Last night at the Copacabana Fort, the Rio-based insituto e hosted its first e Awards to honor people and initiatives that have done outstanding work since the first Earth Summit in 1992. Maurice Strong was present and won an award, as was Russ Mittermeier, Conservation International's Director, and he also won an award. There were five categories and the Earth Charter Initiative was the winner in the Empowerment category. Mirian Vilela, the Director of ECI accepted the award and gave an inspiring speech about the importance of the Earth Charter and ethical frameworks for sustainable development. |
| Mirian Vilela's acceptance speech |
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| Andy Summers playing Message in a bottle |
The event in the Copacabana Fort was chic and fun and was attended by numerous local celebrities, including the Mayor of Rio de Janeiro, and featured a musical performance by two Brazilian music stars accompanied by Andy Summers, the guitarist of the famous British rock group, The Police. The atmosphere was festive and celebratory and the Earth Charter Initiative was loudly applauded by the several hundred guests in attendance.
The following is a video of Mirian's speech when receiving the award (edited by Alicia Jimenez):
Very well deserved. If we could get the whole meeting to base its discussions on the Earth Charter, things would go differently!!!
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