UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION

Transcription

1 DG/92/5 UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION Address by Mr Federico Mayor Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the opening ceremony of the World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas Caracas, Venezuela, 10 February 1992

2 DG/92/5 Your Excellency, President Carlos Andrés Péres, Distinguished Ministers, Mr Ramphal, President of the World Conservation Union, Mr Holdgate, Director-General of the World Conservation Union, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, We are living in a world of rapid change and transition in many areas. Ten years ago, at the last World Parks Congress, who could have imagined the historical events that were to take place before it would meet again? Who could have predicted the collapse of so many authoritarian regimes, giving rise to pressing requests for help that caught us unprepared? The rules of the game of the world of politics have changed radically, but we have not yet adjusted to the new situations that have developed, nor to the new quicker, pace of events. Neither in our institutions nor in our strategies had we made provision for these long-awaited changes. Guided for so many years by considerations of short-term interest, we must now meet a number of enormous challenges that are complex and will need a global as well as an interdisciplinary approach. When the walls that separated East from West came tumbling down we found ourselves face to face with a surfeit of material goods and a corresponding dearth of values, and even more striking evidence than before of the gap between North and South. In that part of the world which has accumulated knowledge, an aging population continues to use up the bulk of the world's resources in the frenzied pursuit of consumption. At the same time, the rapidly increasing younger populations of the South must struggle for survival while at the same time they are called upon to shoulder the burden of famine, lack of drinking-water, illiteracy, foreign debt and protectionist trade barriers. While the pressures on natural resources and the environment are mounting daily, the wealthy countries are not making the effort, exercising the imagination or investing the funds that would make it possible to develop alternative forms of energy and alternative agricultural technologies. Environment-unfriendly patterns of exploitation persist despite warnings concerning the* medium- and long-term effects. We know that the planet's resources are limited, that fossil fuels are not renewable and that we still do not have the scientific knowledge or the technology we need to capture and store solar energy simply and cheaply. We also know and this makes us accomplices - that we are diminishing that biodiversity upon which we all depend. We must meet this unexpected upward change of gears in the world of machinery with renewed courage and renewed confidence in the future. We must choose the path of solidarity between rich and poor and find ways of achieving a more equitable distribution of resources and opportunities. We must fight for the rights of future generations and bequeath them a world in which they can realize their full potential and have opportunities to increase their personal well-being. The key to all this is in sharing - in the recognition that we are all travellers on the same planet. The fates of rich and poor, of all skin colours and from all hemispheres, are inextricably intertwined. We must combine our forces before the changes taking place in the ecological environment become irreversible. Sharing does not only mean

3 DG/92/5 - page 2 giving; one must be prepared to give of oneself. There must be a willingness to share one's essential resources with the other, not just what is surplus to the maintenance of one's own life-style. This spirit of sacrifice, however, calls for shared values, principles and purposes with which to give creative and innovative force to our plans for the future. None of this will be possible in the absence of public freedoms exercised in a genuinely democratic framework. Make no mistake, criticism and peaceful changes of policy are only possible in democratic regimes. It is only in a democracy that all citizens can, in the final analysis, make their voices heard. Only where there is freedom will aspirations towards equity and justice succeed in correcting imbalances and reducing differences. It is only when the winds of freedom have swept across the world that economic practices that distort international trade and hamper economic adjustment will be replaced by practices that can meet the needs of all countries and situations. For, in the final analysis, all depends on how we decide to define development: development of what, by whom and for whom? It is here that social and cultural goals must be given equal rank with economic and monetary objectives. It is here that the knowledge and talents of its citizens is a people's greatest asset. Education and the training of human resources are the bridge to the future. But this future will not come of itself: it has to be built. The future is shaped by each day's patient effort and not by idle speculation: there is no substitute for hard work. The industrialized countries must recognize that the problems of the environment, of population movement and of cultural and ethnic conflict will not be solved unless education and training in a context of mutual tolerance, and respect for the world of nature, begin in early childhood. The whole world must join forces, under the aegis of a strengthened and reinvigorated United Nations, to consolidate democracy, particularly in those parts of the world where it is being undermined by poverty and ignorance. We must summon the energy and the determination required to change the content and organization of education throughout the world - beginning with the more advanced countries - so as to ensure that citizens have the knowledge they need for reflection and individual action. Outside help can provide impetus, get things going, 'enable', but real change can only take place when every citizen has access to knowledge and resources. If the rich countries do not go to the help of those that are in need they will find them, driven by poverty and desperation, pounding on their own gates. The International Commission on Education and Learning for the Twenty-first Century, the World Commission on Culture and Development - both of which were approved at the last session of the General Conference - and UNCED are good illustrations of the great opportunities still open to us to redirect the course of development on our azure planet. We must prepare ourselves for these great encounters with history and this Congress is an excellent introduction to these substantial and sorely needed changes. Of course hard times lie ahead, but, as Martin Luther King once said, the measure of a people or an individual is not revealed in times of prosperity, progress and comfort, but in times of challenge and controversy. We shall have to sail against contrary winds, knowing that while the makers of great transformations win a place in history, they also usually lose power. The best way of emerging from this atmosphere of crisis and uncertainty - in which a variety of new directions can be envisaged - seems to be offered by the concept of 'sustained' development. As proposed by the 1968 conference on the biosphere, elaborated by the Man and the Biosphere programme, and given clear definition in 1980 by IUCN and its partners in the world conservation strategy, the principle of a development process that has a human profile and that is compatible with the preservation of the environment is in the interest of all humanity. Issues such as the future of the world's forests, the world's supply of drinking

4 DG/92/5 - page 3 water, the state of health of the oceans, the composition of the atmosphere and the preservation of the diversity of the earth's living organisms now feature on the political agendas of all governments, which are beginning to add up the real long-term environmental costs of present economic systems. The challenges which we must face in the world today have reached temporal and spatial proportions unprecedented in human history. The issues I have just enumerated are the keys to future action, but we must first redefine our concepts and adopt new approaches to our problems (in terms of scope, economic, cultural and social influences, objective reality, subjective awareness and future prospects). The preservation of ecosystems is undoubtedly a corner-stone of this new approach upon which we have embarked. The outstanding work done by IUCN, closely followed by so many organizations of all kinds, is assisted and encouraged by UNESCO. I should like to remind you that the impulse for the decision to establish a non-governmental organization to promote the preservation of the world of nature was given in 1948 by my illustrious predecessor, Sir Julian Huxley, the first Director-General of UNESCO. The result was the creation of that Union of which we are all so proud. By putting a large number of NGOs in contact with governmental agencies and organizations dealing with conservation, the World Conservation Union is encouraging the formulation of independent guidelines for the protection of ecosystems, biodiversity and the vital processes of nature. Thus, with the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Wildlife Fund, the World Conservation Monitoring Centre and many other non-governmental organizations, we now have a fund of knowledge which will help us to determine where and how to set about improving the preservation of ecosystems, of our earth, of our atmosphere, and our own lives. Human beings are the centre of the ecosystem's consciousness. UNESCO has been applying this principle since the 1970s, when it established under its Man and the Biosphere programme (MAB) the concept of biosphere reserves, and in so doing recognized the central role of the human race in the preservation of nature. The focus on biosphere reserves has turned out to be very relevant in these unsettled times. First of all, these reserves serve to ensure the survival of representative samples of ecosystems and the biological diversity they contain. They constitute an intergovernmental network which, while respecting the sovereignty of the various States, seeks, inter alia, to promote co-operative research, to make inventories and to provide permanent monitoring. They are centres of education, experimentation, and efforts to identify alternative and ecologically sustainable ways of harnessing biological resources to the needs and aspirations of local communities. Twenty years later, that concept has been accepted by all; that is to say it has been recognized that ecosystems and biodiversity can only be preserved if the basic needs of the populations of the protected areas and of those living in their vicinity are taken into account. The theme of this Congress - Parks for Life - sums that concept up very neatly. Which development models are acceptable? How much change can a given cultural and social system assimilate, and at what speed? How can we avoid the imposition of a stereotyped development model which could destroy the cultural and biological diversity which gives every people its individual character, and create a monotonous, mediocre world? This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the 1972 Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. UNESCO is considering the possibility of bringing the genetic heritage of humanity and the non-physical or spiritual cultural heritage within the purview of this Convention, while bolstering efforts to conserve archives, where the memory of the world is stored.

5 DG/92/5 - page 4 Action to protect ecosystems, reorientate science, scale qualitative development and preserve the cultural heritage cannot succeed unless it is accompanied by radical change in the habits and attitudes of society in general and of social institutions. The extraction of short-term material benefits at no environmental cost cannot continue indefinitely in a world of limited resources. National and international institutions based on the premises of stability and continuity must undergo radical change if they are to be able to cope with the complex, unpredictable and fluctuating phenomena which herald the dawn of the twenty-first century. At the same time, our domineering, materialistic, bellicose attitudes must be replaced by a spirit of reconciliation, harmony and generosity. As I have already said, such change can only be brought about with the help of education in all its forms, stretching from literacy instruction to the highest levels of specialization. We can win the great war against illiteracy: since late 1990 and for the first time in history, the number of illiterates in the world has been on the decline. For this change in attitudes to take place, all sectors of society must be sensitized to the basic issues regarding environment and development to which I have referred. Protected areas play an essential role, as in them the unpredictable variations inherent in natural systems, the long-term values and services offered by the world of nature and the problems and solutions involved in efforts to preserve those systems for future generations can all be studied in a real-life setting. Protected areas, and especially those which can be defined as biosphere reserves, thus play the primordial role of encouraging the preservation of ecosystems and biodiversity, redirecting the interests of science to focus on environmental problems, fostering the search for acceptable models of development and, lastly, shaping the attitudes and habits upon which those actions should be based. Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen, My analysis of the challenges of the contemporary world and the supportive role which can be played by protected areas leads me to conclude with a number of observations on the ethical dimension of our joint efforts. I remember the Burkinabé historian Joseph Ki-Zerbo, one of the distinguished participants in the discussions on the future of IUCN that took place at Fontainebleau in 1988 on the occasion of its fortieth anniversary, recounting an African myth on the origins of the world in which God, after having created all the denizens of nature, sat back and asked himself the question 'But on whom will the sun shine?'. He then decided to create man and woman, so as to give the sun purpose and meaning. The efforts we make to preserve the world of nature are much more egotistical than we may suppose, because, in the final analysis, it is for ourselves and for the human race to which we belong that we wish to preserve it. Our heritage is made up of both culture and nature. They are both necessary conditions of human life. We are instinctively conscious of the fact that our happiness as individuals is dependent on the assurance that our roots are firmly imbedded in the past, in the cultural and natural heritage passed on by our forebears, and on the hope of a safer and fairer world for future generations. All our efforts to preserve this heritage by means of 'protected areas' call for meticulous evaluation, planning and execution. The work of this Congress, which is the most important assembly of its kind, is of vital and far-reaching significance, for by protecting the world of nature we are protecting humanity from itself.