Earth Day and beyond …

This was written on The World Earth Day of 2010 and its message was intended to be valid for many more Earth Days.

Many individuals, organisations and governments the world over carried out activities to focus on what we, as citizens of Mother Earth can do to ensure her good health and very survival. The columnist is of the opinion that there needs be a concerted effort by all citizens of the earth, be they policy makers, strategists, educators, business persons, professionals, social activists or persons on the street, to readjust our own lifestyles, through a better understanding of the issues impacting the good health of Mother Earth. There need be a cultivated attitude and a determined effort to make “Every Day an Earth Day”. For today, all scientific evidence points to the fact that we who live on this planet have no other choice. The only choice before us is to take assertive action now to draw ourselves away from the opulent lifestyles we led in the past and take on more conservatory and sustainable ways of living.

No longer can such action be taken with a focus on cost saving only. Neither can they be for gaining nominations for awards that look good on media releases, promotional web pages and brochures or for other cosmetic reasons.  There needs to be a sea-change in thinking and stronger overall action on the ground that will contribute substantially to reduce our overall carbon footprint. Carbon offsetting must not be made another excuse for creating a share- trading market of it, to serve the needs of the usual greed driven agenda.  As a somewhat sorry but inadequate base, we have the Kyoto Protocol target of taking the CO2 emission levels of our world to that of 1998, by the year 2012. As inadequate as it may be, it is hoped that it will give space and hope for Mother Earth to regain some of its lost health and seek much needed rejuvenation.  

Everyone’s business

The new President of the Maldives (now not in office), soon after taking office in November 2008  announced that he would begin to look for alternative land for the Maldivian nation. He like several other world leaders had called for all nations to act now and fast.  Our own Minister of Environment has called for a mechanism for the developed nations to provide compensation for the damage done so far in placing the smaller island nations at risk. Preventing the effects of global warming from reaching catastrophic proportions has been accepted today to be everyone’s business. President Obama presents a new paradigm away from the conventional dominance of the USA, citing that his country, as powerful as it may be, is but only another nation in a world where there should be no senior or junior partners. Ideas, he stated should be drawn from everywhere to resolve issues and problems. Interestingly, he mentioned little Costa Rica as an example.

Banking on being green

Costa Rica started positioning itself as a green island and a green tourism icon, decades ago and has reaped rich dividends from it this far. New Zealand and its ‘100% Pure’ positioning is also a success story worthy of mention. On the larger canvass, The UK and Norway have signed on and provided millions of dollars to support the Congo Forest Initiative, while the Amazon’s good health was focussed on at the recently concluded Americas Conference.  Logging in the Borneo rainforests and forest fires are issues that are no longer limited to Indonesia, Brunei or Malaysia where it is located, but go far beyond to being issues of global interest. In a more recent initiative, Egypt’s Red Sea resort Sharm-El- Sheikh declared its intent in becoming a carbon clean Tourism Earth Lung. This was an extension of a 2007 Tourism Earth Lung Initiative introduced to the world of tourism, at the UN World Tourism Organisation’s Climate Change and Tourism Conference held in Davos, Switzerland by Sri Lanka.  

Uniquely placed

Sri Lanka, like Costa Rica and a few other nations like her, is in a unique position in working towards and realising the task of being carbon clean, perhaps within a decade. Our island nation has a 50% green cover of its total land area with a near 29% forest cover. It is also home to the world heritage site of the ‘Singharaja’, a virgin rainforest with immense bio-diversity. We have in our midst the likes of Prof. Mohan Munasinghe, the former Vice Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which has scientifically established the dire nature of the catastrophe of global warming. Sri Lanka’s Dr.  W.L. Sumathipala of the National Ozone Unit was the winner of the Global Ozone Layer Protection Award for 2008 in recognition of Sri Lanka’s efforts, in following the Montreal Protocol. We have had an environmental movement with its roots extending deep down the saga of our heritage, where the world’s very first wild life sanctuary was declared and established in the 3^rd Century BC during the time of King Devanmpiyatissa.  Sri Lanka though small in size, can indeed qualify to be a little green lung on the face of the earth. Positioning it thus, it can take a leadership position as an Earth Lung and be in the forefront of the movement of working towards being carbon clean and even rally the wide world around towards that cause.

Believing in ourselves

What we need to do is to shun the undesirable feelings of inadequacy some of us have on believing in our nation’s potential. While short-term survival is important and need focus, planning for 2010, without a vision of what we should be in 2020 and 2050 is improbable. Thus, the 2010 plans of a business or a nation must place issues such as eradication of poverty, combating terrorism, mitigating climate change and preparing for an aging population on the front and not the back-burners of the spectrum of decision making. That will not just be bad strategic decision making, but a sure way of performing an act of the Japanese style ‘Hara-kiri’ on the business or the nation. We need today to think beyond the short-term survival agenda. Unlike many other nations that have far less than us on the green palette, but sing its praises loud, most of us begin to question what is wrong, on the fronts of garbage disposal, pollution, illegal logging and the like, without adequately focussing on the positives we have, where we could drive and utilise its might, to negate the negatives.  

Need for Branding

Focussing on our green cover and driving a carbon-clean agenda to protect and enhance it, Sri Lanka has the potential to establish a strong brand identity in the minds of the global citizenry. It can bring us a positioning that will focus on the biological and cultural diversity of our nation and make us stand tall in the crowd. We need to be proud of who and what we are and shun any feeling of doubts we have, in our nation’s potential. We must establish ourselves as leaders in the global green movement and not be mere followers. This Earth Day can be the day that we resolve to make it happen so we can look beyond to being a shinning example championing the cause of preserving the good health of our Mother Earth.  And for now, let each of us begin to practise or continue to practise the simple Reduce - Reuse – Recycle agenda.   

Useful Web addresses:

Earth Day Network – www.earthday.net
Sri Lanka Tourism Earth Lung – www.earthlung.travel
National Ozone Unit of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources -www.noulanka.lk
Munasinghe Institute for (Sustainable) Development - www.mindlanka.org
The Nature Conservancy – www.nature.org
The Wilderness Society – http://earthday.wilderness.org
Earth Day Site for Kids – www.planetpals.com
Mother Nature Network – www.mnn.com
Natural Resources Defense Council – www.nrdc.org
Green Guides – www.thegreenguides.com
US Earth Day Government Website (with conservation tips) – www.earthday.gov