Peace with Nature
EDITORIAL, 28 Oct 2024
#872 | René Wadlow – TRANSCEND Media Service
The conference of the governments that have signed the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity are meeting from 21 Oct to 1 Nov 2024 in Cali, Colombia with the theme of the conference being “Peace with Nature.” Peace has been a rare element in the life of Colombians. The conference is under tight security as a rebel guerrilla group is active in the area. The country as a whole still has active paramilitaries as well as strong drug gangs.
Antonio Guterres, the U.N. Secretary-General in his opening statement highlighted that destroying Nature increases conflict, hunger, disease and fuels poverty. Susana Muhamad, Colombian Minister of the Environment, who is chairing the conference added that Nature is the fiber of life that makes our own existence possible.
The Convention of Biological Diversity is closely related to the U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030. An aim of the Decade is to restore 30 per cent of degraded lands by 2030. Such protection and creative restoration will be costly. As with many U.N. conferences, there is a hope that the conference will encourage governments to contribute to the U.N.-created Global Biodiversity Framework Fund created in 2022 as well as spending more money on national projects and local environmental efforts. Many effective initiatives must be taken at a local level and thus depend on local finance and local participation.
In addition to the representatives of governments, there are a good number of members on non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local activists, academics, and representatives of indigenous populations – some 12,000 persons. Indigenous cultures have long practiced their own forms of environmental peacebuilding.
With the site of the meeting in Latin America, a good deal of the discussion will probably focus on policies in South American countries such as Brazil where the Amazon area has been the scene of both some of the worst forms of the destruction of Nature and some enlightened positive efforts.
As storms continue to devastate and wildfires burn, we strive to develop environmental peacebuilding as an emerging field that integrates knowledge and practice.
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René Wadlow is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment. He is President of the Association of World Citizens, an international peace organization with consultative status with ECOSOC, the United Nations organ facilitating international cooperation and problem-solving in economic and social issues, and editor of Transnational Perspectives.
Tags: Antonio Guterres, Climate Change, Culture of Peace, Deforestation, Earth, Ecology, Environment, Indigenous Culture, Nature, Nature's Rights, Peacebuilding, Rain Forests, United Nations
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 28 Oct 2024.
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One Response to “Peace with Nature”
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Politicians know how to waste time and money (our money), including War Supremo Antonio Guterres, the OBEDIENT UN “Secretary” General, who fulfills his criminal mission to perfection, ensuring that all war projects of his paymasters come to fruition.
Only politicians can be so hypocritical, organising, with other people’s money a holiday for themselves in a luxurious hotel, with the best seafood in the world, downed with the most expensive French and Californian wines.
Cynically, Antonio Guterres says that destroying Nature increases conflict, hunger, disease and fuels poverty. He consciously avoids to say “WHAT” causes the destruction of Nature: Militarism and the war industry.
Even without a single war, only with the testing of weapons, missiles, explosive and military vehicles the industry needs to perform before their lethal products go on the market, and the permanent, non-stop training of the Armed Forces, we destroy Nature.
Dear René, it is NOT that “destroying Nature increases conflict”. It is conflict that increase the destruction of Nature. And it is conflict that increase hunger, disease and fuels poverty, as well as unemployment, illiterace and homelessness.
It is wars that increase violence in society, for the young learn from the example Governments five them: that problems are solved by fighting.
I call a spade a spade.
Alberto
HUFUD Founder & President