local capacity to carry on our work.
Results
In 1997, WWF identified 200 regions that contain
a representative array of the world's biological diversity. Ranging from the taiga forests of Siberia to the coral reefs of the southern oceans, it is in these regions that we are concentrating our efforts. To strengthen this work,
we have identified important targets to be achieved for forest and ocean conservation, and for reducing damaging emissions of greenhouse gases. All are realistic and achievable, and WWF has appealed for all people, whether heads of government, corporate leaders, or private individuals, to help us reach these goals.
First results are exciting. Worldwide, heads of state have undertaken to conserve more than 200 million hectares of forests, wetlands, and coastal areas over the next 15 years; business leaders have committed their corporations, large and small, to substantially reducing their energy consumption or buying raw materials only from sustainably managed sources managed in ways that do not deplete the Earth's natural resources; and private individuals have told us of how they are working to reduce pollution or helping to promote ecologically sounder ways of life. I would like to pay tribute to each and every one of them.
Cooperation
Learning from others' achievements, spreading their knowledge, and applying and adapting their solutions elsewhere is very much a part of our organization's responsibility. That is why WWF is promoting techniques pioneered in countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden which have shown that farmers can reduce pesticide use by 50 per cent without affecting productivity, and why we are working with food growers' groups in the United States and Canada to develop a range of produce independently certified as having been grown with less than usual damage to the environment.
WWF has also learnt that involving all the stakeholders in a problem is the only way in which lasting solutions can be found. This is why, for example, WWF is promoting, through local projects, public access to information on toxic emissions and effluents from industrial plants. At Lake Nakuru, Kenya, where one such scheme is running, a level of trust has built up between industrialists and the local community, and together they are working to revitalize the lake's natural life, including the famous flamingos. WWF intends to build on the experience of these projects to develop international agreements that support Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers as a basic human right.
0penness
The concept of openness and involvement lies behind WWF's efforts to broaden the negotiations on the development of the OECD's** Multilateral Agreement
on Investment, an instrument that aims to remove restrictions on the flow of international investment. WWF believes that such an agreement could lead to the overexploitation and degradation of natural resources as unrestricted foreign investment looking for rapid financial returns is matched by developing nations seeking short-term improvements in their economic situation. Only by widening the consultation process to include all the stakeholders, and not just the OECD member states, can long-term environmental problems be avoided.
The following pages show what WWF is trying to achieve, and how we are going about it. They also reflect how others are working with us, whether they are individuals, corporations, or even international institutions. I hope they demonstrate that increasing numbers of people are no longer asking what the natural world can do for them, but rather what they can do for the natural world. I firmly believe that this is the only realistic way open to us in our efforts to achieve sustainability.
Dr. Claude Martin
Director General, WWF International
*The 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro.
**Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.