Bringing Rio Home
Alberta at UNCED
by Scott Rollans

In the eyes of many Albertans, the ballyhooed Rio Summit was a bust. After all of our excitement and anticipation over the event, the images which filtered down to us through the media were profoundly disheartening. They formed a picture of government leaders repeating familiar platitudes, while continuing to balk at any hint of significant change.

Yet as the dust settles, the long-term implications of Rio are beginning to emerge. Many activists returned from the summit surprisingly invigorated, better prepared and better motivated to continue the fight at home. While like many of us they were disappointed by the official results, they were struck by a new spirit springing from the grassroot fringes of the conference. More than ever, they see the reins of the environment and development movement slipping from the hands of the political elite, to be eagerly picked up by ordinary people around the globe.

Edmonton environmentalist Mia Benjamin-Robinson sensed this shift in advance. After spending three years as part of the official Canadian delegation preparing for UNCED (the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development), she suddenly pulled out, abandoning a process she had come to see as doomed. She felt that government, with industry looking over its shoulder, wasn't yet ready to face the price of global change.

"We had looked upon UNCED as an opportunity for the countries of the world to finally grow up. It wasn't a question any more of being a child, where you want to have the biggest toy box with the most toys, where you don't care how much mess you make. It was now important for the peoples of the world to grow up and become adults. Adults have a sense of responsibility and accountability. They know that they aren't the centre of the world, but are part of a community.

"You look a lot more at your needs than your wants. You look at both of them in terms of the minimum impact they can have on other people and your ecosystem. And above all you recognize that if you're going to make a mess, it's important that you clean it up!

"When we finally got to Rio, we recognized that most of the governments of the world were still at the stage of children. They had watched that wonderful program called Sesame Street and they recognized that sharing was really important, but they still hadn't made the transition into what that would actually mean for them. They either wanted to protect the toys that they had, or to grab more of them."

Although she was frustrated by this lack of concrete action, Benjamin-Robinson feels that much of the underlying message of Rio survived. "The spirit of UNCED got lost among the governments. It wasn't necessarily lost amongst people like Maurice Strong (UNCED's Secretary General) and other members who attempted to recognize the fact that we couldn't act as spoiled children any more."

Along with many of her colleagues, Benjamin-Robinson believes that, if the spirit of UNCED survives, the credit goes to the Global Forum. As the government representatives huddled indoors, 25,000 activists gathered outdoors in Flamengo Park. Representatives of non-government organizations (NGOs) from around the world divided their time between a dynamic, festival atmosphere -- complete with food, entertainment and more than 600 display booths -- and the intensive negotiating sessions behind the scenes.

"There was a lot of work being done beneath the glamour," says Richard Verbisky of the Camrose International Institute. "The first impressions are that it's just this big 'eco-fair', and unfortunately I think that's a lot of what the media picked up on. Sure, there were a few tree huggers there that were walking around with their tye-died shirts on saying, 'Peace!' and that's great, but there were lawyers and doctors and academics and people who have been in environment/development for thirty, forty years, who were really trying to contribute, share some realities, and change institutions and structures."

The 39 treaties which emerged from the Global Forum represent an attempt to harmonize both the objectives and the strategies of NGOs worldwide, in every area from debt reduction to alternative transportation. Those participating in the treaty process carried that spirit of cooperation back to their own organizations and their own communities. As Angela Bischoff from Edmonton's EcoCity Society puts it, "The summit made our local issues global issues."

"It gave me a much broader perspective of the global vision," says Bischoff. "Here I may be seen as some radical environmentalist lobbying for bicycle options, but after meeting the international community of transport alternatives lobbyists, I feel way more grounded in a global network of people working on similar issues.

"So I think for the people who attended the Global Forum, that changed a lot of our lives. We're that much more committed and inspired to be working for change."

Even if two weeks in Rio changed the lives of a handful of Alberta environment and development activists, however, changing the lives of everyday Albertans promises to be a much more lengthy and arduous process. It's not just a matter of handing out a list of instructions on how to save the world, says Mia Benjamin-Robinson. "I would like to be able to say, 'Here's five things. Every community do it and you've got no problem.' But it really does call for a much deeper mind-set change than just simply having a composter."

Calgary's Margaret Durnin, of the Development Education Coordinating Council of Alberta (DECCA) agrees: "A sustainability model asks people to say, "Okay, what is the greater good -- greater than just me? What's my role in the community?" And if people only have the energy to start on the individual level of change, of changing lifestyles and habits, and maybe going into the workplace and influencing that, that's great. But I think we have to learn to focus a lot more on working together to produce change.

"You can have an entire country recycling, and never see a real change in how forestry policy works. And if you're not willing to get out there and be the activist, then support the people who are. Make some donations, give it a priority so that you're supporting some people who are doing policy oriented work, because it's the hardest thing to fundraise for and it's super important."

People often tend to tune out that kind of advice as "motherhood statements". However, Benjamin-Robinson suggests that, as we face the 21st Century, our very survival rests with that new way of thinking.

"We're getting to the point where it's absolutely crucial that we become more active. We now have UV levels that are announced every day. People have accepted that without even much thought; that this is just something that's new in life, and of course now we'll take that into account without asking 'WHY?! What in the hell is going on here? Why is this happening?'

"So, while we don't want to get into motherhood statements, you just can't impress upon people strongly enough that they have to begin to be much more informed, and begin to take action. They're going to say that their day is really busy. Well, you have to reassess your day! We have to wonder why we're so busy doing things, and what are the crucial things. We have to become much more aware of how we can strategize and priorize, even within our own lives. And people will say, 'Oh my God, that's going to take a lot of thought, and time, and action.' Well, you've got it! That's really what being an adult is. It does take a lot more time and effort."

Apart from establishing that basic mind-set, Alberta's activists do have some more concrete ideas for action. One way ordinary Albertans can keep the Rio spirit alive in their own communities, says Richard Verbisky, is simply by talking. Since returning from the summit, he has grasped every available opportunity to spread the message. "I'm in a school tomorrow for grade fives, I'm writing articles in our newsletter and the paper, and talking to the Journal. I'm just talking about my experiences of meeting the people in Rio and hearing what they had to say. I was constantly taking notes about what this person or that person said, and not really deciding whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. I just want to share all these crazy ideas with people here.

"We have to keep that momentum going in our communities. If there's one person who gets converted about realities in different parts of the world, and how our government's reacting, and how people around us are reacting, then that person can try and get someone else on side. Education is one of the most powerful tools we have these days."

It's also important to see yourself as part of a grassroots movement, and not just as a radical working in isolation, say environment and development workers. The quickest way to do that, suggests Benjamin-Robinson, is to connect with others in your community. "People can talk to people, especially if you live in a larger centre. They can talk to the Environmental Resource Centre in Edmonton, or go to the Calgary Ecocentre; they can recognize that there are environmental groups forming everywhere."

Once we've looked at our own lives, and begun to form groups, says Benjamin-Robinson, the next step is to address the issue at a national level. "It calls for us to look not only at ourselves and our small community, but to begin to hold our governments more accountable. Beyond election time. We have to mature enough to say, 'Well, it's going to take more than an X, or a yes or no. I have to be more informed. I have to be a much more conscious adult in the society that we have now, and I must hold governments accountable. I must begin to monitor, even in the small sense.'"

In doing so, she argues, perhaps we can hold our own representatives to the commitments made at UNCED. "While the governments didn't do what we wanted them to do, in a lot of the documents there are some excellent points," observes Benjamin-Robinson. "In some of the conventions, and in Agenda 21, there's the basis." Trevor McFadyen, who helped prepare the Canadian Youth Declaration (presented in Rio) agrees: "Often at these types of summits, governments come together for a media blitz, and then afterwards they say 'Oh, did we discuss that? Did we say that we were going to do that?' I hope after the Rio Summit, people will insist that the government lives up to what was decided there."

If the spirit of Rio could be boiled down into one underlying message, it would be that individual, local, national and global issues are now inextricably linked. Says Benjamin-Robinson, "If citizens want to maintain or forward that spirit of UNCED, they have to first of all recognize what it was, and recognize that we do have to mature."

In doing that, ordinary people begin to see their own activities in a global context, as Richard Verbisky discovered on a development project this summer. "When I was working in the slum areas of Sao Paulo I learned that there are people who are damn poor, they have virtually nothing, and they're in their own community fighting for what they need. But what they're really fighting for is some big changes, it's human rights and social justice that they're really going after. And that's what we really have to do here."

But do Albertans truly have a role to play in global change? Benjamin-Robinson feels strongly that we do. "One of the things I've found in these last three years of being involved with UNCED and travelling with groups all over the world, is that things won't happen at the international level unless they're sparked at the local level. You always come home to where you live. This is where I breathe the majority of my air, and drink the majority of my water."

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