Earth Summit 2002

AN OLD WOMAN in the Louga district of Senegal pointed to a barren, sun-baked and treeless plain and told reporters: Out there was a forest. When my father was a young man it was so dense and dark that he didn’t dare go out after dark. She remembered millet and sorghum being cultivated according to traditional methods and the soil being held in place and enriched by the natural vegetation of the area. Peanut cultivation during the French colonial period, where the entire plant was uprooted during harvesting, led to the fertile topsoil becoming loose and dry and, over decades, being blown away in the wind.

In the Philippines, Jimmy Tindao explained why his Subaanen tribal people do not see ‘development’ by a London-based mining company on their land as progress. He feared the creation of vast sterile holes where previously there had been rainforest and rice terraces. He dreaded, too, the pollution of the rivers and water supplies by mercury used to separate gold from other mineral deposits. The Subaanen wanted to preserve their lifestyle which is harmonious with the cycles and processes of the natural world.

It was against the background of concerns such as these that a U.N. Conference on Environment and Development was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. The conference – also known as the Earth Summit – looked into what might constitute sustainable development. A number of important plans for policy were adopted at Rio, including a Convention on Climate Change (now the Kyoto Protocol), a Convention on Biodiversity, and an Agreement on Sustainable Development strategies. There was also Agenda 21, a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally.

Environmental damage

Now, ten years on, a review of progress since Rio is to be held between 26 August and 4 September 2002 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Popularly called Rio + 10, the Johannesburg Summit is likely to conclude that global responses to Rio’s initiatives have been inadequate.There have been some advances, including the phasing out of production of ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in industrial countries. But many other important trends continue to worsen.

Global emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, for example, have climbed more than nine percent over the last ten years. Projections based on data from reinsurance giant Munich Re show that the costs of natural disasters driven by climate change could actually overtake the value of total world economic output by around 2065. In March 2001, Bangladesh’s environment minister said that if official predictions about sea-level rise are fulfilled, one fifth of her nation would vanish underwater, creating 20 million ‘ecological refugees’.

Global protection

By 2080, it is predicted that over three billion people across Africa, the Middle East and the Indian sub-continent will suffer an increase in water stress. Agricultural yields in Africa are expected to drop and hunger to rise. Both droughts and floods will increase in frequency. And, it is possible that the most dangerous strains of malaria will pose a risk to 290 million more people as warmer, wetter climates encourage mosquitoes to breed. Achieving a sustainable world society remains the utopia of the 21st century, and yet, environmental policies remain a low priority. The growing number of international environmental treaties and other initiatives suffer from weak commitments and inadequate funding. The U.N. Environment Programme has struggled to maintain its annual budget of roughly $100 million. At the same time, military expenditures by the world’s governments are running at more than $2 billion a day.

There have been tensions between development and environmental lobby groups about the ways forward. The prevailing view in some of the former is that poverty eradication is at odds with environmental care. Yet, livelihoods cannot be maintained unless access to land, seeds, forests, grasslands, fishing grounds, and water is secured. Moreover, pollution of air, soils, water and food chronically undermines the physical health of the poor, in particular in cities. Environmental protection, therefore, is not a contradiction to poverty elimination, but its condition. There can be no credible development project, unless it takes the finiteness of the biosphere into account.

The role of the Church

What role has the Catholic Church played in the whole process of awakening to ecological issues?

Pope John Paul II addressed the issue in his World Peace Day message of 1 January 1990, Peace with God the Creator, Peace with all of Creation. He said that world peace is threatened not only by the arms race and injustice, but by a lack of due respect for nature, by the plundering of natural resources, and by a progressive decline in the quality of life. The ecological crisis was described as a moral problem and he warned that the integrity of creation must be respected where it is currently under threat, in such areas as: species extinction due to loss of habitat, environmental pollution and genetic manipulation of animal and plant life. The Pope called for more education in ecological responsibility and hoped that local churches and religious bodies would play a role in providing it. Christians, in particular, realise that their responsibility within creation and their duty towards nature and the Creator are an essential part of their faith, he said.

Church groups at all levels of the Church have been contributing towards the Rio + 10 Summit. On 7 May, the Lateran University in Rome organised a seminar on Safeguarding Creation and Protection of the Environment: Toward a Human Ecology. Monsignor Celestino Migliore, undersecretary for relations with states of the Vatican State Secretariat, said there that the participation of civil society, non-governmental organisations, and also Catholic associations will be important in Johannesburg. The objective that the Church will present in Johannesburg, he added, is that of a ‘human ecology,’ as indicated in the encyclical Centesimus Annus, based on an ‘awareness of creation’ as described by Church social doctrine.

Ecological awareness

Catholics have played a role in their countries’ preparations for the Summit. In Britain, the National Board of Catholic Women has been represented on several of the seven topic-based committees looking at such issues as ‘Sustainable Production and Consumption’ and ‘Energy and Climate Change’. Dr. Edward Echlin, a Catholic ecological theologian and representative of Christian Ecology Link, has sat on the ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities’ committee. He has urged church people to adopt a sustainable lifestyle as an example to the wider community and to pray a common prayer on the Sunday before the Summit. Catholic agencies are among the 24,000 non-government agencies now active at the international level and lobbying on justice and ecological issues.

Signs of increased ecological awareness in the Church can be seen in every continent. In February 2001, twelve Catholic bishops from the United States and Canada issued a pastoral letter entitled, ‘The Columbia River Watershed: Caring for Creation and the Common Good’. The Bishops stated: We address this letter to our Catholic community and to all people of good will. We hope that we might work together to develop and implement an integrated spiritual, social and ecological vision for our watershed home, a vision that promotes justice for people and stewardship of creation. Educational aids and a six-page reflection guide for use by parishes and other organisations, were produced.

In March 2002, the Catholic bishops of Kerala in India called on Christians to help promote a commission for environmental protection and sustainable development promotion. They wrote a letter urging participation in several programmes the commission has charted to form an ‘eco-Church fellowship’. Under the commission, parishes and Church voluntary groups have conducted classes on the dangers of throwing away waste materials and encouraged people to reduce and recycle waste as well as to plant saplings on barren land. In the letter, the bishops said they agreed to set apart at least one page in their Church magazines exclusively for articles on ecology, conduct regular environmental conventions in parishes and impart eco-theological training to the clergy.

Columban Fathers and Sisters in Mindanao, the Philippines, have undertaken solidarity work with the Subaanen tribal people to help them keep their ancestral land despite incursions from mining companies. Their lay missionaries have supported the development of local organic farming. Worldwide, organic farming, which avoids the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, has surged to an annual international market of $22 billion. The Filipino bishops issued a pastoral letter on the environment back in 1988. Entitled, ‘What is happening to our beautiful land?’ they said: The attack on the natural world which benefits very few Filipinos is rapidly whittling away at the base of our living world and endangering its fruitfulness for future generations. As we reflect on what is happening in the light of the Gospel we are convinced that this assault on creation is sinful and contrary to the teachings of our faith.

So, the Church has been involved in exciting projects to promote sustainable stewardship of creation. In the sphere of theology, Catholic theologians – such as Fr Thomas Berry, Fr Sean McDonagh and Rosemary Radford Reuther – urge recognition that a wholistic perspective, incorporating justice in society and healing the wounds of nature, is central to the biblical vision of redemption. They regard ecojustice as central to the Church’s mission and sacramental tradition.

On the eve of the Rio Conference on Environment and Development in May 1992, Pope John Paul II expressed thoughts that are relevant today in the lead up to the Johannesburg Summit. I invite all to pray with me that the high representatives of the various nations of the world will be farseeing in their deliberations and will know how to orientate humanity along the path of solidarity with humankind and of responsibility in the common commitment to the protection of the earth which God has given.