Patricia's impressions of the Earth Charter event on June 19th

Post by Patricia Grossi Reis

EC Blogger Patricia Grossi Reis and Leonardo Boff

Today I attended the Earth Charter side event called Collaboration and Dialogue on ethics, sustainability and the Earth Charter. The afternoon was divided into four talks, all of which involved looking at businesses, education, and the future from the perspective of the Charter. There were several excellent and very notable speakers and a large audience at the event that took place at a venue in downtown Rio de Janeiro.

The day started with a discussion about the relevance of the Earth Charter for Rio+20 and sustainability, where participants were asked to speak from the heart and remember what brought them to Rio in the first place. Severn Suzuki – the 12-year old who made everyone stop at Rio 92, now a mother of two – was one of the panelists. She talked about intergenerational love as one of the most powerful tools of human race, in line with the principles in the Charter, which express the importance of caring for all communities of life in both present and future generations.

The second panel discussed the need for developing a new business model that places the Earth Charter as an ethical framework at the center of businesses’ strategies as a means of transforming the document’s vision into concrete action. To me, the most notable speaker in this panel was Mr. Ricardo Young, a businessman and Council member of Instituto Democracia e Sustentabilidade. I agreed with his comment about how the Declaration of Human Rights – which has played a very important role over time – is outdated, incomplete, anthropocentric, and therefore unable to deal with the systemic complexities of the planet. He believes the Earth Charter, as a universal declaration of rights of all communities of life, is much better equipped to tackle these complexities since it is a geo and bio-centric ethical framework.

Marina Silva, a Brazilian Senator and former Minister for the Environment, was the highlight of the afternoon. She spoke extensively about the greater levels of awareness about sustainable development issues today in comparison to 20 years ago, but that awareness alone is not enough. Her view is that we must do all we can to ensure the Charter reaches its right address: it must get to the hands of government leaders who are the decision-makers.

The afternoon was also filled with beautiful music inspired by the Charter (see video), and culminated with a very moving talk by Leonardo Boff (of whom I am a huge fan) a key contributor to the drafting of the Charter. Leonardo once again brought me to tears with his words, full of love, compassion and hope for us. A day to remember!