Rio + 20 – Future We Demand – Pacific Civil Society – Gender

Pacific
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and
allies appeal to
member states of the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable
Development in June 2012 for strong political leadership to avert the
imminent disaster to our planet by urgently changing dominant development and
political mindsets, and moving quickly to real and transformative solutions.

Call to reaffirm Rio principles

The
‘business as usual’ mindset has failed. We must accept that there is nothing
‘sustainable’ about current economic and social systems. We see this in the recurring global financial, energy, food, water
and ecological crises leading to deeper inequality, displacement and
dislocation of peoples, violent conflict, and marginalization of vulnerable
communities and groups.

We have
surpassed critical tipping points in our ecological carrying capacity with already around 200 species becoming extinct
around the world every day. We
must do all it takes to ensure that the last remaining key biodiversity areas
are safeguarded from encroachment by unsustainable production and consumption.
 

Agendas
and decisions based on these failed economic, social and ecological
conditions nevertheless persist, reinventing and
perpetuating the problem under new guises. The Green
Economy, seen as
the RIO+ vehicle to usher in genuine sustainable development, must be founded
on people’s welfare and community empowerment as the key stewards of
biodiversity. Government policies toward private sector involvement
especially by transnational corporations in so-called Green Economy
industries must be framed within the larger goal of national
development, poverty eradication, participation by citizens, and transparency
and accountability. We must move away from modalities where regulatory
frameworks are written up at the regional level with the involvement of
powerful countries whose economic interests are tied with overseas
investments. The green economy must be embedded in a
holistic concept of sustainability.[1][1]

In 1992
the unique environmental and economic vulnerabilities of Small Island
Developing States (SIDS) were also recognized and articulated in the
Barbados and Mauritius documents in Agenda 21, and subsequently reiterated by the Association of Small islands
states (AOSIS) and G77 Groups[2][2]. There were also over 121 references to gender in Rio’s Agenda 21, and
a core approach of social justice and human rights included equality for
women and girls.

Twenty
years on, these
pledges made in Rio remain unfulfilled, unresourced, and
under threat.

Revisiting the Pacific context

Pacific
Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) are acutely aware of our multifaceted
risks to global economic crisis and environmental shocks. However, PSIDS also
recognize our importance resilience that remains under-emphasized by civil society,
development partners and Pacific governments themselves, perhaps because it
directly counters the commonly pushed ideologies of free trade and
financialised economies.

Our locally
appropriate subsistence models of economic production that exist outside
of the global market economy ensure some level of resilience to shocks. We know this from research, and in our daily
lives. Our close
spiritual connection with the lands and sea is also at the
heart of this
resilience. So as Pacific peoples we continue to
defend our right to re-create and sustain our own systems of social, environmental and economic organization in the midst of regional and global pressure to
conform to dysfunctional trade and financial systems that would further harm
our people.

In contrast the Rio Principles, if fully
and meaningfully respected, would
assist to safeguard Pacific peoples’ food sovereignty, rights to trade in fairness with others, while
also maintaining the
good health of our environment. However,
this resilience is being challenged at Rio+20 by the dominant economic and political agendas.

Therefore, mindful of the sovereign right of each
state to
exercise its political and economic self-determination on issues of
national interest, PSIDS Government are called upon to rethink ‘popular’
development paths to achieving sustainable development.

All
mineral extractive industries, including
experimental seabed mining,
are examples
of old school mal-development. What is needed is
a strategic refusal by small island states and allies to participate in this
false development course. In allowing essential ecosystems to be mined, we
are part of a global
industrialisation process that views the environment as a means to
profit, with environment degradation, social exploitation, biodiversity loss, climate injustice and violence as its consequence.

As Pacific peoples, we know better. The creation of platforms to enable
effective national transition toward sustainable development
alternatives is imperative.

The impacts
of climate change are getting worse. Recent floods in Fiji, Tonga, Papua New
Guinea and drought in Tuvalu and Niue attest to the worsening impacts. In
the coming decades, climate change will motivate or force at least 200
million people to permanently leave their homelands in search of viable
livelihoods and safety. Climate-induced resettlement and migration is
already occurring in our region. PSIDS are thus redirecting limited resources
towards acquisition of lands, conflict resolution, human rights and welfare
needs of its peoples. Some PSIDS already face the ultimate threat of
statelessness.

Member
states must give this existential threat due consideration. Clearly, the
urgent and ambitious reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to levels
established by the IPCC is the ONLY just solution to avert runaway
climate change.

Our current ecological crisis will also
require urgent state policy and resources for agricultural and fisheries
practices based on universal human rights and social justice –  not just because this is the right thing to
do, but because it is the inattention to core human rights and needs that has
brought us to this very point.

The future that
the peoples of the Pacific demand in solidarity with others around the world,
is one of social justice and human rights for all, and a recognition of the
need to balance the three pillars of sustainable development –environmental,
social and economic sustainability.[3][3]

Therefore in appealing
to the UNCSD to regain full ownership of the Rio process, Pacific Civil society
organizations urgently call upon member states to:

Ø 
reclaim
and reaffirm their commitment to the principles of sustainable development
laid out in Agenda 21. These include the principle of: ‘common but
differentiated responsibility’, ‘precautionary principle’, the principle of
‘historical responsibility’ (historical debt) and more recently the principle
of ‘free prior and informed consent’;

Ø 
re-establish
state responsibility as an indispensable actor in this process of
reversing the imbalances created by the dominant economic system, beginning
with setting legal and enforceable frameworks and
standards of gender equality and universal human rights as well as social,
economic and ecological justice as the means to, as well as the goals of, the
creation and maintenance of sustainable and holistic communities;

Ø 
accept
that there are limits to the ‘growth’ paradigm and that the Green Economy, put forward as an strategy to realise genuine sustainable
development, must be safeguarded from corporatised growth-based
frames and initiatives that serve to perpetuate these failures;

Ø 
reaffirm
that poverty and economic injustice cannot be alleviated by more ‘growth’ but
rather through more economic-social inclusion and in reemphasizing human
quality in equilibrium with the environment as the key focus of development.
A just, sustainable society is possible and more desirable than a society in
constant material expansion. This approach is the only alternative to
catastrophe.

Ø 
In
recognition of the special challenges of mining in the Pacific region, PSIDS
are further called upon to:

o   
reject
mineral extractive industries, and in particular experimental sea bed mining
in the Pacific and to support the
transition toward  sustainable alternatives;

o   
reassert state responsibility to always uphold, through policy regulation and
enforcement, the interests of the public and of the environment over that of
corporate industry;

o   
strengthen the
accountability mechanisms, resources and capacity of UNCLOS, as the only
international UN governance mechanism on oceans;

Ø 
dually recognize that SIDS are in
need of urgent financing for
adaptation and mitigation actions under the principle of historical
responsibility; AND also encourage and nurture the development of local economic
and social models of development that increase
the resilience of PSIDS communities to face the
adverse impacts of the ongoing global  interlinked crises;

Ø 
take
decisive action by engaging in collaboration
between States and global civil society partners to develop new paradigms of ‘oikos’ and whole-earth justice. Such a framing would include integrated, synergistic work on the
financial crisis, the food crisis, climate change, universal human rights including gender equality, indigenous rights,  and social justice;

Ø 
Finally, we call
for legally binding commitments to reduce global greenhouse gases by 45% by 2020 and 80% by 2050
from pre-industrial levels to guarantee that global
mean temperatures stay below 1.5° Celsius, in accordance with the principle
of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities, and as the real minimum level to ensure
continued survival of Pacific peoples.

This statement
is endorsed by the following local, national, regional, economic south and global
organizations:

-Development
Alternatives with Women for a New Era, DAWN -Fiji Women’s Rights Movement,
FWRM -Pacific Network on Globalisation, PANG

-Pacific
Conference of Churches, PCC -Act Now! , PNG -Bagabag Community Development–
(PNG) Association, PNG -Bismark Ramu Group, PNG

-Christians for Environmental Stewardship,
PNG -Chuuk Women’s Island Network, CWIN, CHUUK -FemLINKPACIFIC, GPPAC Pacific
Secretariat, Regional Women’s Media and Policy Network on UNSCR1325 -Fiji
Media Watch, FIJI -Forest Management and Products Certification Services
Ltd,FORCERT Ltd, PNG -Foundation for Rural Integrated Enterprises and
Development, FRIEND, Fiji –International
Women’s Development Agency, IWDA, Australia –Jiwaka Friends, PNG
-Jomako , PNG -LGBTI and Allies Working Group, Samoa -Live & Learn
Environmental Education, Fiji

-Madang Indigenous People’s Forum, PNG
-Moruroa et Tatou, Maohi Nui/ French Polynesia -Ole Siosiomaga Inc. – OLSSI,
Samoa -Pacific Youth Council – PYC, Regional -Project Survival Pacific,
Regional -RAMU River Conservation and Management Authority,
PNG -Ramu Valley Landowners Association, PNG -REMPI Youth, PNG
-Sauba, PNG -Social Economic Empowerment Programme, SEEP,
Fiji -South Whagi Peacebuilder Association, PNG -Tuvalu Association of
NGOs , TANGO, Tuvalu -Voice for Change, PNG -Women’s Action for Change, WAC,
Fiji -World Wide Nature Fund – WWF-SPPO , Regional

Individuals

atherine Sparks (individual), Vanuatu -Dr. Claire Slatter, USP, Fiji –Jack Byrne, Auckland, Aotearoa / New Zealand –Krishneil Narayan, Fiji -Lisa
Williams-Lahari, Cook Islands –Ngedikes ‘Olai’ Uludong, Palau –Rt. Hon. Bikenibeu Paeniu, Former Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Signatory for Tuvalu of the Convention on
Sustainable Development, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1994.

noelenen@gmail.com BY MAY 31,
2012.