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Environmental Issues at "Anti-Davos"
Forum
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Another World Possible? |
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By Mario Osava*
Leaders
and representatives from social movements around the world are to
meet in Brazil to debate ecological alternatives to what has been
called the ''exclusive globalization'' promoted by the World Economic
Forum, held annually in Davos, Switzerland
RIO DE JANEIRO - Environmental problems figure
among the controversial points on the agenda of the World Social
Forum, which from Jan 25 to 30 will make Porto Alegre, in southern
Brazil, the international capital for those who seek to build alternative
strategies for global development.
Delegates from non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) and social movements, politicians and trade unionists are
to take part in the meeting, known as the ''anti-Davos'' because
it is the contraposition to the options considered by the World
Economic Forum, which annually draws corporate executives, financiers
and government leaders to a conference in Davos, Switzerland.
Porto Alegre will see the arrival of personalities
like the eco-feminist writer from India, Vandana Shiva, US linguist
Noam Chomsky, the president of the France Liberté association, Danielle
Mitterrand, and the independence leader of East Timor and Nobel
Peace Prize winner, Jose Ramos Horta.
It involves leaders and groups with links to
the political left and center-left, who are attempting to build
a broad, worldwide organization to take on what they consider the
''exclusive globalization'' process imposed by the big capitalists
who meet in Davos and to prove that ''another world is possible,''
the theory adopted as a the meeting's slogan.
With origins dating back to the early 1970s,
the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum unites the top 1,000
multinational corporations of the planet, defines itself as an independent,
non-profit foundation that favors globalization, economic growth
and social progress, and serves as a consultant to the United Nations.
In open opposition, the World Social Forum
in Brazil is an endeavor to define orientations and joint actions
''in the fight against neo-liberalism,'' said Miguel Rossetto, vice-governor
of Rio Grande do Sul and organizer of the forum on behalf of the
state an municipal governments.
The variety of interests, areas of activity,
cultures and doctrines of the participants does not bode for immediate,
concrete results from the ''anti-Davos,'' say observers.
This is just a ''first meeting, with plurality
and a variety of urgent matters,'' which will launch a process and
make progress in organization, Rossetto told Tierramérica. The idea
is to repeat the meeting on an annual basis, coinciding with the
Davos forum.
But it is already possible to achieve consensus
on environmental issues as a starting point for joint action, commented
Jean-Pierre Leroy, of the Federation of Social Assistance and Educational
Institutions, a Brazilian NGO.
Access to wealth and sustainability is one
of the four thematic pillars of the panels in which internationally
known personalities and political leaders will take part, a presence
that will give the World Social Forum some weight with the communications
media.
Genetically modified products, patents for
seeds and other living organisms, the environmental impacts of globalization,
the case of the Amazon, the ecological requirements of trade, water
demands worldwide and renewable energy will all be covered in panel
discussions.
Porto Alegre was chosen to host the anti-Davos
forum because it is a city that has been governed for the last 12
years by the leftist Party of Workers, which has introduced such
innovative measures as the participatory budget, in which citizen
assemblies decide on public expenditures.
In addition, it is the capital of Rio Grande
do Sul, a state led since 1999 by Olivio Dutra, who inaugurated
a transparent, grassroots governing model when he served as mayor,
from 1989 to 1992.
The nearly 600 NGO representatives who met
last June in Geneva decided to hold the forum in Porto Alegre also
because of its environmentalist tradition and the peasant roots
of Rio Grande do Sul.
The 'gauchos,' as the state's residents are
known, are pioneers in the ''social ecology and humanist struggle''
of Brazil, stressed agronomist Sebastiao Pinheiro, professor at
the local Federal University and outspoken critic of the widespread
use of agro-chemicals.
Rio Grande do Sul is also preparing to become
a ''territory free of genetically modified organisms.
'' But that is a decision ''of the unionists,
farmers and housewives, and not of the elite,'' because the local
population has recognized the risks of such products for years,
Pinheiro affirmed.
The 'gaucho' government has called for a moratorium
on the planting of genetically modified seeds until they are proved
to be risk-free for the environment and for human health, Rossetto
pointed out.
Rio Grande do Sul is also the birthplace of
the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST, landless
rural workers' movement), which in 15 years grew to cover all of
Brazil and is known for its high-impact actions, such as massive
demonstrations and the takeover of unproductive farms and of governmental
buildings in order to drive agrarian reform.
At the Porto Alegre forum, the MST plans to
propose a global campaign that would ensure seeds are considered
the heritage of humanity, limiting their patenting and the threat
that a handful of transnational corporations monopolize seeds through
bio-prospecting projects.
The movement initiated a national campaign
against transgenic seeds, highlighting their risks for human health
and the environment as well as the damage they could inflict on
food security.
Several transnationals genetically sterilize
the plants, forcing the farmer to ''buy new seeds every year at
the price the company decides,'' affirmed Joao Pedro Stedile, MST
leader.
Rio Grande do Sul's ''ecological farmers''
will take three claims to the forum, announced their spokesman,
Pinheiro.
The first refers to discrimination against
farmers in developing countries by pressures from the chemical industry.
While the European Union adopted strict rules in 1991 for the application
of farm chemicals, in Brazil some highly toxic pesticides were categorized
as merely ''moderately dangerous".
Transnationals export lower-quality products
to the developing South. As a result, 95 percent of agro-chemical
poisonings occur in these ''peripheral countries,'' affirmed Pinheiro.
The farmers will also make demands against
the environmental certification of agricultural products, a service
that requires technology and as a result is almost always provided
by companies from wealthy nations.
This certification process adds costs that
cut into the South's competitive ability on the world market and
completely disregards the ethics of the individual farmer and the
relation of trust with the consumer built over the years, a dynamic
that by-passes intermediaries, Pinheiro said.
The third MST denunciation alludes to genetically
modified organisms, charging that these products enslave farmers
to the power of the corporate seed owners.
Leroy and his NGO, in association with groups
from Chile and Uruguay, plan to hold a workshop in Porto Alegre
about sustainability and democracy in the Southern Cone of South
America. The organizers intent to expand the bases of Mercosur (Southern
Common Market) and other integration projects in order to overcome
the limiting frameworks of the market and of international trade.
It is essential, for example, to prevent ''an
energy strategy that is based on industrial consumption,'' which
puts the people's and the environment's needs in second place, Leroy
stated.
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