29/08/2012
The Bamboo Forest and some great Twitter Lists to follow
UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon touted the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) as “one of the most important global meetings on sustainable development in our time,” but it will now be remembered as a tragedy and failure. This conference, also called Rio+20, took place on June 20-22 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil twenty years after the historic 1992 UN Earth Summit, also held in Rio. The conference set out to establish a new model of development that would be ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable – in this respect, however, it failed.
Rio+20 took place amidst a “crisis of crises” as described by Marina Silva, Brazil’s Minister of Environment. At present, we are facing an unprecedented environmental crisis and a crippling financial crisis amidst growing inequality both within the United States and between the ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ worlds. From the negotiating rooms in the UN to halls of RioCentro, where the conference took place, the consensus of government delegates was that business as usual could not persist.
Civil society participated in the Rio+20 process as nine Major Groups who asserted the need for alternative economic models that respect planetary boundaries and are people centered. Most of civil society, gathered in Rio from around the world, called for a human rights-based approach to sustainable development, rather than a Green Economy, which was one of the two themes of the conference and intended to be the means of reaching sustainable development.
The Green Economy, though, was rejected by several Major Groups at Rio+20, as well as by countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador that are genuinely seeking alternatives to business as usual and neoliberal policies. Governments from the economic North, or the ‘developed world,’ know they need alternatives to business as usual, but the policy and decision makers seem incapable of moving away from the entrenched model that is built on privatization and investment. The Green Economy will continue and perpetuate business as usual by opening new “green” markets, developing new “green” industries and technologies, and creating “green” jobs. In this vein, the Green Economy framework continues to commodify nature, slapping price tags on something whose use value exceeds any price the market might set.
The Green Economy framework was born out of Europe in partnership with the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). This begs the question: who will benefit from the “green” economy, from the “green” industries, from the “green” technologies? And who will have the “green” jobs? Slapping a green label on the corporate capitalist economy might create jobs for youth in Europe and North America. It will also open new markets from which corporations will profit on the backs of the social majority of the world. The economic South – those with the majority of the planet’s natural wealth; those with the least space for participation; those with the fewest voices represented – will not be the people to benefit from the Green Economy.
Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN) is a network of feminists from the Global South, or developing world, tackling the analysis of the structural roots of poverty, inequality, oppression, ecological damage, and climate change. Their critical approach recognizes the links between gender, economic, and ecological justice. DAWN develops their analyses from the perspectives of those most impacted by economic and development policies—poor women of the developing world— and was one of the few organizations conducting critical analysis and offering alternative development strategies at Rio+20.
Gita Sen, a founder of DAWN in the 1980s, raised a few crucial questions after a panel at Rio+20 that related directly to the above questions posed about the Green Economy. She expresses that the “fundamental question in the context of Rio+20 and sustainable development” is the “right to what development and whose right to development?”
These questions are illustrated in the stories of two activists on the DAWN team in Rio, Maureen Penjueli and Sophea Chrek. Penjueli is an activist with the Pacific Network on Globalization (PANG). PANG is a partnership of activists from the Pacific which critiques the social and environmental impacts of international and regional trade agreements, in pursuit of a new development model. Their most recent focus has centered on extractive industries, with particular attention paid to experimental seabed mining. Papua New Guinea is the first country to give a license for seabed mining and this experimental initiative is set to begin by 2013. In an interview with Elizabeth Cooper, from DAWN’s media team, Panjeuli explained that this license reflects the valuation of oceans as an economic resource, one that disregards the cultural significance of oceans to people of what Panjeuli calls the “liquid continent.”
Experimental seabed mining is a new initiative under the neoliberal model of development responsible for environmental damage and climate change. The Pacific region is on the frontline of climate change impacts, threatened with statelessness as sea levels rise. Penjueli asserts that it is necessary “to see political recognition by leaders that are [in Rio] over the next two years and that the crisis has a root…that [the root] is the economic neoliberal model.” Once we recognize the root problem, she says “we can start talking about sustainable development and what that means.”
Similarly to Penjueli, Sophea Chrek raises questions about the neoliberal development model and policies through a story of land grabbing in Cambodia. In June, she was engaged in the “Free the 15” campaign calling for the immediate release of 15 activists jailed for peacefully demonstrating on sand dunes that now cover what was their village on the shores of Boeung Kak lake.
Boeung Kak lake development is “just one of many cases [in which] we can see development impacting people’s livelihoods,” Chrek says. Communities historically inhabiting and earning their livelihoods from the lake were evicted as the municipal government moved forward with development plans. Calling the lake useless, the government leased the lake and land, covering nine villages around it, to private joint venture company, Shukaku Erdos Hongjun Property Development Co. Ltd. The company began filling the lake with sand in August 2008. This caused flooding in the nearby villages, which forced many families to migrate from their home.
Chrek explains that the municipal government claimed that this development would create jobs and other opportunities for many people, despite the violation of the Land Law, which stipulates that state public property has inherent value, and cannot be sold or leased for extended time periods. Some families agreed to compensation for leaving their livelihood, home, and land, but others felt the development project and compensation was unjust and they were consequently evicted.
On May 22, 2012, women from communities previously living along the lake held a peaceful demonstration before Cambodian police moved in to arrest 13 of the protesters. During their trial, two community representatives willing to testify on the women’s behalf were also arrested. These 15 individuals, 14 of whom are women, were sentenced to two and half years in prison, while a 72 year old woman arrested was given a one-year sentence.
Chrek says, “If [we] really question what is happening and why it has become like this… [we] see how it is related to Rio+20.” She draws attention to development policies harmfully impacting women’s livelihoods and their struggles against these neoliberal development policies. Critical of the GDP growth paradigm of development, Chrek says that policy makers need to put human rights, women’s rights, and sustainability at the center of development policies, which should respond to the people’s needs. She says the government “can’t put villagers aside because [they] want to use [the lake] for development”, adding that “many people have become scared of development because of this kind of [situation]”. To develop these new policies, Chrek calls for a participatory process that prioritizes the participation of civil society, indigenous peoples, and women—those impacted most by development policies.
This sort of participatory process was the vision for Major Group participation at Rio+20. While Major Groups participated from the beginning of negotiations two years ago, their proposals to the draft outcome document The Future We Want – and demands made during the negotiation process – were not incorporated into the final outcome document of the conference. Civil society was frustrated in its demands for the inclusion of reproductive rights, reformed sustainable consumption and production patterns, technology transfer, overhaul of the trade and financial systems, a UN High Commissioner for Future Generations, an end to fossil fuel subsidies, and mining moratoriums.
On the second day of the conference, about 150 participants of civil society marched out of the UN space to make clear their frustrations at the lack of consensus made during negotiations. The next day, the UN press touted The Future We Want outcome document as a great success in its incorporation of civil society’s participation. There is clearly little connection between governments and those they are meant to govern.
Rio+20 disappointed and, most importantly, it failed to culminate in a new paradigm of sustainable development. Additionally, the outcome document regressed on several key issues, including the sexual and reproductive health and rights agenda, which should be a cornerstone of any model for sustainable development. Activists on the DAWN team have referred to the process as a theatrical production during which governments have gambled with the future of the planet, the youth, and generations to come.
They have sold women out. They have sold indigenous peoples out. They have sold the youth out—and for what? They have sold us out for a Green Economy, which many have nicknamed the Greed Economy. They have acted for national self-interests backed by corporations, an addiction to oil, and unsustainable patterns of consumption and production.
As we sink deeper and deeper into crisis and our governments fail to respond to the needs and demands of the people they serve, civil society is growing louder and picking up where governments are failing. People around the world are working to realize food sovereignty, gender equality, sexual and reproductive health and rights, accessible renewable energies, local currencies and alternative approaches to economy, cultural resilience, protection of biodiversity, forests, rivers, oceans, mountains, and much more that will lead to just and sustainable communities.
While Rio+20 didn’t deliver what people around the world needed and demanded from their governments, communities and networks will continue working together to create solutions to their own needs. Rather than government officials and appointed negotiators, individuals, communities, networks, and movements on the ground, at the grassroots level, are those genuinely and passionately fighting for the future we need, and genuinely do want. A more just and sustainable world will be made possible by the hearts, minds, and arduous work of these individuals.
(Photo by Trey Ratcliff via Compfight)
