Time to get ready for next Rio summit

The Nation, Asia News Network, Bangkok

It's time environmental issues returned to the global agenda. As the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Earth Summit, in Rio De Janeiro reaches its 10th anniversary next year, countries are busy reviewing their performances over the past decade. The second world conference on the issue, nicknamed "Rio plus 10", will be organized in Johannesburg, South Africa, next September.

It will be a forum to assess countries' successes or failures in implementing Agenda 21, which focuses on "sustainable development" in social, economic and environmental aspects, as well as to plan the next steps for the decade to come.

Thailand's report was undertaken by the Office of Environmental Policy and Planning (OEPP), which commissioned Midas Agronomic, a consulting company, to prepare it. The agency recently released the result of its preliminary study and concluded that Thailand has done relatively well in the protection of the environment over the past decade.

But the report contains a big flaw right from the beginning. It had been written from a "what should be done" perspective rather than a reality based "what has been done". The introduction of the report states explicitly that the review was simply based on three papers: the 1997 Constitution, the Eighth National Social and Economic and Development Plan and the National Plan for the Promotion and Protection of the Environment.

True, the 1997 Constitution is regarded the best ever written, especially in its emphasis on the rights of local communities to protect their environment and natural resources. But there is a long way to go and a lot to be done before such rights are to be realized.

Take the issue of community forests, for example. Some 50,000 members of forest based communities signed a petition to support a law which recognizes their rights to make use of community forests, but the draft bill has sat idle in Government House for years for "technical reasons".

Again, the Eighth National Social and Economic and Development Plan is considered superior than any of its predecessors because it focused on the well being of people rather than the conventional digits of economic growth.

However, the plan was brought into implementation in the year Thailand was hit by the economic crisis. Government spending on education and environment protection was among the first items chopped as a part of a belttightening policy.

The last plan, the National Plan for the Promotion and Protection of the Environment (1997-2016), is relatively "unknown" outside the OEPP. The agency drafted it but it was seldom brought into practice. The plan discussed the concept of harmonized coexistence between environmental protection and economic growth. But the fight over inland shrimp farming reflects that such a concept does not always correspond with reality.

But we should not lose hope. There is still time to revise the "Rio plus 10" report in a way so it does include reality. A number of environmental and community development groups outside the government have already done their parts of a review. They may not give a perfect picture, but their reflections could be somewhat useful because these individual groups have been involved in social and environmental issues for decades.

Most important of all, the OEPP has to step down from its ivory tower. How can it review the state of the environment if it does not talk to rural communities who depend heavily on natural resources as their life support? How can it tell if industrial pollution problems have got better or worse if it does not hear from people in Mab Ta Pud who live next door to an industrial estate?

A comprehensive review of the state of our environment and natural resources will not only help us share reality better with global fellows at the "Rio plus 10" conference but, more importantly, it could become a significant lesson in how to correct past mistakes and plan the next steps to reach the real goal of sustainable development.