Strong Treaties Elude Even Activists at Earth Summit

Dissatisfied with the official accords being produced at the Earth Summit, environmental activists from around the world planned to set their governments an example by churning out dozens of strong treaties containing measures they would take to attack the planet’s ills.

Instead, the activists negotiating the largely symbolic pacts at a side summit here are embracing the kinds of positions they faulted their governments for espousing and, in the process, are fighting just as bitterly.

Take an accord on environmentally sound agriculture. In the sweltering heat of a large tent erected in an outdoor park, the activists haggled over an American’s suggestion that the treaty call on groups around the world to work toward a 50% reduction in pesticide use by the year 2000.

Multilingual participants listened to translations on headsets, just like those used by the official delegates at the United Nations-sponsored summit 25 miles away.

The pesticide goal did not enthuse activists from poor countries, where hunger is a far more pressing problem than agricultural chemicals. The target was finally dropped.

“The idea is to have a treaty general enough so that people can sign it,” said Roger Blobaum, associate director of a U.S.-based group that promotes organic farming and other environmentally sensitive agricultural practices.

Throughout the summit, environmental groups have condemned government negotiators for compromising on vague, weak treaties. But the irony of resorting to similar measures at their own summit appears to have escaped many of them.

Like the official delegations, activists often have been divided along geographical lines--those from developing countries aligned against those from the industrialized world.

The poorer groups want their richer counterparts to share their funds. The richer groups are resisting, citing the recession, among other considerations.

American environmental groups, which have lambasted President Bush for refusing to sign a major conservation treaty at the official summit, are themselves not planning to sign all of the activists’ pacts.

“I have been a little bit disappointed,” said Navroz Dubash, a policy analyst for the Environmental Defense Fund, a major American environmental group. “We were too much like the governments, nit-picking over words and phrases rather than discussing the actual concepts.”

Many of the activists’ accords commit the participants to lobby for change, adjust their lifestyles to reflect environmental concerns and collect and share information on ecological problems.

Some activist groups have asked their attorneys to look over the documents to ensure that they would not be legally binding if signed, said an environmentalist who did not want to be identified.

One of the treaties dwells on recognition of the “historical, ecological and cultural debt” the industrialized countries in the North owe to the poor nations in the South.

“So how many Northerners are going to sign that one?” asked Barbara Bramble, a National Wildlife Federation attorney who is helping coordinate the non-governmental summit.

During negotiations, groups from the poorer countries--referred to as the “South” in U.N. parlance--have accused Northern activists of arrogantly entering their countries and pushing for environmental projects that fail to consider the economic needs of the local populace.

“The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund (which have overseas projects) have had a bad rap,” Bramble said. “They have gone around telling other people what to do instead of asking people what they need.”

American environmentalists are learning during these talks that some of their ecological zeal abroad has not always been appreciated.

Bramble noted that successful efforts by American environmentalists and others to prevent a U.S.-based multinational corporation from drilling for oil in a national park in Ecuador backfired. The American company pulled out but was replaced by a national corporation with a far worse environmental record, she said.

Activists from poorer nations also resent attempts by environmental groups to negotiate “debt-for-nature” swaps, in which foreign debt is forgiven in return for creating a natural reserve or other environmental projects. In the eyes of the Southern groups, the debt was contracted illegally and should not even be recognized.

“Some people here are having their eyes very much opened,” Bramble said.

Southern activists bristle when their Northern counterparts dwell only on environmental issues in the talks. They want to discuss development as well and suspect that environmental reform may be just, in Bramble’s words, “a plot to keep them down.”

Northern environmentalists roll their eyes and stalk out of meetings when activists from poorer nations launch into harangues about their oppression at the hands of the industrialized world.

Although most groups from the industrialized nations are environmental activists, many from other countries focus more heavily on poverty and community development. The talks also include religious and education groups, indigenous peoples and women’s organizations.

“The Northern groups are perceived as arrogant, impatient, ready to walk out at the first sign of a long speech, irritated when someone can’t speak English, possessing no understanding of where their countries are and presuming to give advice to folks who are dealing with survival issues,” Bramble said.

Because of such tensions, treaty-making is proving nearly as difficult for the activists as it has been for governments. Of more than 31 pacts being negotiated at the shadow summit, as many as half may not be completed in time for signature this week.

Just as delegates to the official summit from developing countries are demanding that industrialized nations devote 0.7% of their gross national product to aid, activists in poorer countries want the more well-to-do groups to give them 1% of their budgets.

Bramble said some environmental groups might hold special fund-raisers to help the poorer activists, “but nobody can hand over 1% of their budget right now because they are using it.”

Even the activists’ deliberations over a mechanism for distributing assistance mirror the wrangling taking place at the Earth Summit.

Northern groups, worried about possible corruption, want some accountability for contributions, just as industrialized nations with similar concerns want to funnel their aid through existing institutions.

The activists are considering creating an “Earth People’s Fund” overseen by such trusted figures as the Dalai Lama.

Beyond the conflict, the shadow summit also has been hampered by lack of money. The sound system was abruptly disconnected last Thursday by a disgruntled contractor who feared he would not be paid. One of the environmentalists in charge has been accused of stealing funds, a charge he and other organizers vigorously deny.

But even with the difficulties, environmentalists say the talks have been useful. Groups have become acquainted; activists have learned negotiating skills, and pacts, even though vaguely worded in many cases, are completed or in the works on everything from climate change to waste disposal.

An agreement on global warming calls on groups to push industrialized nations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide--the prime culprit in climate change--to 25% below 1990 levels by the year 2000. Governments have agreed only to push for stabilization of emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.

“People are people, and the pressures they operate under are more similar than we would like to admit,” said Mark Valentine, a director of an American consortium of environmental, educational and religious groups. “But this does set a precedent of moving non-governmental organizations off a historically reactive pose to a proactive one.”

As the side summit winds down, Bramble is busy trying to collect treaties and organize signing ceremonies. Seated on Tuesday night in a tent that serves as a headquarters for the effort, she spied a little Latino boy tearing off a document from a bulletin board.

“No, no,” she shouted angrily, rushing over to stop the child. The boy’s mother stiffened, her eyes flashing fury as she turned on Bramble.

“Imperialista!” she hissed.