The Morelia Declaration
A unique exchange has taken place. For the first time
environmentalists, scientists, representatives from the native
tribes of North and South America, political activists and writers
from 20 countries have spent a week in Mexico discussing the state
of the world as we approach the end of the millenium. Independently,
but without exception, each participant expressed concern that life
on our planet is in grave danger.
* 24 billion tons of topsoil from cropland are being lost each
year. If deforestation and other forms of land erosion continue at
the current rate, the scientists present stated that by the end of
the decade the earth will have no additional farmland but nearly a
billion new mouths to feed.
* The nuclear disaster at Chernobyl 1986, which in varying degrees
has subjected over 35 million people to radioactive assault, was
only one of more than a hundred nuclear accidents which took place
over the last decade. At the conference the scientist responsible
for the clean-up of Chernobyl stated his belief that at least three
nuclear catastrophes on the scale of Chernobyl are likely to take
place before the year 2000 A. D.
* 70% of the world's population lives within 100 miles of the sea.
The profligate use of fossil fuels by the industrialized world is
rapidly and irreversibly changing our climate. Experts stress that
continued rising sea levels and global warming will lead to massive
flooding of coastal areas, creating millions of new environmental
refugees on an even greater scale than we witness annually in
countries like Bangladesh.
* Human survival depends on biological diversity. At current rates
of environmental destruction, especially the wanton destruction of
tropical forests in the Americas, Asia and Africa, we will lose at
least a million species within the next ten years and a quarter of
all living species within the next fifty years.
I. We, the participants of the Morelia Symposium, urge the leaders
of the world at the Earth Summit to be held in June 1992 in Brazil
to commit themselves to ending ecocide and ethnocide, and we
propose the creation of an International Court of Environment
modelled on the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
II. 20% of the world's population consumes 80% of its wealth
and is responsible for 75% of its pollution. We believe there is
sufficient knowledge and technology available to reduce the obscene
disparity of wealth. We demand a genuine transfer of knowledge and
resources from North to South, not the dumping of obsolescent and
inefficient technologies and products. There must be an immediate
end to the international traffic in toxic waste, urgent reduction
of the pollution of rivers and oceans by industrial waste and human
sewage, an end to the unprincipled export of banned pesticides and
other chemicals to the economically desperate countries of the
Third World, and the immediate availability of information and
means to allow people to individually and voluntarily pursue the
goal of population stability.
III. Traditional societies are generally the best managers of
biodiversity. For the last five hundred years the knowledge and the
rights of the native American peoples have been ignored. We believe
that respecting the interests of indigenous peoples, both in the
Americas and throughout the rest of the world, who have become
exploited minorities in their own countries is crucial for the
preservation of of biological and cultural diversity. We deplore
the cultural pollution and loss of tradition which have led to
global rootlessness, leaving humans, through the intensity of
mass-marketing, vulnerable to the pressures of economic and
political totalitarianism and habits of mass-consumption and waste
which imperil the earth.
IV. At the Earth Summit of June 1992, we demand that world leaders
sign a Global Climate Change Convention. Industrialized countries
must make a minimum commitment to a 20% reduction of their carbon
dioxide emissions by the year 200o A.D. We insist on rigorous
implementation of the Montreal Protocol on Protection of the Ozone
Layer. We also demand the signing of a convention to protect
biological diversity, and evidence of concrete progress in
negotiations for a global forests treaty.
V. The proven economic folly of nuclear power coupled with the
probability of environmental catastrophe necessitate the urgent
substitution of nuclear energy by clean, safe and efficient energy
systems. The military establishment must cease the proliferation of
nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and convert a significant
proportion of military expenditure to expenditure on environmental
security. To ensure this, we demand an end to secrecy and a right
to freedom of information in all matters concerning the world's
environment.
The participants at this conference wish to stress that
environmental destruction cannot be confined within the boundaries
of any nation state. We urge our fellow writers, environmentalists,
scientists, members of indigenous minorities, and all concerned
people to join us in demanding the creation of an International
Court of the Environment at which the environmentally criminal
activity can be brought to the attention of the entire world.
If the later half of the 20th century has been marked by human
liberation movements, the final decade of the second millenium
will be characterized by liberation movements among species, so
that one day we can attain genuine equality among all living
things.
Homero Aridjis (Mexico) Lester Brown (United States)
F. Sherwood Rowland (United States) Octavio Paz (Mexico)
Peter Matthiessen (United States) Petra Kelly (Germany)
Vladimir Chernousenko (Soviet Union) Miroslav Holub (Czechoslovakia)
Gita Mehta (India) Alvaro Umana (Costa Rica)
Evaristo Nugkuag (Peru) W. S. Merwin (United States)
Kjell Espmark (Sweden) Adam Markham (Great Britain)
Thomas Lovejoy (United States) Vassily Aksyonov (Soviet Union)
Augusto Roa Bastos (Paraguay) Arturo Gomez-Pompa (Mexico)
Margarita Marino de Botero (Columbia) Kirkpatrick Sale (United States)
J. M. C. Le Clezio (France) Alan Durning (United States)
Amory Lovins (United States) Agneta Pleijel (Sweden)
Yuko Tsushima (Japan) Jewel James (Lummi Tribe)
Gert Bastian (Germany) Miguel Grinberg (Argentina)
Nelida Pinon (Brazil) Jeffrey Wilkerson (United States)
Betty Ferber de Aridjis (United States)
Carmen Boullosa (Mexico)
Roberto Juarroz (Argentina) Fernando Cesarman (Mexico)
Vikram Seth (India) Sandra Cisneros (United States)
Miguel Alvarez del Toro (Mexico) Folke Isaksson (Sweden)
Hans van de Waarsenburg (Netherlands)
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THE MORELIA SYMPOSIUM: APPROACHING THE YEAR 2000
SIERRA JIUTEPEC 155 - B. LOMAS BARRILACO, MEXICO 11010, D.F. MEXICO
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Michele Lord * Walk in Peace with
(milo@scicom.alphacdc.com) * our Mother Earth
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