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Johannesburg and the Summit
The city of Johannesburg, South
Africa, will be the epicenter of discussion and debate
for two weeks, as it is hosting a key international
meeting, the World Summit on Sustainable Development,
which is to draw tens of thousands of delegates from
around the world.
This Summit, convened by the
United Nations, is expected to bring together at least
100 heads of state and a total of 65,000 delegates,
according to organizers' estimates. For the host city
the event poses an opportunity and a challenge.
Beyond the meetings and panel
discussions during the Summit itself, the city has
had to face a long preparation process, including
building infrastructure and developing a strategy
for dealing with the influx of so many visitors in
a short period of time.
The Johannesburg Summit Company
was created to handle the preparations for the conference,
which is also known as Rio+10, as it is taking place
a decade after the last world environmental meet of
this magnitude, also organized by the UN, in Rio de
Janeiro in 1992.
The Johannesburg city authorities,
who have a web site with information on the pre-summit
groundwork, report that two weeks before the arrival
of the delegates, more than 43,000 hotel rooms have
been reserved. The organizers are also working with
local families to provide housing for 7,000 more visitors.
This South African city is 115
years old, founded in 1886. It is a mining and industrial
center, with a population of 3.8 million residents
(1998). An Internet site providing figures about the
city states that 40 percent of the population is younger
than 24, and 72 percent is black.
The Internet is an important
source of information for travelers heading to South
Africa for the Summit. In addition to information
specific to the conference, one can find Johannesburg
tourism guides, weather reports and other services
available in the city, set 2,000 meters above sea
level.
Johannesburg
World Summit Company
World
Summit on Sustainable Development
Joburg:
Official site of the city of Johannesburg
Johannesburg
by Numbers
Earthsummit2002:
suggestions for travellers
UN-Cyberschoolbus:
Johannesburg profile
Ananzi:
Portal about South Africa
Johannesburg:
services guide
Biological Corridors
The
concept of a biological or ecological corridor entails
preserving the connections between protected areas
with important biodiversity with the aim of preventing
the fragmentation of natural habitats. Today these
corridors are being promoted as an innovative way
to promote sustainable development as well as conservation.
A search for information on the
Internet about this type of natural conservation project
shows that the most talked about initiative today
is the Meso-American
Biological Corridor, which covers the countries
of Central America and the southern Mexican states.
But it is not the only effort of this kind.
There are natural corridor projects
under way in Brazil's Amazon
and Atlantic forests, in the Andean zones of Ecuador
(in Spanish) and Peru, and some smaller initiatives
in Argentina and the United States. While most of
the biological corridors mentioned on the Internet
are located in the Americas, other regions are following
this route, such as in the Black
Sea region and in Bhutan.
A web site that explains
the term "corridor", as it is used in
the biological sense, states that this nomenclature
dates back to the 1930s, though it was not until the
1960s that it was proposed as a way of uniting nature
preserves or other areas to protect species diversity.
The corridors should permit an
increase in the size and possibilities for survival
of the smaller populations of species, according to
the web site. But to be effective, these corridors
must be well designed.
The fundamental goal of biological
corridors is the conservation of ecosystems.
A Brazilian web
page states that corridors encompass areas of
exceptional biodiversity. One such case is the Brazilian
Atlantic forest, where a project has found that ecosystems
there have become "islands of nature". The
challenge of the corridors "is to re-establish
interconnection".
In the case of the Meso-American
Biological Corridor, emphasis is on preserving
a relatively small area that is nevertheless home
to a great diversity of plant and animal species.
Meso-American
Biological Corridor (In Spanish)
World
Bank Group: Pilot Program to Conserve Brazilian Rain
Forest
Ecuadorian
Biological Corridor (In Spanish)
World
Bank and Mexico in Biological Corridor
Black
Sea Ecological Corridor
Proposal
for Ecological Corridor in Puerto Rico
Towards
a Definition of Biological Corridor
Biological
Corridors in Bhutan
UN Conferences and Summits
The international conferences
and summits convened by the United Nations generate
intense mobilization around issues of global interest.
On the current agenda are two major gatherings, one
about sustainable development, the other about the
information society.
These meetings, which draw diverse
participants ranging from activists of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) to heads of state, reached a
peak in the 1990s, but continue in the 21st century:
at the end of August 2002 begins the World
Summit on Sustainable Development, in Johannesburg,
and slated for 2003 is the World
Summit on the Information Society.
The UN, which informs the world
about some of these gatherings on its web site "conferences
and events", defends the importance of such
conferences for their capacity to bring attention
to crucial socio-economic issues, guide national policies,
generate debate and the search for consensus on global
issues, and to establish goals that governments commit
themselves to achieving.
The main criticisms about these
events are based precisely on the fact that often
the promises go ignored, and the scant number of commitments
made at the outset.
These conferences have their
own customs: they are preceded by a preparatory process
to establish some level of consensus among governments.
The process includes the active participation of NGOs,
the presentation of an enormous number of documents
and intense logistical efforts to handle the thousands
of participants. In the end, the governments sign
political declarations and plans of action.
In 1990, the importance of these
meetings came to light with the World
Summit for Children, in which 71 heads of state
participated, an unprecedented number, until the 1992
Earth
Summit, in Rio de Janeiro, which drew 108 national
leaders and delegations from 170 countries.
The achievements made since the
1992 Earth Summit will be studied at the World Summit
on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+10.
A decade on, the degree of government compliance with
the commitments made is not very encouraging.
But there are those who put a
positive spin on it: the Rio Summit 10 years ago laid
out a concept that since then has permeated the international
debates on the future of our society, about sustainable
development. In reality, the greatest doubts surround
the results of the Rio+10 Summit itself, because the
preparatory process did not produce the expected consensus.
The Internet holds information
bout these and other conferences, including lists
that give an idea of the events organized in recent
years, and summaries about their outcomes.
United
Nations: Conferences and Events
1990
Children's Summit
1992
Earth Summit
World
Summit on Sustainable Development
World Summit on
the Information Society
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