Values for the Blue Planet

Sunday 22 December 2002 7:10AM

How might human life on earth be made sustainable, in our economic and political systems and in our relationship with the environment? Global warming, rapid ecological degradation, and the terrors of war and poverty raise critical questions about future survival.

The Earth Charter is a global grassroots movement, emerging from the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, to draft a set of universal ethical principles to guide the actions of governments, institutions and communities across the world. It will go before the UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development ("Rio +10") in Johannesburg for endorsement later this year.

David Busch looks at the practical, philosophical and spiritual issues surrounding the Charter, drawing on the Asia Pacific Regional Conference of the Earth Charter held in Brisbane in late 2001.


Opens with space FX

Kamla Chowdrey: Do you remember the picture of the Earth that the astronauts took? It is beautiful and awe inspiring.

Astronaut Frank Borman: And God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear," and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called He seas. And God saw that it was good.

Kamla Chowdrey: For the first time, we saw the living Earth in its wholeness, looking at that beautiful blue ball out there was an experience of spirituality.


Kamla Chowdrey: For the first time in human history, we had a God's-eye view of our planet, and saw the Earth in its wholeness and beauty.

Reading from the Earth Charter:

We stand at a critical moment in Earth's history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward, we must recognise that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms, we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny.


Morgan Williams: It's very much a visioning document, what we need to be if we're actually going to maintain a habitable planet for seven, eight, nine, ten billion people. The reality is the changes have got to be absolutely dramatic, so it's the sort of charter that needs to be sitting in front of us for the next hundred years.

Noel Preston: It begs philosophical questions about whether there really are universal values, and some people of course have suggested that the agenda of the Earth Charter is just another extension of that luxury that the Western world has to espouse these norms and to call for changes because life's quite comfortable for us.

Virginia Young: It's the force that's needed in this world of globalisation. There's no soul in globalisation at the moment, there's no underlying ethic it seems to me other than the power of the dollar bottom line. And the Earth Charter is what's needed to counter or to balance or whatever word you want to use those economic globalisation forces.

Ian Lowe: The Earth Charter is like almost a modern religious movement, it's a new set of moral and ethical principles for organising society. And sets of moral and ethical principles have been much more effective at galvanising community support than appeals to materialism. The optimist in me says that there's a fighting chance that something like the Earth Charter will catalyse enough support around the world for it to be irresistible.

David Busch: Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe of Griffith University in Brisbane, and before him, Virginia Young of the Wilderness Society, ethicist Dr Noel Preston, and New Zealand's Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Morgan Williams. And we heard part of the preamble to the Earth Charter.

The Charter calls itself a declaration of fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable and peaceful global society. In 1987, the United Nations' World Commission on Environment and Development called for such a charter. When governments at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 failed to reach agreement on a charter, a range of non-government organizations and world leaders took up the challenge, creating an independent Earth Charter Commission.

After eight years of drafting, involving extensive consultation across the world, the Earth Charter's been distilled to 16 principles, grouped under four sections, with 61 clauses. They deal with environmental as well as economic, political, social and cultural sustainability. Dialogue, consultation and participation are emphasized. The draft will go before the UN's World Summit on Sustainable Development, dubbed Rio Plus Ten, in Johannesburg in September.

How important is the UN's endorsement? Mirian Vilela is executive director of the Earth Charter International Secretariat based in Costa Rica.

Mirian Vilela: The United Nations will certainly not adopt a document that they have not drafted, so we don't expect the United Nations to adopt the Earth Charter as such. That's why there is a difference between adoption and endorsement. Endorsement is an expression of support, in agreement with that, adopting has a moire legal, binding idea behind that.

One of the objectives of the Earth Charter is certainly to have local, national governments endorsing and using the Earth Charter, but also to have the United Nations expressing its endorsement in recognition of such a worldwide civil society, participatory process to pout together an Earth Charter. So it is one of the goals of the Earth Charter, but it's certainly not the ultimate goal to have the United Nations endorsing it, because the charter needs to be a living document, and to be a living document people need to be utilising it in their own field of activities.

David Busch: Do you see it ever having the form and status of something like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with international commissions or tribunals that can give that some kind of authority and force?

Mirian Vilela: The Earth Charter is not to be a hard law document. It is seen as a soft law document - so is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The legitimacy of the Earth Charter will depend on how people use it. The change will not come from the United Nations. Change will come from within each individual.

Nature FX

Reading from the Earth Charter:

Four principles of respect and care for the community of life:
· Respect Earth and life in all its diversity.
· Care for the community of life with understanding, compassion and love.
· Build democratic societies that are just, participatory, sustainable and peaceful.
· Secure Earth's bounty and beauty for present and future generations.

Schoolyard FX

Doug Hammonds: People won't believe in something until they can actually physically see it, touch it, taste it. We only learn, we only change our values and beliefs, by doing that. So you can't tell people to live a better lifestyle, you can't tell people to become more sustainable. They have to live it, see it, touch it and taste it. That's why we need to change our schools so the infrastructure emulates best practice, so the kids are actually experiencing it, and then the parents can experience it, and then we can move into the community and make sure the community change their homes, change their practices, so they can experience it as well.

David Busch: Doug Hammonds teaches at Bulimba Primary School in Brisbane, where he's spearheading a focus on sustainability through a range of practical projects, including an environmentally friendly toilet block.

Doug Hammonds: The toilet block will be a magnificent wooden structure tucked under the trees hopefully and it'll blend into the environment. It'll have its own black water system so it'll recycle its black water waste into agricultural water, so it'll create its own water, it'll create its own energy, and it'll be a beautiful building where people will actually get some uplift from, rather than a place where you have to go to do other things.

David Busch: A toilet block which inspires you?

Doug Hammonds: Absolutely. I think that's the main issue we have in our society at the moment, is what do we do with our wastes? In the past we said let's, you know, put it down the sewer and forget about it, and it's caused huge problems to us. And we have to be responsible in every phase of our involvement with the environment, and this way we can do that - monitor it, control it, and see what happens with it, and use it productively.

Because eventually we can take the black water and purify it, we can use the water for agricultural purposes, the sludge that comes out of the first tank we can actually put into a worm farm to turn it into compost, and it can go into a garden and grow vegetables, and so we see a life cycle process occurring.

As well as that we want to look at how do we save energy within the school, we want to bring in an energy consultant who will assist the teachers and parents and the students to look at how do we actually conserve energy? We want to look at our water, how we actually conserve that, we want to make sure that our taps don't drip and our pipes don't leak, and we want to look at our food wastes - we want to make sure that we eat our food that we bring to school, but that what we don't eat we want to recycle into worm farms, and we want to make sure that the materials we bring to school can be recycled as well. So we want to reduce our wastes if we can.

But more importantly now, we've just had a conference last week with the seven schools in the Bulimba reach of the Brisbane River, and we've formed the Gateway Learning Community, and we're now looking very seriously at how we can come together as a whole consortium of people and schools, and work more cohesively together. It was very exciting, and the outcome of all that I think will be worth watching and worth following.

David Busch: And how does the Earth Charter as a document, a framework, a process, fit into your environmental projects and ideas for the school here?

Doug Hammonds: Well I think the Earth Charter sets us a place where we want to be in 30 years time. If we are able to implement the principles of the Earth Charter into our community, then we would have a community of the future.

We need that - it's like an anchor that needs to underpin everything we do. So when we're looking at setting up an educational process or something in the school, whatever we do we need to go back to those principles and say, "Are we meeting those principles? Are we making sure that the needs of people are being met? Are we making sure that indigenous people are being cared for? Are we making sure that the environment is being nurtured? Are we making sure that our community's involved with us in the process? Are we making sure that we're not excluding people?" So it helps us to checklist what we're doing, and it just keeps us in line.

Nature FX

Reading from the Earth Charter:

Four principles of ecological integrity.
· Adopt patterns of production, consumption and reproduction that safeguard Earth's regenerative capacities, human rights, and community well-being.

Virginia Young: It has been quite a challenge for the environment movement, and even an organisation like the Wilderness Society that's biodiversity focused - you know, someone has to care for all the plants and animals on Earth so we'll try and do that. But it's actually very hard to find places where you can do that working cooperatively with communities.

David Busch: Virginia Young is National Forest Campaign Coordinator with the Wilderness Society.

Virginia Young: We're brought into points of conflict all the time, so we're trying to, you know, stop uranium mining in the heart of Kakadu, or stop some of the tallest trees on Earth being woodchipped, and they're very conflictual situations. And they're actually hard points for a lot of ordinary people to engage - it's quite daunting to be confronted by that conflict, I think, and so people get confused, you know, they care about workers but they care about the trees but what do you do about it because it's portrayed as being, you know, an insolvable problem.

So having a point of engagement where people can about simply what matters to them, where they can see that there's a positive story, that it's not necessarily jobs or the environment, that you can do both. And the Earth Charter is a wonderful vehicle for having that discussion, about how you do both.

It was interesting, the first forum we had where the environment movement was pretty reluctant to come - they're a pretty cynical mob in the environment movement, and you have to be, really, to cope with the stress of loss all the time in the work that we do. But I got them there, the heads of all the conservation councils, and just to watch the joy infuse people, and for the environment movement itself to feel a renewed sense of empowerment and optimism - it was a wonderful thing to sit and watch.

And that's what happens when you engage the community on it. The charter provides a framework for working cooperatively with the community to develop a path for change. And so much of the work that we are doing in Australia through the Earth Charter Committee, and even within the Wilderness Society, is about looking for projects where we can engage with people, whether it's the ethical investment sector, or local councils, or - you know, whatever. And they're quite major changes for the environment movement, to have that opportunity and preparedness to work with communities and to realise that other groups have genuine aspirations which we should try and meet as we set about our task of trying to protect and restore the planet.

Ian Lowe: We have to not just think about walking lightly on the planet, using resources sensibly, interacting sustainably with the natural environment, but we also have to think about a society where there is a much more even sharing of the benefits of industrial production, and much less of the sense of injustice there is now.

David Busch: Ian Lowe is Emeritus Professor in Science at Griffith University in Brisbane, and a world leader in researching sustainability.

Ian Lowe: The model of development implicitly assumes that a sort of crass California consumer culture can be extended to the whole world. But that's clearly physically impossible.

There's an obvious example - at the current rate of our using oil, we will probably have it for another 40 or 50 years. If the whole world used oil at the rate which we use oil in Australia, it would run out in one or two years. So our use of oil in Australia at the moment is effectively based on the assumption that there will be a global underclass, who don't have the same transport choices that we do.

Our lifestyle will not be sustained if it's based on the assumption of a global underclass. What the Earth Charter does appeal to is that sense of justice that it's unreasonable to live your life on the basis of exploiting other people or subjecting other people to lesser aspirations than we have ourselves.

Nature FX

David Busch: You're on Radio National with David Busch, this is Encounter, and we're talking about the Earth Charter. That's a global, grassroots attempt to construct a set of universal ethical principles, which could guide governments, organizations and communities, so that life on Earth might become sustainable.

Reading from the Earth Charter:

Four principles of social and economic justice:
· Eradicate poverty as an ethical, social and environmental imperative.
· Affirm gender equality and equity as prerequisites to sustainable development, and ensure universal access to education, health care, and economic opportunity.
· Uphold the right of all, without discrimination, to a natural and social environment supportive of human dignity, bodily health, and spiritual wellbeing, with special attention to the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.

Fade up jazz song

David Busch: The Earth Charter will go before the United Nations' World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg this September. As a prelude to that, an Asia-Pacific Earth Charter Regional Conference was held in Brisbane in November-December 2001.

Conference FX, music and speeches:

Erna Witoelar: I believe that the events of September 11 clearly demonstrate that if globalisation is not shaped to work for all societies in an effort to resolve inequalities, our borderless world will make us all less secure. We have now seen a glimpse of our future if we do not take the principles of the Earth Charter as a secure and moral way forward.

Cielito Habito: Sustainable development is not something governments do for people. It is something that people have to achieve for themselves. The answers do not lie with government or government actions. In the end, the answers lie with how people change towards more sustainable behaviour. I believe that, without a universally accepted ethical framework, which the Earth Charter offers, the needed change in human attitudes and behaviour, needed to make globalisation sustainable, would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

Dr Peter Hollingworth: While it can be so troubling for many people to look into the future, we are challenged more than ever to try to define something deeper, something like the core values that underpin national life - something like the values articulated within the framework of the Earth Charter itself. Those of you who were involved in the drafting of the document would have found that core values and not obvious or universal necessarily. At the end of the day, whatever decisions we take about the structuring of the economy and society, those decisions have to be in the interests of people and for the future of the planet. The two can never be separated.

Kamla Chowdrey: If the Earth Charter is to become a reality, then the first step, I believe, is to change oneself before we change the world. There is a story about the mother who brings her child to Ghandi and says, "Please tell him to stop eating sugar, because his health doesn't permit it." And Ghandi turns to the mother: "Bring the child in 10 days time." And after 10 days the mother brings the child, and he says to the child, "Don't eat sugar." And the mother said, "If this is all that you had to say to the child, why did you have to wait these 10 days?" And he said, "I had to go without sugar for 10 days to realise how important and difficult it is. In other words, if you want the world to change, first change yourself.

David Busch: Speakers at the Asia Pacific Earth Charter conference in Brisbane at the end of 2001 - former Indonesian Cabinet minister Erna Witoelar, economist Cielito Habito of the Philippines, Governor-General Peter Hollingworth, patron of the Australian Earth Charter Committee, and Dr Kamla Chowdrey of India, co-chair of the international Earth Charter Commission.

Music fades

David Busch: But can one set of values in a document like the Earth Charter truly accommodate the diversity of cultures and beliefs across the globe? Dr Noel Preston of the Key Centre for Ethics, Law, Justice and Governance at Griffith University in Brisbane organized the Earth Charter conference.

Noel Preston: In the post-modern intellectual ethos, of course, there's been a major conversation, or perhaps impasse some would say, between philosophies that rest on universalism and those that rest on communitarianism. The one and the many, is the traditional issue. And the communitarians would say that universalism has let us down - it's led to the promotion of tyranny and imperialism, indeed, and there's more than a half truth in that. On the other hand, those who criticise communitarianism would say that can lead to excessive relativism, where anything goes as long as it's just your own communal values.

So I'm not happy with being in either camp, and I think that philosophically rapprochement between universalism and communitarianism is possible - and is necessary for the very fundamental reason that the bottom line in all this is that life is all connected, that there is a unity which points to something universal.

David Busch: To what extent can an ethical, global framework like the Earth Charter, though, address the complexity and diversity in the world, represented by a whole range of cultural, religious and historical factors?

Noel Preston: Well this is very much a real challenge, an even bigger challenge than the one we've tried to meet through a document like the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. That was difficult enough, and the Earth Charter's got a broader brief than that. So sure, it is difficult.

It begs the philosophical questions about whether there really are universal values. I would be the first to acknowledge and name that this is problematic. At the same time, I think there are universal values, there are some things that count for all of us, human and non-human. However, that mustn't fly in the face of the fact that cultures, nations, groups have developed with specific traits, norms and values and religions and so on, and these need to be respected. So the trick around a global ethics statement focused on sustainability is to both respect cultural diversity and at the same time to name universal aspirations.

Let's be clear what the Earth Charter is - it's 61 clauses, propositions, affirmations, aspirations. It's not a whole argument or a fully-blown theology or philosophy. It's not a belief system. It's also limited because its aspirations are fairly general propositions. There is need for another level of ethical propositions that we might call "middle axioms", that sit between these universal aspirations and practical policy in particular contexts.

David Busch: Dr Noel Preston. But there's plenty of scope for a collision of values. Take the thorny question of population. The Charter contains just one sentence on this, advocating universal access to health care which fosters what it calls "reproductive health and responsible reproduction". Does this imply criticism of, say, the Catholic Church which opposes artificial birth control even in populous developing countries? Here's Ella Antonio, Asia Pacific area manager of the Earth Council, based in the Philippines.

Ella Antonio: The Earth Charter is a universal code of conduct. As a universal code it has to be applicable to all forms, all societies, and therefore it cannot take sides. What can happen is that, as I always tell others whenever I do briefings on the Earth Charter, is for them to localise the Earth Charter, adopt it in their own community or country or sector. That way, they're guided, they have a framework, the Earth Charter framework, but it doesn't mean that they will abandon their beliefs.

In the case of the Philippines when you talk about population, it's a ticklish issue, as you know, it's a controversial issue. But I believe also in respecting the rights of others, respecting the views of others, but also in differentiated responsibility. I mean the person is responsible for his actions. So for as long as that person is guided by the Earth Charter, guided by whatever beliefs he is adopting or religion he adopts, then I think that should guide him. I don't believe in proscribing, I don't believe in imposing. I believe in advising people, and then respecting their views after that advice is given.

David Busch: So you see no particular conflict between the Earth Charter and the Catholic Church's stand on population?

Ella Antonio: No, not at all. I don't see any conflict in that.

David Busch: But Dr Noel Preston reads the Earth Charter differently.

Noel Preston: I would argue that, at the end of the day, its clear affirmation of respect for life and yet its clear affirmation of respect for the diversity of life, its clear affirmation of the need for sustainability, all point to restraint and restriction for the human species in the way we are dominating the Earth. And that a big part of that has to be population control.

I'm not sure that I would say it directly challenges those religious positions that are opposed to birth control, for example, but I think it provides the parameter in which the discussion can be addressed. And I do have to say that, as an ethicist and indeed as a global citizen, the inference that I draw from the Earth Charter on that question is that birth control is a necessary ethical exercise if we are to live in harmony with the Earth as a human species.

David Busch: Dr Noel Preston. Another problematic gap between the Earth Charter's principles and practical politics is in the field of indigenous rights. The Charter affirms the right of indigenous people to their spirituality, knowledge, lands and resources and to their related practice of sustainable livelihoods. But at the opening of the Brisbane conference, local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner, Patricia Thompson, indicated that indigenous people were looking for more.

Fade up speech

Patricia Thompson: the land, the seas, and the waters and all that they contain. The most important thing for us about the charter is how it affects our rights - principally the power to give or withhold our consent on land use. This is a normal right any landholder enjoys, but we have had to rely on special legislation to enjoy this right. We are encouraged that the principles of the Earth Charter stress recognition, participation and negotiation.

Ultimately the success of the Earth Charter will depend on the respect that all parties demonstrate towards each other. Our right to manage our own lands and to make our own decisions must be part of that respect. It is time that international law is used to give recognition to indigenous rights and titles over our lands and adjacent waters.

FX: Applause

David Busch: ATSIC Commissioner, Patricia Thompson. But perhaps the Earth Charter is already too specific for some indigenous societies, where Charter principles of gender equality and participatory democracy could cut across traditional patterns of society and culture. Wep Kanawi is the national program director for the Nature Conservancy in Papua New Guinea, and an advocate for indigenous rights.

Wep Kanawi: I think that the Earth Charter is going to have to really come down to basics and start looking at what basically makes each of the tribal or each of the local communities in every place on Earth tick. And that means having to respect some of the laws, and some of these laws are actually intricately woven into nature.

I mean, women do gardening - that's really part of the accepted natural systems. It's not to say that women's rights are not being respected, but it's really the way it is, and you go and ask the traditional societies themselves - they won't do anything else but that. And I think that's got to be accepted as part of the Earth Charter.

Because if the Earth wants to listen to what the Earth says and to what societies say, then people have got to be able to respect what (these traditional societies) have grown up with over hundreds and thousands of years, and that means that those things would have to actually be kept in place. Those things are actually an intricate part of what Mother Earth has provided for people and how the division of labour and things like that is actually meant to be worked out.

Noel Preston: There will be areas of conflict, and some people of course have suggested that the agenda of the Earth Charter is just another extension of that luxury that the Western world has to espouse these norms and to call for changes because life's quite comfortable for us, and it's the poor and it's those in the so-called South or Third World who have particular needs that a document like this might trample over.

David Busch: Dr Noel Preston. That's a concern also shared by Ella Antonio of the Philippines, Asia Pacific area manager of the Earth Council.

Ella Antonio: Actually, in this region - not Australia, but other countries in this region, as you know they're really poor and developing - their main concern really is to meet their basic needs, you know, whether they can eat three times a day, whether they can clothe their children, whether they will have education for their children. These are the main things that they are preoccupied with.

So they're not quite ready to look at the ethical aspects of things. Why do you think there's prostitution, you know? Parents, mothers, prostitute themselves just to provide for their children, for their families. That's why it's a little difficult for me, as one who promotes the Earth Charter, to reach out to these people.

I guess people who are in the upper echelons, you know, the higher class people, are the ones who should really internalise the Earth Charter because it's really the values and the ethical principles of the Earth Charter that these people must adopt, must internalise, must use in their everyday life. The grassroots people are mainly concerned with their basic needs and they're not really the ones who are destroying the environment, the ones who are doing the bad things - they are forced by circumstances to do something bad, to become unethical, because of poverty.

But if there is equality, if there is sharing, if there is partnership, if there is participation, then there'd be less poor, there'd be less poverty, and therefore these people may be able to grab it from the current concerns that they have and go through the more fundamental things like ethical principles.

David Busch: While the Earth Charter, then, does pick up the heart or the spirit of values and ethics and noble ideals, the political and economic realities for most countries in Asia and the Pacific is that they are struggling to survive. Their economies are very fragile, and their social and political pressures are immense. How will the Earth Charter gain traction in a region of the world which is so beset by such immediate and large problems?

Ella Antonio: Well, the reason why I actually proposed earlier that these, especially Australian, participants in this meeting try to help each other to, you know, promote the Earth Charter was because not one person can do it. It needs collective efforts, and there are just too many people in this region who need to be reached. And therefore, as I've said, we need to synergise and we need collective efforts to do that.

I, for instance, in the Philippines have been trying to promote the Earth Charter but it is not moving the way I'd like it to, mainly because, as I've said, the same concerns - lack of resources, both financial and manpower resources, to do the work, and there are other preoccupations.

I just came from Cambodia, by the way, in the regional preparatory meeting for the World Summit (on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September 2002). And in the ministerial meeting, the Indonesian Minister for the Environment endorsed the Earth Charter. And, as you know, Indonesia is a huge country and for a high-ranking official to endorse the Earth Charter is a big step forward. You know, if there is political support from the higher up, then it will be easier to reach out. So I'm saying that it may be slow, it may be difficult, but it can happen.

David Busch: Ella Antonio. But while the Indonesian Environment Minister may have endorsed the Earth Charter, how does a long-term, aspirational document find grounding in the pragmatic urgency of the political landscape, particularly in a country experiencing economic, political and social turmoil? Erna Witoelar knows the problems. She was Minister for Human Settlement and Regional Development in the Wahid Government in Indonesia, and she's on the Earth Charter International Commission.

Erna Witoelar (addressing conference): I think governments are governments all over, and I came from a previously civil society background and had a totally different image of governments before. So when I became government, then I realised that sometimes it is not that easy to implement what I've been shouting outside the government. So it is more fun to be civil society than government, I'm telling you, and I felt relieved and free after not becoming government any more.

But yet, I have also to admit that, as government, I could do more than as civil society. So that is the trade-off being inside or outside. But, I strongly believe that whatever we are fighting for, whatever it is that we want to achieve through the Earth Charter initiative, none of us can do it alone. We have to get together - government, civil society and private sector - because of our limitations.

Erna Witoelar (interview): My department at that time had the portfolio of public works, housing, water resource management and special planning, and my department was the highest foreign loan user. So, before I became government, I was against new loans. But when I entered, I saw that we had to, there's too much to do, we cannot stop building infrastructure - our infrastructure had been slowed down during the four years of crisis - we need to make roads, we need to improve the irrigation system, we need to build bridges, and we don't have our own resources so we need fresh money to do that.

And that is very depressing for me as someone from the civil society entering the government, but as government that is the most justified and logical way. Because we governments have to show success in the short term. That is always the case with any government. Our time is short. We cannot afford to go too long term. You need to show concrete results. We need to build things. And that is contrary with what the Earth Charter is trying to warn.

David Busch: Isn't that, then, a fatal problem for the Earth Charter, that it will always be unachievable in the political realm because it is so aspirational, so idealistic, and the reality of politics is it's dealing with realities on the ground, people's expectations and people's immediate needs?

Erna Witoelar: Yes, probably so. But I think we need to understand also that the time frame of political leaders and the time frame of the people, of the community, are different. So it is possible to work on the Earth Charter at the community level, at local governance level, at the lower level of the government - not the political appointees, but the bureaucrats - and so it is possible.

David Busch: Are you in fact saying that the Earth Charter will be more successful if it changes people's attitudes and hopes about life at the community level, rather than starting with government?

Erna Witoelar: Yes, yes, but I think it is also important to parallel start with the government. And with government, you can pressure from two sides. One is from the grassroots, from the people, people pressuring their governments, and one is from the UN, outside, or from donors if it's in developing countries.

Ian Lowe: The reason the Earth Charter is important is that if you don't have a set of overall principles to which you are working, pragmatic politics can make things worse rather than better. So you see governments making a whole series of ad hoc decisions, whether it's about environmental refugees or soil salinity or public transport or the health system. And because they're not within the framework of an overall vision of a just and sustainable society, they're a series of ad hoc political decisions that don't advance us towards a better world. So I think an aspiration, a vision, is really important.

I liken it to being in the bush. If you've been in the bush, you often can't see where you're going. If there's a point on the skyline towards which you're heading, then it doesn't matter that for some of the time you're out of sight of it. You know the right general direction. And in politics, often you're in the undergrowth. There needs to be a point on the skyline towards which you're aiming.

I think if you think about contemporary politics in Australia, the fundamental problem is that there is no vision of where we're trying to go in Australia, or in Australia as part of a sustainable world. So unless you have that sort of vision, you have aimless political meandering driven by ad hoc decisions of what seems to be the important issue this week.

Nature FX

David Busch: Ian Lowe, and before him, former Indonesian Cabinet minister, Erna Witoelar. This is Encounter on Radio National, I'm David Busch, and we're looking at the Earth Charter, an internationally-drafted set of ethical principles aimed at producing sustainable life on Earth.

Reading from the Earth Charter:

Four principles of democracy, non-violence and peace:
· Treat all living beings with respect and consideration.
· Promote a culture of tolerance, non-violence and peace.

David Busch: The deeper question underlying the Earth Charter is to do with personal transformation - how do you bring about real change in people's attitudes? And what's the relationship between global ethics for sustainability and the world's spiritual wisdom and religious traditions? Dr Kamla Chowdrey, Earth Charter Commissioner from India, and Lutheran theologian Dr Norm Habel of Adelaide.

Norm Habel: If one reads the Earth Charter simply straight through, it doesn't seem on the surface to have a strong spiritual base necessarily. But there are those who work with and developed it who argue that there needs to be behind that kind of overall set of dreams and visions for the Earth an underlying spiritual concern that we discover something about the spiritual dimension of all in the world as well.

So the focus is a vision of a world that is at peace and in harmony and sustaining the Earth, a remarkable vision which, it is argued, does also need a spiritual base as well.

David Busch: Is there inherent in that, then, a suggestion that the world's religions - which have tried to provide both that religious and spiritual meaning and connection with the Earth and the community of life, and an ethical framework for living - that those religious systems have failed?

Norm Habel: Well, I think it's both a "yes and". In many ways, Christianity with which I'm familiar certainly has failed in some ways. We've had a very strong belief that human beings were created in the image of God and then given the right, in fact the mandate, to actually go out and rule over the animal world and then subdue the Earth. Now that kind of mandate, while not followed by everybody, was certainly a significant part of Western thought, and I believe that Western thought, along with other forces, has been influenced by Christianity in such a way that a lot of the destruction of the Earth is at the foot of the world's religions and we need to come to terms with what we've done to the Earth as well as what we might do in the future.

Kamla Chowdrey: With the rise of science and technology, there has been a phenomenal rise of violence everywhere. We have raped the soil and denigrated the ecosystems, and in the process we have lost touch with our own inner self, and the sense of the sacredness of the Earth, and all that which nourishes our spirituality and sustains us.

It is not more scientific studies, nor more conferences, that will lead us to change our lifestyle. We will need the Earth Charter's guidance, but even moreso we will need an inner change, an inner conversion. If we want to remake our civilisation, which is what the Earth Charter is all about, we must remake it around what is the spirit within us? It is because we are violent inside that our environment is dying all around us.

If the Earth Charter is to become a reality, we must learn how to change oneself before changing others - that our real enemies are within, our greed and our fears. It is spirituality that we need to bring centre stage if we wish to have real change and real transformation to take place.

Norm Habel: Religions work for many people, but it's very easy for religions to become personal, individual and local, instead of saying my religion is somehow or another also concerned about not just other people, people in need, but my religion is to be concerned about this Earth.

I have an expression that I use frequently called "heavenism". "Heavenism" is, for me, that belief that what's really important is God in heaven, making, as it were, heaven our important home instead of Earth our home; viewing the Earth as disposable. In the end, the Earth is going to come to an end, that's what we've thought, this is just matter, and so it doesn't really matter what happens to it.

I believe we need a whole new orientation here, that has us recognise the Earth as a spiritual entity as much as it is a material entity. Something that is really a sacred site in this cosmos.

Kamla Chowdrey: I use these words interchangeably, actually. Ethics to me is religion, religion to me is spirituality. I don't even believe in a God, actually, but moral concerns are terribly important and I think should be at the centre of the growth of societies.

David Busch: You say you don't believe in a God, so what kind of spirituality, then, would you see needs to lie at the heart of the changes that people and societies need to make?

Kamla Chowdrey: I would say the heart of spirituality is truth and non-violence and compassion, and that would, in fact for me, be the sum total of spirituality, the core of it. If you believe in truth, if you believe in compassion, you move ahead, I think, in a better world.

Norm Habel: All societies, all groups, all communities and religious groups as well, all need to take a look at this and say, "How are we going to follow this? Is this indeed the dream of our own faith? And, if it is, we need to take a look at it closely and we need to find a way to find a spiritual basis for us to motivate ourselves to be concerned about the Earth.

David Busch: Do you see the Earth Charter as an avenue for the renewal of religion in some way?

Norm Habel: I think yes, in many cases it is. One of the significant things that's been happening in my context is that we've been having Earth liturgies - liturgies in which the focus is on an awareness that you are in this Earth, that the Earth is part and parcel of the worshipping community. And that when you do worship, you don't simply live inside four walls and close out most of Creation, but the rest of Creation is part and parcel of the whole way in which we're supposed to live, to which we're supposed to relate, and part of our worshipping community.

Music up: Earth Charter theme song

David Busch: Dr Norm Habel, who wrote the words to this Earth Charter theme song. We also heard from Dr Kamla Chowdrey of India.

Reading from the Earth Charter:

The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for Earth and one another, or risk the destruction of ourselves and the diversity of life. Fundamental changes are needed in our values, institutions and ways of living. To realise these aspirations, we must decide to live with a sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole Earth community as well as our local communities. Every individual, family, organisation and community has a vital role to play.

Noel Preston: We mustn't expect too much of the Earth Charter. Merely stating your aspirations, putting them on a piece of paper, doesn't necessarily translate into any change at all. But I would want to argue that, throughout history, documents of aspirations - whether we're talking about the Magna Carta, the American Declaration of Independence, or the Declaration of Human Rights - documents have been powerful tools in social change. I think that the Earth Charter has that potential.

Ian Lowe: I think the Earth Charter is the best explication of a framework for sustainability because, fundamentally, it wasn't developed by governments. It was developed by individuals and community groups, and it has a wide basis of support. It's not just a document that's come from North America or Western Europe - it's come from Latin America and the Caribbean, it's come from Africa, it's come from South-East Asia. It has broadly-based community support right around the world.

I think the political leaders have failed us, but the Earth Charter is a hope that the ordinary people will do it for themselves.

David Busch: Those comments from Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe, school teacher Doug Hammonds, and ethicist Dr Noel Preston conclude this Encounter, "Values for the Blue Planet". My thanks to all who took part, to Teresa Holland for readings from the Earth Charter, and to Jim Ussher for technical production. I'm David Busch.

Music fades


David Busch