World
Environment Week and the Earth Charter
During
the recent World Environment Week Dr
Brendan Mackey, Chair of the National Committe for the Earth Charter,
visited from Canberra. The original purpose of his visit was to try and get
a meeting with our Environment Minister, Dr Judy Edwards, who has expressed
support for the Earth Charter. We created a number of other events and
meetings around the visit to make the most of his presence. Thanks to the
core team and some wonderful, willing extras, Brendan's visit was a raging
success.
When
we heard of Brendan's impending visit we widened the purpose to be:"Present the Earth Charter to WA's key
environmental organisations and leaders; promoting awareness, commitment and
implementation of its rinciples." The main event was an Earth Charter
Briefing for Leaders, which targeted environmental organisations, tertiary
educators, and some government officials and politicians. Thirty-five people
attended the event and were inspired to hear about the grassroots origin of
the Charter and how its wording was strengthened rather than watered down in
the process. any of them indicated they would read the full Earth Charter
and then endorse it themselves, or have their organisation read, discuss and
consider endorsing the Charter as part of the global campaign to help get it
on the agenda for the "Rio+10" Earth Summit in Jo'berg next year.
Greens
WA and Liberals for Forests were represented at the event, as well as
Nedlands City Council. As part of the bipartisan approach we and theEarth
Charter Committee believe is crucial, Brendan also met with someone from the
Office of Premier and Cabinet (in lieu of the Environment Minister whose
schedule prevented a meeting), and Federal Liberal MP for Pearce,
Judi
Moylan, who had previously expressed support for the Charter. Along with
strong support garnered at the last minute from proactive academic Prof
Peter Newman (Director, Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy)
who will be working on the State government's new sustainability vision and
believes the Earth Charter should form the basis of it, we now have good
top-level advocates who can assist the Charter be used to guide
decision-making here in WA and push for Australia to recommend it as an
agenda item at Rio+10.
Finally,
we had a small meeting with educators who were interested in using the Earth
Charter with students. This resulted in the Environmental Technology Centre
at Murdoch University (which works with primary and secondary students) and
Fettes Falconer from Greenteach (who teaches at Seven Oaks Secondary
College) taking on trialling the materials developed to date at the national
level in the WA context.
In
conclusion, Brendan's short visit as the Chair of the National Committee for
the Earth Charter was highly successful. As Planit we continued to build a
name for ourselves for producing well organised events. Together we created
a solid foundation for substantial and significant work in WA with and for
the Earth Charter by linking with other people and organisations.
Now
that an endorsement campaign is underway, which has the potential to sway
the decision towards having the Earth Charter on the agenda for the Rio+10
Earth Summit next year , I invite you to consider endorsing it yourself. To
do this you first need to read the full 78 principles of the
Earth
Charter so you can endorse it with complete understanding of what it is you
are endorsing. Then log on to www.earthcharter.org
where you can endorse it online (and find the full Earth Charter if you
don't have a copy handy).
Brigit
Cosgrove
Founder, Planit Earth Project
www.planitearth.org
