Posted on 17-8-2002
Sustainability,
Lies And Politics
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 18 (AFP) - No penguins waddle around the Antarctica
"Ice
Station", the first of hundreds of exhibits to open for the
Earth Summit
here, but a bewildering maze built of rusted metal and an art
display
crafted from waste demand as much attention. The Group Mission
Antarctica
is one of some 7,000 organisations promoting a vast array of
causes through
exhibitions and meetings ahead of and alongside the UN World
Summit on
Sustainable Development, to be held from August 26 to September
4 in
Johannesburg.
The Civil Society Global People's Forum, which is expecting
some 40,000
delegates, starts a week ahead of the 10-day summit at the Nasrec
exhibition centre, southwest of the city. "We will be hosting
around 90
events a day and 350 exhibitors have confirmed," said Desmond
Lesejane, the
chief executive officer of the Civil Society secretariat, five
days ahead
of its opening. Civil Society events range from the predictable
-- like
sustainable agriculture and trade, alternative energy, eco-tourism,
recycling by municipalities and poverty eradication -- to creative
events
like an African dress festival and a glass exhibition. Fringe
activities
like a healing circle for the Earth and a "Rainbow Maker", which
aims to
create 600-metre (-yard) natural rainbows in the sky, are also
on the agenda.
The groups hope to emerge with a common "Platform 21" to present
to
negotiators, despite their diverse causes and more militant
groups
contesting their legitimacy. Land activists, for example, are
among the
anti-globalisation groups which have broken away from the Nasrec
programme
to host a "Landless People's Camp" (LPC), where they expect
up to 5,000
supporters. "The LPC is separate from the civil society forum
and the
government movement," said National Land Committee spokesman
Andile
Mngxitma. "Since Stockholm (where the first environmental commitments
were
made in 1972) we have had 30 years of broken promises," he said,
casting
doubt on whether the summit would contribute to development
and the
planet's future.
But Lesejane downplayed divisions between groups, saying instead
that all
of them would be represented during a march on August 31 to
the elite
northern suburb of Sandton, where the UN conference will be
held, and where
Platform 21 will be handed over to world leaders. "One memorandum
might be
presented but there are many other messages," he told AFP.
The Civil Society programme kicks off with pre-summits by organised
sectors, like women and indigenous people, according to Lesejane.
Their
opening ceremony, at which South African President Thabo Mbeki
is expected
to preside, followed by a three-hour international concert,
takes place on
August 23 at the Johannesburg stadium. During the next week
delegates will
work on developing Platform 21, through meetings focused on
issues like
human security and science and technology, and "cross-cutting"
issues like
poverty eradication. Demonstrations are also planned around
the summit,
with some four permits granted -- out of seven applications
by Friday -- by
the Johannesburg city council.
The Basic Income Grant Coalition (BIG), for example, intends
to create a
human chain of thousands of people from near the overcrowded
township of
Alexandra to Sandton on September 3, symbolically linking the
poor to the
summit's decisions. BIG has demanded access to a basic income
grant of 100
rand (10 dollars/euros per month) for around half of South Africa's
43
million people.
From September 1-4, Civil Society delegates will concentrate
on building
alliances to implement their decisions, Lesejane said. "This
will inform
what Civil Society does in the future, so that the summit is
not simply a
talkshop."
At the Ubuntu village near Sandton -- to be the service and
recreational
hub for the summit -- the world's largest tent, Tensile 1, has
11,000
square metres (118,360 square feet) of exhibition space. Everywhere
the
words "sustainable" and "partnership" are blazed across banners.
Even
delivery trucks at the Ubuntu Village reflected the "sustainable
development" theme. A "Piki Tup" truck, responsible for eco-friendly
waste
disposal, and a Hare Krishna van, supplying vegetarian food,
were stationed
at the entrance to the village.
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