World Environment Day

The beginning of a new millennium finds Earth poised between two conflicting trends. Jakarta, as well as other cities of all sizes around the globe, is an example of a wasteful and invasive consumer society, which, coupled with a continuing population growth, is threatening to destroy the resources that all life needs to exist.

Society is currently locked in a race with time to reverse these trends and introduce sustainable practices that will ensure the welfare of future generations.

Presently, the vibrant Caribbean capital of Havana, Cuba and the old Italian capital of Torino will host this year's international World Environment Day (WED).

Taking the theme "Connect with the World Wide Web of Life", this year's hosts are organizing a wealth of events that will link mankind's development and ultimate survival with the delicate balance of the natural world.

During environment day, a new scientific survey titled "The Millennium Assessment" will be unveiled in Torino. The assessment, which is being coordinated by the World Resources Institute in cooperation with the United Nations, is bringing together an unprecedented network of scientists, experts and non- governmental organizations, in an attempt to fill important gaps in humankind's knowledge of threats to the Earth's plants, animals and ecosystems.

One of the activities in Havana will be a workshop, organized by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), on developing guidelines covering the import and export of genetically modified organisms, known as Living Modified Organisms (LMOs) under the Biosafety or Cartagena Protocol of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

The meeting will discuss ways in which developing countries can acquire the scientific skills to assess whether a shipment of gene-modified animals, plants or microbes is safe and suitable for their country.

"We want to learn from developing countries like Cuba and others active in this field, including Thailand, China and Argentina, so that all developing countries have the expertise to accept or reject imports of LMOs on sound scientific and environmental grounds," said Jorge Illueca, director of UNEP's Division of Environmental Conventions (DEC).

World Environment Day is about all of us and our next generation.

The United Nations secretary-general referred to this year's theme as "a choice that reflects the need for each and every one of us to recognize our role in preserving our fragile planet and the ecosystems, resources and natural processes that bind us all together".

In his annual message, the secretary-general said: "More than ever, life on Earth requires of us a sense of universal responsibility -- nation to nation, person to person, human to all other forms of life."

"Albert Einstein once said that in crisis, imagination is better than knowledge," he said.

"So let us, on this World Environment Day, connect with a new ethic of global stewardship and conservation, and most of all with the imagination and courage to make it a reality."

Executive Director of UNEP, Klaus Toeper, said this year's slogan "is a reminder that the Earth with all its complex, interlocking ecosystems, is the foundation of our lives".

"It is our common heritage," Toeper said, "the bounty of nature is one and indivisible."

"It knows no frontiers, no territorial borders. It does not recognize any North-South divide or East-West distinction.

"As in a family, every element in nature, however small, is part of a whole and contributes to the harmony of the whole and to its delicate overall balance. Every animal and plant species known or unknown -- has its place, role and function, deserving of protection just as a family protects all its members.

"Stewardship in symbiosis with all life on Earth. This is the role envisioned for us," Toeper said. (bsr)