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- Bursts of true life into the Convention on Biological
Diversity
The
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is an international
governmental process which looked pretty nice when it
was born in 1992, under the UN Earth Summit that took
place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
By then
it seemed that the world’s governments had become
aware of the Earth’s looming future in case biodiversity
loss under deforestation, biopiracy, agribusiness expansion,
and so on, remained unchanged. So a mechanism –the
CBD-- was put in motion, gathering every two years in high-level
summits paralleled by civil society organization’s
events.
The
CBD managed to resist corporate contamination a bit more
than other fora (e.g. the Convention on Climate Change).
However, little by little it has been increasingly hijacked
by the industry’s agenda until it has become a string
of protracted sessions where documents full of brackets
are delayed waiting for lobbies clinching their deals on
issues that have direct impacts on peoples’ present
and future lives.
Over and over again social organizations
have tried to make a breach in the wall participating in
the spaces granted to them within the process. However,
real effects at policy and implementation level have been
few.
As
a result, they have tried to make their way and insufflate
true people’s problems, worries, dreams --true people’s
lives-- into the CBD. And they have done so through imagination,
participation, humour and
–why not?,- even anger.
Here
follows a brief overview of some of the actions carried
out at the current 9th Conference of the Parties (COP9)
to the CBD, taking place in Bonn.
Sunday
May 18
“Agrofuels create poverty and hunger"
Around
60 people protested against the large scale cultivation
of crops for energy --which is disastrous for food supply
and causes deforestation— as a way of dealing with
global warming. So far, the honest conclusion that a radical
reduction of energy use is needed mainly in ‘the West’
is ignored by the mainstream media and policy makers.
At two
petrol stations car drivers had to make a choice: 'petrol'
to the right, 'food' to the left. Banners were stating "agrofuels,
no solution for oil addiction."
Most drivers
had some sympathy for the action but wanted to fill up petrol
anyway this time.
The worker
in the Shell station was furious about the counter information
in front of her petrol station and called the police. After
some discussions the action was allowed, although drivers
had to be given more possibilities to go around the 'gate
of choice'.
After two
hours the group started to move again for a short demonstration
ending on a field with a picnic with healthy and local food,
as it is still possible. |
Amongst the activists
were many people from Via Campesina, the international
network of small farmers. For them and the millions they
represent, the large scale introduction of agrofuels is
a direct danger for their livelihoods and life.
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Thursday May
22
UN Biodiversity Day … or let’s say the International
Profitdiversity Day
A lunch-meeting was
organised by the International Chamber of Commerce, the
lobby organisation of the world’s largest corporations.
Their meeting was interrupted by the visit of a peculiar
group of “happy shareholders” who celebrated
agribusiness monopolies and congratulated industry for
destroying agricultural biodiversity, all of which made
possible their high profits. They ended making a toast
to the Purveyors of the (Gan)Green Revolution!
Part of their speech: "We, 'The Small Shareholders
Initiative', TSSI are very glad about the important issues
we have to report on behalf of the International Profitdiversity
Day today:
- Business gets 220.000
US $ to support companies in their work at the CBD. This
means that we can give our profits to the shareholders
and still make people believe that we work for biodiversity.
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- During the high
level meeting Thursday May 29, business rightly gets
a full hour to present its ideas. All other stakeholders
together have to share the other hour. Afterwards all
delegates are invited, as part of the official programme,
by business for a lunch. Another possibility is to make
the delegations do what we want.
Hear
hear!"
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Thursday May
22
Nature for People, Not for Business!
Activists from all
over the world hang a banner, banged on teacups and handed
out Via Campesina messages during the official celebrations
of Biodiversity Day, at the end of a message by UN secretary
general Ban Ki Moon to the delegates of the Convention.
Given that agrobusiness
dominates the present global food trade with a Green Revolution
package that destroys bio and agrodiversity, the banners
read "No Agrodiversity Without Farmers" and
"Nature for People Not for Business".
After a few minutes
the banners were taken away by UN police officers and
officials and the people holding them were escorted out
of the Maritim Hotel, and lost their accreditation badges,
which are required to participate in the meetings.
However, members of
Via Campesina were given a round of applause from many
government delegates when they chanted "nature for
people, not for business".
The message was that
no solution can come from such production model. Instead,
it is rural communities who are the key to both the solution
to world hunger and the safeguarding of the world's biodiversity.
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They have the ability
to feed the world promoting food diversity, sustaining
traditional cultures and not burdening the environment.
Moreover, small-scale, local and ecological production
is an effective and immediate way of reducing carbon emissions
and cooling down the planet.
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Friday May
24
Plantations are not Forests!
The German Forestry
Council organized an event for forest and timber industry
representatives.
The usual pro-market,
utilitarian approach to forests speech made no distinction
between forests and plantations, and in fact was illustrated
with pictures of monoculture tree plantations, described
as forests.
The use and marketing
of forests was presented as a climate friendly strategy,
with much attention on the carbon sequestering capacity
of forests. The presentation ended with an emotional “plea”
to utilize wood resources, illustrated by an image of
a sculpture, the “wooden man” and followed
by a violin concert, and the point was then made that
“even violins” are made out of wood.
After the presentation
there was a reception. On the spur of the moment, a group
of five women quickly put together a strategy for presenting
their views: as guests were enjoying drinks and appetizers,
they captured their attention, then took turns, each for
a very brief statement, to speak on the dangers of GE
trees, on the failure of plantations to support goals
of mitigating climate change and protecting biodiversity
and on the impact of monoculture tree plantations on soils,
waterways and people in Brazil and Uruguay, as well as
the situation of European forests, pointing out their
long history of exploitation and the concomitant loss
of biodiversity.
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A small
group of people stomped out of the room apparently angry
at their interruption, but overall their small action was
well received by the guests who clapped and mostly nodded
in apparent agreement. One more opportunity taken to speak
out against the monoculture mentality.
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Tuesday
May 27
A Call for a Ban on GE Trees
A tree planting ceremony
was being held outside the meeting of the CBD. A large
number of activists participated, some mimicking Genetically
Engineered frankentrees that attempted to invade the CBD
while others stopping and chopping them down before they
could succeed.
The tree planting
ceremony was symbolic of what industry is pushing--non-native,
often invasive trees for monoculture timber plantations.
GE trees will mean more plantations and an even greater
threat.
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ban on the release of genetically engineered trees into
the environment is supported by African delegates plus numerous
Parties from Asia and Latin America. It was discussed at
length during the first week of the Biodiversity Convention
and will now move into the High Level Session where Ministers
from around the world will decide what will happen with
this issue. |
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Wednesday
May 28
FSC: Stop Certifying Monoculture Tree Plantations
Activists
from social movements attended a side event organized
by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Holding a banner,
they stated their concern about FSC's approach, that has
ignored the dramatic evidence provided by social and environmental
movements from around the world regarding the harmful
impacts of tree plantations, which has allowed millions
of hectares of monoculture tree plantations to be falsely
certified as "forests".
During the
side event a statement was read in which they expressed
that apart from having to confront governments and corporations,
local communities struggling against large-scale monoculture
tree plantations must face the additional problem posed
by the fact that these same plantations are being given
credibility through certification by the FSC. Yet, the
credibility of FSC is increasingly undermined by certification
of these and other destructive projects.
After a couple
of questions and a short discussion, FSC closed the meeting,
although several more people wanted to ask questions and
some pointed out that this should be a democratic space
for discussing the problems with FSC.
The activists
concluded that FSC's decision-making is controlled by
corporate interests which try to convince consumers that
buying more timber products is good for biodiversity.
This is undermining the efforts of environmental organizations,
which are working on educating consumers on the need to
reduce consumption.
Their claim was: Plantations are not forests and FSC should
not certify them! FSC should STOP being a tool for corporate
interests!
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Reports based
on information from:
La Vía Campesina,
http://viacampesina.org/main_en/index.php;
Global Justice Ecology Project,
http://www.globaljusticeecology.org;
Indymedia Biotech,
http://biotech.indymedia.org/or/
Global Forest
Coalition,
http://www.globalforestcoalition.org
Photo courtesy:
Global Forest Coalition and Global
Justice Ecology Project
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