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Von: "Hermann Dworczak" <>
Betreff:
Rio+20"-
official and alternative summit (15.June-22.June)
Datum: Donnerstag, 29. März 2012 12:04
More Ecology, Less Economy for Rio+20
By Fabíola Ortiz*
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RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 27, 2012 (Tierramérica) -
Hundreds of non-governmental organisations
and social movements from around the world hope
to counter the failure of the United
Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
(Rio+20), which they consider inevitable,
with the success of the alternative People's
Summit.
Both events will take place in June in Rio de Janeiro,
the Brazilian city that served
as the venue, two decades ago, for the United Nations
Conference on the Environment
and Development. Popularly known as the Earth Summit,
the 1992 conference is considered
a turning point in the architecture of international
environmental law.
Rio+20 [ http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1109628785366&s=9835&e=001Cx0iF33MyCzRals0uOep2VPGPoAT_ZyoIHatwdK
B2vB3XAvxlJHz_0mLA6IrJnPUWDqilSKbjzlRR-h6qtQhUTTaUyCNdRxF62I_5bQ3ILuTLu
W1fwLmMF7zW-kgzErd_ihGR9vA9DA= ]
is expected to draw around 50,000 people to the city to
take part in preparatory
meetings and
parallel activities during much of June, in addition to some 120 heads
of state and government who will meet for the actual
summit on Jun. 20-22.
The People's Summit [ http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1109628785366&s=9835&e=001Cx0iF33MyCy7ZN7oEEqQS5MAGQS9qLJ6
PulS1jo9oOvfm7S2Qt8HsYlAOxqOHd-OY8V-DrrtWIg7hexNtwmEDt_Hr6IZ4PLS-rK
for Social and Environmental Justice in Defence
of the Commons will be held Jun.
15-23
in Aterro do Flamengo park, near downtown Rio de Janeiro,
as an alternative
event independent of the official conference, and is
expected to draw roughly 10,000
participants.
Representatives of some 20 social, trade union, youth,
women's, indigenous, peasant
and Afro-descendant organisations met in Rio during the
fourth week of March to
coordinate actions, fine-tune their critique of the
official Rio+20 agenda, and
finish up preparations for the large-scale mobilisation
in June.
One of the challenges is the inclusion of the rights of
native peoples in the concept
of sustainable development, said activist Sander Otten,
a member of the technical
committee of the Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organisations [ http://r20.rs6.
net/tn.jsp?et=1109628785366&s=9835&e=001Cx0iF33MyCwE6lBrSbMfwj_9l16VtBKgNC
rcstIGGOLzUUNSSOZ7icmNFiDa2E-lCw2CXdBh8LKIpxQ-ZhuHCYu8S-r6XD5UJISo9ZL0
(CAOI), which brings together groups from Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
"We need to demand the fulfilment of rights so that
indigenous peoples are genuinely
able to have a say in the projects that are carried out
in their own territories,"
Otten told Tierramérica.
On Jun. 17 and 18, a global committee of
indigenous peoples will discuss two key
factors
in this regard: the presence and impact of extractive industries in
their
territories, and the right to free, prior and informed
consent established in International
Labour Organisation Convention 169 on Indigenous and
Tribal Peoples.
Otten acknowledged that some progress has been made in
the area of indigenous rights
in the last 20 years. However, in the majority of cases,
the governments of the
Andean countries are promoting the further expansion of
extractive activities like
mining and oil drilling, as well as large-scale
industrial monoculture plantations,
he stressed.
Indigenous organisations in the Andes region
want to join the discussion on the
green economy - one of the central
themes of Rio+20 - and propose alternatives based
on their own cosmovision. These include community
economic management that respects
"Mother Earth" and especially the paradigm of "buen
vivir" or "living well", a holistic
life philosophy which pursues the goal of material,
social and spiritual well-being
among all members of a society, but not at the cost of
the other members or the
environment.
"The contribution of indigenous peoples will be the
continued promotion of buen
vivir as an alternative for humanity and opening up the
dialogue with other paradigms
critical of modernity," which continues to focus on the
search for economic growth
instead of "solidarity and reciprocity," said Otten.
The CAOI advocates a less economic-centred approach to
arrive at real solutions
for the environmental crisis. "What we are seeing today
in the countries of South
America is not the implementation of the green economy
model," said Otten, but rather
"the complete opposite."
"There has been an intensification of the extractivist
model, which cannot be considered
green in any way. The 'brown' economy is continuing to
expand in these countries,"
he said.
Otten supports reforms that would impose a tax on fossil
fuels and bring an end
to subsidies for the sector, as well as the inclusion in
the price of hydrocarbon
derivatives of the social and environmental costs of
their extraction, which are
currently
considered "externalities", he said.
For her part, Sandra Morán, a representative of
the Women's Sector Political Alliance
[ http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1109628785366&s=9835&e=001Cx0iF33MyCxtWwX98
of Guatemala and member of the World March of Women,
stressed the need to incorporate
gender equity in the formulation of alternative
proposals, in order to ensure better
quality of life for women.
"We play a fundamental role in life, we are at its
centre, we reproduce life. We
must recognise
the contribution that women have always made and bring an end to
the sexual
division of labour," said Morán.
Feminist organisations are working to coordinate
actions with other social movements
to develop "an alternative to the situation in
which we currently live, which is
extreme poverty,
violence, militarisation, control and authoritarianism," she added.
Morán has no hopes for success at Rio+20, because the
conference will merely involve
the signing of decisions that have already been made,
and "there is no possibility
of having an influence there."
For her, the power of the People's Summit lies in
"coming together, strengthening
proposals and generating movements that are rooted in
our communities."
Scepticism towards Rio+20 is also shared by a number of
Brazilian legislators, who
are organising a parallel initiative to attract the
attention of the media and the
public. Known as the Rio Climate Challenge, the
initiative is aimed at deepening
debate
on climate change at an event to be held Jun. 14-17.
"We are going to conduct a large-scale simulation of
negotiations between the carbon-emitting
countries and supranational entities to attempt to reach
a consensus," Green Party
lawmaker Alfredo Sirkis, who chairs a special
sub-committee in the Brazilian Chamber
of Deputies, told Tierramérica.
The goal is to conduct a discussion, on
realistic bases, that will make it possible
to lay the foundations for an international
agreement that would keep the concentration
of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below 450 parts
per million - the limit set
by scientists as the only way to avoid a climate change
disaster.
For these mock negotiations, they will invite
facilitators from the BASIC countries
(Brazil, South Africa, India and China), the European
Union, the United States,
Canada, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, Russia, the Arab
league and small island states.
*The writer is an IPS correspondent. This story was
originally published by Latin
American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica
network. Tierramérica is a
specialised news
service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations
Development
Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank.
(END)
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