THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

The theme of this year’s observance of World Environment Day, “Don’t Desert Drylands!”, reminds us all, in the International Year of Deserts and Desertification, of the importance of caring for the world’s vast areas of arid and semiarid land.

Drylands are found in all regions, cover more than 40 per cent of the Earth and are home to nearly 2 billion people -- one-third of the world’s population. For most dryland dwellers, life is hard and the future often precarious. They live on the ecological, economic and social margins. It is essential that we do not neglect them or the fragile habitats on which they depend.

Across the planet, poverty, unsustainable land management and climate change are turning drylands into deserts, and desertification in turn exacerbates and leads to poverty. It is estimated that between 10 and 20 per cent of drylands are already degraded. The problem is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, where dryland degradation is a serious obstacle to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, and is jeopardizing efforts to ensure environmental sustainability. These goals, which the world’s governments have pledged to achieve by 2015, are essential components of a broader commitment to achieve a more secure future for humankind.

There is also mounting evidence that dryland degradation and competition over increasingly scarce resources can bring communities into conflict. Furthermore, people whose livelihoods and survival depend on drylands are swelling the ranks of environmental and economic refugees who are testing the already stretched resources of towns and cities across the developing world.

Desertification is hard to reverse, but it can be prevented. Protecting and restoring drylands will not only relieve the growing burden on the world’s urban areas, it will contribute to a more peaceful and secure world. It will also help to preserve landscapes and cultures that date back to the dawn of civilization and are an essential part of our cultural heritage.

On this World Environment Day, in the 10th anniversary year of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, I urge governments and communities everywhere to focus on the challenges of life on the desert margins so the people who live there can look forward to a future of peace, health and social progress.

Environmentalism: A New Political and Social Ideology

Many years ago, on an island in the South Pacific Ocean, there was a thriving and prosperous society. The people who inhabited this island possessed a crude but effective democratic governmental system, they redistributed their wealth amongst the general population, they engaged in subsistence farming on their small but very fertile island, and they had in place a very strong religious institution. But because of this prosperity their population exploded out of control and put a huge amount of strain on their fragile ecosystem. They continued to develop and exploit increasing amounts of arable land, making it barren and empty in less than a decade. The people became hungry and restless due to their deprivation and revolted against their heads of state who, in turn, began to use increasingly violent measures to bring the population under control.
In their distress, the religious hierarchy sought to appease the gods and built gigantic stone statues as a monument to them, hoping that they may take pity and ease their circumstance. But they got worse. The island soon experienced a drought, and this became the precipitating factor for a widespread and violent revolt during which many people died. The government was overthrown but the new ruling faction failed to allocate the dwindling resources and a majority of the population starved. This once beautiful island is now sparsely populated and barren. The wind that buffets the island from the Pacific sways but a few palms left on the beaches; the only tall tress left on the island. The only evidence that a great civilization once existed there are the hundreds of tall, stone sculptures which stare blankly out into the Pacific Ocean.

The above anecdote about Easter Island is not a unique occurrence in history; many civilizations have prospered and then perished due to the failure to manage their resources effectively. Nor is the above anecdote limited to history. Many conflicts that are presently occurring on a global scale are directly or indirectly influenced by issues pertaining to the degradation of the environment and the depletion of resources. The increasingly pertinent ideology of Environmentalism and Ecologism has gained a greater following throughout the political spectrum because these issues are affecting such a large portion of the earth's population. This new ideology is becoming a pertinent force in the global political system, and this article will seek to scratch the surface of what this ‘new ideology’ entails.

The origins of what we call today Political Ecology or Environmentalism in the Western World can be traced back to the Romantic period. Many writers, thinkers, and artist from that period called for a return to the natural environment as a means of gaining spiritual and philosophical enlightenment. One of the greatest proponents of this natural mysticism was the poet William Wordsworth, who set some of his most memorable verses amidst the lakes, trees, and valleys of the English Lake District. Other literary giants such as Kelly and Yeats also called for a return to nature as the ultimate realization of the soul of man.

On the socio/political front, many writers and scholars were calling for a return to man’s natural state, one of the earliest proponents of political ecology was the social philosopher John Stuart Mill who emphasized the importance of natural beauty, pointing out that these will be destroyed by industrial growth unless measures were put into place which sought to protect these resources. Much thought was also given to the economic implications that would have caused serious negative affects to society if the environment were not protected. Malthus, a political economist, suggested in his theses that population growth as a result of industrial growth would cause a decline of food resources which would result in a majority of the population experiencing a hunger based deprivation resulting in civil unrest. This hypothesis, often called the Malthusian Curve, says that the more the population increases the more the resources that that population needs will decrease. Many political economists have disregarded this hypothesis based on the evidence that Malthus’s dire predictions have not yet happened, but his ideas are garnering renewed attention due to various crises that are occuring throut the developing world as a result of habitat destruction and improper management of national resources.

The Romantic ideas with regard to nature were a direct result of the conditions brought about by the Industrial Revolution. People who once lived in rural areas now found themselves living in industrialized big cities, far away from their ‘natural environment’ if you will. The novels of Charles Dickens are set in Industrial Era Great Britain and offer a glimpse at the harsh conditions experienced at that time.
The Industrial Revolution caused a great deal of discontent amongst the rural peoples, but the spread of industry continued on a global scale. Since then the world has been faced with increasing industrialization, not just in western countries, but also, with the affects of Globalization, in lesser-developed countries that are not able to cope with the strains put on their natural environment and resources.

The current ideology of political environmentalism saw gain in the 1960’s and 1970’s, when reactionary movements in the American West and in European industrialized cities organized themselves into now well known organizations such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club. Environmentalism has increasingly become viewed as a full-blown political ideology that argues for a managerial approach to environmental problems.

Many modern day Environmentalists see their ideology as not only a socio-economic discipline concerned with the management of resources as it pertains to population consumption and conflict. This new breed believes that it is the duty of man to protect his or her natural environment because he or she makes up an inherent part of the biological and ecological system or because religious tenants dictate that man must act as a ‘shepherd’ to the earth’s organism; the ‘Noah Hypothesis'. Environmentalists believe that man has evolved as a life form of the planet and therefore is intimately connected with all of the species that live on Earth (The Gia Hypothesis). The traditional view is that human beings are seperate from the natural environment so it is by natural right that the environment exists for exploitation for the benefit of human beings. We have inherited a planet teeming with life forms which are intimately connected by evolutionary history. This idea, called the Human Theory of Ecologism, suggests that humans have evolved with fellow life forms and are a part of the natural system and therefore share genetic material with other life forms on the planet. Human beings have evolved within, depend on, and are a part of the world of nature and because of this it is in the best interest of humans to protect the natural environment and to ensure that it continues to exist. Environmentalists argue that if the environment suffers so will humanity.

Thus the ideological base for environmentalism varies, but fundamentally calls for an ecological, non-violent, non-exploitative movement which transcends the political spectrum from left to right. The political system, like any system on the planet, is merely a part of the greater earth.

It is also impossible to neglect the changes that are occurring on our Earth. This is not only limited to major disasters that have occurred and their socio-economic after affects. The 2005 Hurricane Season and the oil crises; the 2004 Tsunami and the socio-economic crises in south-east Asia; and the economic fallout of the Benzene spill in the Harbin province of china as well as spills off of the coasts of Spain, France, and Alaska have not only impacted the environment but society as a whole. On a smaller scale, one could call local beach erosion caused by coral reef damage on beach tourism oriented economies, red tides on local fisheries, flooding due to deforestation and soil erosion, and the poaching of wild animals on wildlife sanctuaries dependant on tourism as ecological disasters in their own right. One can then assume that the ideology of environmentalism is based on a set of very gloomy facts and predictions about the current or impending environmental catastrophe.

Environmentalism is a relatively new player on the ideological scene, but it is an ideological and political force to be reckoned with. It has, however, faced opposition because of its non-human tenants, which may be new to political philosophy, but this may be the exact reason that this ideology will be extremely important in the future, taking into account that the earth is undoubtedly undergoing ecological degradation brought upon by human hands.

Easter Island is a lonely and very desolate place, but the voices of the majestic people who once inhabited the island still echo between the massive stone heads that mournfully look out to sea. These voices may be saying that one of the greatest lessons of history is not to let history repeat itself, and environmentalism may prove to be the way in which the human animal may prevent this.

Ras Bushman; “Only By Planting a Tree can we Save St Maarten”

There are few people on the island who live in complete communion with their Natural Environment as Ras Bushman does. His is the complete rootsman lifestyle; complete communion with his natural environment, a complete subsistence on the soil of the earth for existence, and a lifestyle both spiritually and physically connected with the earth. “We need the trees and the forests on this island as much as they need us. We need trees to live and vive versa. In order for us as St Maarteners to uphold our culture, we need Agriculture,” the Rastafarian elder states with a wry smile as he sat down with me one day to discuss his activities in the agricultural and environmental sector. His statement is a very pertinent one. Increasingly, both globally and locally, humans are causing rapid destruction of trees and forests in the name of development. Especially on the island, where many aspects of our natural environment have been destroyed or disregarded, there is a need for conservation efforts to be put in place which will ensure that the future generation will continue to live on a green island. Buildings are being built which in no way reflect a communion with neither nature nor a respect for our natural environment. Bushman makes this painfully clear when he told me that many of our old and stately trees have either been cut down or have died due to neglect and pollution. “In the last fifteen to twenty years the island has been build up to a crazy level,” Bushman stated, “If we don’t be careful there will only be rats, cats, and dogs running around, everyone will leave. We need to focus on planting and agriculture. Imagine something happens in Europe or America or here on the island and our tourist economy dies, we will then need to rely on the soil.”
Bushman has been a popular activist on the island, calling for a return to the soil and a conscious development amongst especially the youth of the island. He connects the disturbing trend of crime plaguing the island to the declining values experienced by the youth, and the disconnection they have to nature. “The youth are too hyped up. The main problem is that they need patience. Everything they want they want to get fast. Fast money, fast cars, fast fame. Plant a seed! In order to plant a seed one needs patience; patience to see it grow, patience to see it mature, and patience to see it bear fruit. Civilization was founded when man began to plant. Everything stems from agriculture. All society came when man planted a seed. People nowadays are to idle, so they have time to come up with other things which keep them busy. Young people especially need to become conscious of the environment and need to stop living fantasy lives. They need a love for nature, for creation, for culture. They need to learn to be themselves. If we don’t have a healthy country we will never have a healthy people. Everything nowadays is money, vanity. But this means nothing; it has nothing to do with life”
“People are crazy”, he continues, “The culture of St. Maarten was founded on the Great salt Pond for example, and look at it now. It is a scar, dead, useless. We merely continued the mistake our grandfathers have made. When we had the midges plague hit, we had to send to Bonaire for salt, imagine, to Bonaire. Back in the days we had more salt than Bonaire ever had!”
Also, the rootsman sees the development on the island as a disturbing trend; our continuous disregard for nature will ultimately come to hurt us; “many people are here on the island merely to make money. They buy the land and build on it just long enough for them to make money, and as soon as the money is made they are gone, leaving the land exhausted and dead. Faming and handling plants is a spiritual as well as a physical activity for me. All plants have a spirit and have a life, and I don’t understand how someone can choose the living over dead. Dead buildings are everywhere, they posses no life. We locals don’t have anything but our island, our soil. When things get hot on the island and people leave what will happen? We will be here stuck on the island with the deep scars people have left here.”
The Rasta man falls silent, contemplating his thoughts in his house. Bushman is a self made man, running a popular vegan restaurant at his home on the Bushroad, which serves dishes and beverages made using products he himself grew and cultivated. The sweet syncopated rhythms of reggae dance on the breeze, made by his musically gifted son, and his wife is preparing Ital (vegetarian cuisine) on a traditional coalpot, It is Saturday, Bushman’s day of rest, and he chooses his music for his radio program which will air that same evening on pearl FM.
“You know, I do all of these things because I love to”, he states, “I get no funding from government and I have to buy my own tools. I don’t know why, maybe they are prejudiced and small minded, thinking I will use the money for negative things, all the time the government official in charge of agriculture lives in ST. Kitts on a government payroll,” he laughs.
“I am a farmer because that is my spirit that is my freedom. I love the plants and trees because they are free. In this world even the animals on land and in the sea aren’t free anymore. They want to take Jah’s creatures and put them in dolphinariums while sewage flowing down the street is creating new diseases. There is no peace on the island anymore. St Maarten doesn’t feel it yet, but there are serious things happening to the island which will negatively affect us in the long run. Our only solution is to protect and farm our land or else the island will soon become a ghost town. We should plant fruit trees and crops which can feed us. I mean why plant those palm trees in Philipsburg instead of coconut trees or a mango tree. Do people want St Maarten to look like a little Las Vegas?”
Rain clouds gather in the distance, and with the promise of rain this deeply spiritual man becomes happy; “Jah is giving us blessing today, the plays will be happy”. However, he does mention how rain has come to mean something very different on the island; “You remember that big flood. It didn’t even rain hard, but the pond is filled up and the gauts are filled so the rain doesn’t have anywhere to go. People died that day! It’s a shame.”
When I asked him what he thought about the future, he simply shook his head; “All we can do is wait and see and let time tell. Sometimes I feel it is too late already. People now have the wrong mentality. The island is suffering. Already people are starting to leave. All over the Caribbean people partake in agriculture. This is the type of culture the tourists want to see. They don’t want to leave New York and meet New York. Me, I will continue my work, I will continue to tend my farm and try to make a change. In the end everyone will have to answer in front of Jah’s Court, especially those who build rejoice at the destruction of the island. They will all answer in front of the creator. We should stop selling our land to strangers and keep it for ourselves and plant on it. Many organizations just exist for their own benefit, they make trips abroad and all of those things, yet nothing is available for the planting of the tree.”
The interview is finished. Lunch is ready and preparations have to be made for tonight’s program. I leave Bushman feeling as if the island is doomed. On my way home I see lying in the middle of LB Scott road a seedling, some plant I cannot recognize. I bring it home and plant it in my garden. Days later I found out it is a guinep tree and I remember Bushman’s words “only by planting a tree can we save St Maarten.” I hope that I have contributed by planting my own little part of ‘agri'culture. Jah! Rastafari.

The Importance of World Environment Day

Monday, June 5th, is World Environment Day. Like the many ‘days’ of our calendar; Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Secretary’s day, Day of the Press, and yes, St Maarten’s Day, World Environment Day is a time for us humans to reflect and ponder the Earth’s environment, the threats facing it, and what we can do to alleviate some of the negative affects our society has had on our Blue Planet. In recent years there has been a renewed interest in the plight of the Earth, in no small way attributed to the disastrous calamities which we have faced on a global and local scale. Who can forget the disastrous hurricane season, the stellar gas and fuel prices, and the floods and desecration our own little island has seen in the past years. Increasingly, there is a wealth of literature, websites, and television programs available to us which deal with these issues. For example, on our little island there is a promising and sobering response to the unchecked and unrestrained development St Maarten has seen in the past and which it is still undergoing. From websites which act as forums for discussion amongst locals and visitors on environmental issues, to organizations which act solely as non-profit organizations and which are run by the blood, sweat, and tears of volunteers who work for free just to see an improvement on the island, St Maarten has slowly become aware that things are occurring which we may regret later on. However, the disturbing fact is that in a perfect world, or on a perfect island for that matter, there would be no need for any organizations or foundations. St. Maarteners would take pride in their little tropical paradise, and the unrestrained development and the pollution this accompanies would not be occurring at such breakneck speed. The mentality of us islanders needs to change. How many times have you driven in traffic and thrown a piece of garbage or a beer bottle out of your car window? When you eat your Saturday barbecue do you sometimes think where your Styrofoam containers end up (Styrofoam takes thousands of years to degrade, if at all)? When you drive past the Great Salt Pond or the Lagoon do you sometimes feel sad or upset, or do you merely shrug your shoulders? When you smoke a cigarette or eat a chicken leg on the beach do you toss it on the sand or throw it in the Garbage? When you see a whole hillside cleared and beaches and reefs damaged because of the construction of more high-rise condos or marinas do you rejoice in the name of development our does your heart bleed? These are all questions which are not only important to the island but also on a personal and sociological level. How can a society take pride in itself if it has no pride for its cultural and natural environment? On our road to a Separate Status, what will become of our Lagoon, Ponds, Hillsides, Trees, Beaches, and Reefs? Hence, what will become of our children, our identity, our culture, our pride?
The theme for this year’s World Environment Day is desertification. As stated on the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) website, http://www.unep.org/wed/2006/english/
The planet is facing an unprecedented amount of desertification due to the effects of global warming and deforestation. Whole regions of the Earth are turning into arid and desolate landscapes, supporting little life and causing political and social instability. Deforestation and the effects of global warming are causing millions of people in the world to suffer from water shortages, floods, and other climatic nightmares. Areas which were once lush and green are now hot, dry, deserts. Recently, in Kenya, the worst drought in recent years has killed thousands of people and tens of thousands of livestock. When it did rain and the lakes finally filled up, children died because they where infected with diseases caused by drinking water contaminated with the rotting carcasses of animals at the bottom of the lakes and rivers. A recent special edition of Time Magazine rang the doomsday bell when it predicted that new diseases and more powerful climactic phenomena (hurricanes, tornadoes etc.) will arise due to desertification and climate change.
Similarly, here on our little island the cutting and clearing of land, poor urban planning, and the filling up of our catchment basins have proved disastrous to the future economic development of St Maarten and has left deep scars amongst its population. Who can forget the disastrous flood of July 30th 2005? Did it really rain that hard on that day? Did it rain harder than it has in the past? The answer is no, but since most of our natural catchment basins are filled up, and there are less and less trees available to stop eroding hillsides and thus landslides, there are now still families who suffer economic loss because of a few hours of rain. And more tragically, there are families who still mourn the passing of loved ones due to the results of unchecked urban development and deforestation. We should be worried, very worried in fact, at the approach of the impending hurricane season. When our island has to pay millions in disaster relief in the future instead of the couple of thousands now to proactively alleviate the problem of poor rain water runoff, the economic sector will crumble and fall, and us islanders will be left to pick up the pieces. This was painfully made clear during the hurricanes in the Gulf Coast last August. If the Federal and Local governmental agencies in the US listened to the warnings made by scientist and conservationist about the levee strength along the Mississippi river and spent those few millions of dollars to upgrade them, that region would not have to cope with the billions upon billions of dollars now needed to rebuild New Orleans, not to mention the almost two thousands lives which were neglectfully lost.
There are people who do strive to make a difference. As previously mentioned, the various organizations, foundations, and individuals on the island, many of which do not get any funding from government and whose volunteers simply act on goodwill, are trying to make this island a better place for its current and future residents. Globally there are also institutions which strive for the health of our planet and subsequently us. Now Nobel Peace Prize and Pulitzer Prize laureates such as Dr. Jarred Diamond, who writes on the collapse of civilizations due to ecological disregard, and Dr. Wangari Mathaai, first African Woman to win a Nobel and whose Green Belt Movement empowered thousands of poor African Women to plant millions of trees, are actively engaged in making the Earth livable again. Other organizations such as UNEP, WWF, and the World Conservation Society seek to ensure that we do not suffer by our own hands while the earth is dying. Similarly, we here on St Maarten must also ensure that we don’t suffer by our own hands simply because environmental stability translates itself into economic, social, and political stability. Yes, Monday, June 5th is World Environment Day, but it is up to us to ensure that that Day is in fact an ingrained idea in our collective island mentality, not just one day out of the year to connect and care deeply for our Mother Earth.