Earth Summit a Trap for South NGOs

paris, dec 21 1991(ips) -- as a four-day international congress of non-governmental organisations (ngos) ended late friday, delegatesexpressed serious concerns about the event and its contribution to an environment and development summit next year.

southern delegates and indigenous peoples' representatives at the 'roots of the future' conference at la villette, paris, criticised the structure of the conference, held to prepare common positions for next june's united nations conference on environment and development (unced) in rio de janeiro, brazil.

and nicholas hilyard, co-editor of the magazine 'the ecologist' urged ngos to boycott the rio unced 'earth summit' unless the basic issues important to ngos are addressed in the unced process. he said friday that by joining the unced process the ngos may be walking into a trap.

hilyard feared the developed world would use the involvement of southern ngos in unced to legitimise a process designed to save the developed world from taking responsibility for their destructive economic policies.

prior to the closing of the conference, delegates from the south issued a joint statement of concern about the nature and outcome of the event, funded by the french government to the tune of five million french francs (one million u.s.dollars).

they complained about the rigid structure of the conference, which precluded flexible debate and cohesive statements on principles of economic, cultural and developmental domination.

the delegates fear that these shortcomings will lessen the ngos' chances of influencing preparations for the earth summit with the final conference results.

hilyard warned that ngos were missing more fundamental issues relating to the unced process. ''the ngos (participating in the paris conference) have not asked why governments are holding unced. they have not asked what the agenda of unced will be.''

the agenda of unced is not to deal with environmental problems, stressed hilyard. the real motive of governments in holding the earth summit is to distance themselves from the problems they have caused, he said.

in an open letter to ngos at the paris meeting, he wrote: ''it seems clear from the (preparatory committees) that national governments are determined to sideline the issues that have been central to the work of ngos over the past 20 years''.

as a consequence, the unced summit, far from helping to resolve the global problems of environment and development, will only serve to exacerbate them, hilyard wrote.

concern has been raised that the unced process is increasing the authority and control of national governments and inter-governmental agencies over natural resources at the expense of local communities and affected people.

according to hilyard, crucial issues concerning popular rights to land and other natural resources are not being addressed by the unced process. instead, they are being sidelined as the internal affairs of sovereign governments.

talk of land reform is being avoided, he said, even though it is well known that land distribution and the distortion of systems of land tenure are closely related to international trade and aid relations, and have a direct and immediate bearing on land use, poverty and environmental degradation.

only token consideration is being paid to the issue of popular participation in decision-making, he added. ''if the unced avoids dealing with the issues of popular rights to and control of resources, and instead only finds means to secure the authority of governmental institutions, then it will only further entrench the power of those who have so far led us to the brink of ruin,'' hilyard said.

prior to the closing of the conference, delegates from the south and indigenous groups issued a joint statement of concern about the nature and outcome of the event.

the joint delegations of the south said the structure of the did not allow the flexibility for the kind of communication needed to express the real concerns of the delegates.

secondly, the south delegates said the conference agenda did not allow joint discussion of issues such as the international economic order, dominant development models, cultural domination and poverty.

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