Back to BASICS - Renton de Alwis:
Earth Day and beyond ...
Today is designated The World Earth Day.
Many individuals, organisations and governments the world over are
carrying out activities to focus on what we, as citizens of Mother Earth
can do to ensure her good health and very survival.
The columnist is of the opinion that there
needs be a concerted effort by all citizens of the earth, be they policy
makers, strategists, educators, business persons, professionals, social
activists or persons on the street, to readjust our own lifestyles,
through a better understanding of the issues impacting the good health
of Mother Earth. There need be a cultivated attitude and a determined
effort to make ‘Every Day an Earth Day’.
For today, all scientific evidence points to
the fact that we who live on this planet have no other choice. The only
choice before us is to take assertive action now to draw ourselves away
from the opulent lifestyles we led in the past and take on more
conservatory and sustainable ways of living.
No longer can such action be taken with a
focus on cost saving only. Neither can they be for gaining nominations
for awards that look good on media releases, promotional web pages and
brochures or for other cosmetic reasons.
There needs to be a sea-change in thinking
and stronger overall action on the ground that will contribute
substantially to reduce our overall carbon footprint. Carbon offsetting
must not be made another excuse for creating a share- trading market of
it, to serve the needs of the usual greed driven agenda.
As a somewhat sorry but inadequate base, we
have the Kyoto Protocol target of taking the CO2 emission levels of our
world to that of 1998, by the year 2012. As inadequate as it may be, it
is hoped that it will give space and hope for Mother Earth to regain
some of its lost health and seek much needed rejuvenation.
Everyone’s business
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Make every
day an Earth day |
The new President of the Maldives, soon after taking office in
November last year, announced that he would begin to look for
alternative land for the Maldivian nation. He like several other world
leaders has called for all nations to act now and fast.
Our own Minister of Environment has called for a mechanism for the
developed nations to provide compensation for the damage done so far in
placing the smaller island nations at risk.
Preventing the effects of global warming from reaching catastrophic
proportions has been accepted today to be everyone’s business.
President Obama presents a new paradigm away from the conventional
dominance of the USA, citing that his country, as powerful as it may be,
is but only another nation in a world where there should be no senior or
junior partners. Ideas, he stated should be drawn from everywhere to
resolve issues and problems. Interestingly, he mentioned little Costa
Rica as an example.
Banking on being green
Costa Rica started positioning itself as a green island and a green
tourism icon, decades ago and has reaped rich dividends from it this
far. New Zealand and its ‘100 per cent Pure’ positioning is also a
success story worthy of mention.
On the larger canvass, The UK and Norway have signed on and provided
millions of dollars to support the Congo Forest Initiative, while the
Amazon’s good health was focussed on at the recently concluded Americas
Conference.
Logging in the Borneo rainforests and forest fires are issues that
are no longer limited to Indonesia, Brunei or Malaysia where it is
located, but go far beyond to being issues of global interest.
In a more recent initiative, Egypt’s Red Sea resort Sharm-El- Sheikh
declared its intent in becoming a carbon clean Tourism Earth Lung.
This was an extension of a 2007 Tourism Earth Lung Initiative
introduced to the world of tourism, at the UN World Tourism
Organisation’s Climate Change and Tourism Conference held in Davos,
Switzerland by Sri Lanka.
Uniquely placed
Sri Lanka, like Costa Rica and a few other nations like her, is in a
unique position in working towards and realising the task of being
carbon clean, perhaps within a decade. Our island nation has a 50 per
cent green cover of its total land area with a near 29 per cent forest
cover.
It is also home to the world heritage site of the ‘Singharaja’, a
virgin rainforest with immense bio-diversity.
We have in our midst the likes of Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, the former
Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has
scientifically established the dire nature of the catastrophe of global
warming.
Sri Lanka’s Dr. W.L. Sumathipala of the National Ozone Unit was the
winner of the Global Ozone Layer Protection Award for 2008 in
recognition of Sri Lanka’s efforts, in following the Montreal Protocol.
We have had an environmental movement with its roots extending deep
down the saga of our heritage, where the world’s very first wild life
sanctuary was declared and established in the 3rd Century BC during the
time of King Devanmpiyatissa.
Sri Lanka though small in size, can indeed qualify to be a little
green lung on the face of the earth.
Positioning it thus, it can take a leadership position as an Earth
Lung and be in the forefront of the movement of working towards being
carbon clean and even rally the wide world around towards that cause.
Believing in ourselves
What we need to do is to shun the undesirable feelings of inadequacy
some of us have on believing in our nation’s potential. While short-term
survival is important and need focus, planning for 2010, without a
vision of what we should be in 2020 and 2050 is improbable.
Thus, the 2010 plans of a business or a nation must place issues such
as eradication of poverty, combating terrorism, mitigating climate
change and preparing for an aging population on the front and not the
back-burners of the spectrum of decision making.
That will not just be bad strategic decision making, but a sure way
of performing an act of the Japanese style ‘Hara-kiri’ on the business
or the nation.
We need today to think beyond the short-term survival agenda.
Unlike many other nations that have far less than us on the green
palette, but sing its praises loud, most of us begin to question what is
wrong, on the fronts of garbage disposal, pollution, illegal logging and
the like, without adequately focussing on the positives we have, where
we could drive and utilise its might, to negate the negatives.
Need for branding
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Renton de
Alwis |
Focussing on our green cover and driving a carbon-clean agenda to
protect and enhance it, Sri Lanka has the potential to establish a
strong brand identity in the minds of the global citizenry.
It can bring us a positioning that will focus on the biological and
cultural diversity of our nation and make us stand tall in the crowd.
We need to be proud of who and what we are and shun any feeling of
doubts we have, in our nation’s potential.
We must establish ourselves as leaders in the global green movement
and not be mere followers.
This Earth Day can be the day that we resolve to make it happen so we
can look beyond to being a shinning example championing the cause of
preserving the good health of our Mother Earth.
And for now, let each of us begin to practise or continue to practise
the
simple Reduce - Reuse - Recycle agenda.
Useful Web addresses:
Earth Day Network - www.earthday.net
Sri Lanka Tourism Earth Lung -
www.earthlung.travel
National Ozone Unit of the Ministry of
Environment and Natural Resources - www.noulanka.lk
Munasinghe Institute for (Sustainable)
Development - www.mindlanka.org
The Nature Conservancy - www.nature.org
The Wilderness Society - http://earthday.wilderness.org
Earth Day Site for Kids - www.planetpals.com
Mother Nature Network - www.mnn.com
Natural Resources Defense Council -
www.nrdc.org
Green Guides - www .thegreenguides.com
US Earth Day Government Website (with
conservation tips)
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www.earthday.gov |