People's Commission on Environment and Development
Information package now available

The People's Commission on Environment and Development (PCED) was launched in August 1990 as a forum for NGOs and individuals to exchange information and provide inputs on a national basis to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED'92).  Public hearings were held in various parts of the country, including Bangalore, Auroville, Bhubaneshwar, Jammu, Bombay and Vadodra.  PCED undertook to compile all material gathered at the hearings, prepare status papers and reports based on the proceedings, and to help evolve a national perspective on global environmental issues.  The aim of the PCED was also to encourage citizen participation, evolve communication/media concepts, and generate awareness in people regarding human survival values.

A folder of the nine PCED hearings, plus proceedings form the Eco Forum'92, is now available as a complete information package.  The People's Commission has achieved the mammoth task of enabling and catalysing information exchange between various people all over India.

Problems typical of urbanisation and other developmental processes were simply stated by one of the participants at the very first hearing conducted in Bangalore.  Consider the following:

"today in our cities we get plastic flowers instead of natural flowers."

How telling this statement is--------and a far cry from our rich culture and tradition based on nature.

We must revive and spread our traditional reverence for nature.  For, as heard at the Jammu hearing:

"We are all of the earth, and if we do not treat her like a mother and take care of her like her sons [would], she will not be a mother to us anymore."

Our planets has to be carefully nurtured in an act of inter-generational caring.  As Dr. Karan Singh, Chairman of PCED, reminds us:

"We must never forget that we have borrowed this environment from our children, and have not inherited it for ourselves".

The information folder (and the PCED initiative itself) does not propound national or global solutions......What it does do is document the experiences of people across the country and facilitate communication as a first step towards collectively resolving our environmental problems and effecting the transformation to sustainable development.

"O purifying One, may my thrust never
reach right unto your vital points, your heart!"
also from Hymn to the Earth
Source : Atharva Veda


by Radhika Ranjan

"When the bough breaks": A film review

52 minutes, English
Produced and directed by Lawrence Moore and Robbie Stamp

There are nearly six billion people on Earth today - two billion of them, children under the age of 16.  In the next 10 years another one-and-a-half billion will be born into a world whose resources are already under enormous pressure.

"I feel ashamed when I think that I have in some way contributed to this [sewage]", says a student in the USA.

Forests are disappearing.........we're losing land....the sea level is rising....air is becoming more and more polluted....we've heard it all before.

We understand.  We are concerned.  But we are helpless.  
We adult citizens of the world have given up hope.  We've become cynics.

"But we've got to start somewhere", reasons a child.  "We're the ones who are going to end up with this world, aren't we?"

In Sudan, human beings are reduced to skeletons.  Victims of war and drought, they walk for weeks across the desert to arrive at the refugee camps at the Sudan-Ethiopia border.

In Bolivia "a baby in its mothers womb is already sold", to pay the huge foreign debt of the nation.

And in the midst of all this pollution, poverty and hunger, our population is increasing at an alarming rate.

How much more can the Earth take?  How long?!....before the bough breaks?

This compelling film, made by Central TV in the UK, not only depicts environment and the development problems around the globe, but makes a searing indictment of the politics of poverty.

"A quarter of a million children die every week form easily preventable diseases".  Yet"the money that the American companies spend on cigarette advertisements could prevent most child deaths in the developing countries".

This is a world where the children may have no tomorrow......no clean water, no fresh air.......not even dreams.

Nine year old Pavitra lives in India.  Her daily routine includes fetching water, collecting firewood, cooking, washing, cleaning, and taking care of her younger brother.  She hopes to go to college some day.  But this is an almost impossible dream.  Her parents are too poor, women are still underprivileged, and nobody seems to care.

For this landmark documentary, producers Moore and Stamp worked with film makers all over the world to explore how children's lives are affected by environmental problems: toxins in Poland, unsafe water and disease in India, drought and global warming in Sudan, debt in Bolivia, and consumerism in the USA and UK.

The film uses effective graphics coupled with sensitive handling of the issues.  Its appeal is universal and the issues are sensitively handled by local film makers from different parts of the world.  This film would interest all those who are concerned about environment and development issues.

by Vismita Gupta

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A New Logo for IUCN

The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN -The World Conservation Union) was founded in 1949.  It is an independent alliance of  700 member organisations, including governments, governmental agencies, and non-governmental organisations form 119 countries.  The mission of IUCN is "to provide leadership and promote a common approach for the world conservation movement in order to safeguard the integrity and diversity of the natural world, and to ensure that human use of natural resources is appropriate, sustainable and equitable".

Development Alternatives functions as a resource center for specific work to IUCN by giving policy advice, suggesting consultants,and participating in the formulation of workplans.  Dr. Ashok Khosla, President of Development Alternatives, is the IUCN Regional Councillor for West Asia, and three of our staff are members of the Commission for Environmental Strategy and Planning of IUCN.

A new IUCN logo was endorsed earlier this year at the IUCN Council (Gland, May 4-6, 1992).  This is an important step, and the design selected is the product of a long and careful process, involving numerous design groups and extensive review.  The final design selected is a simple letter block, without the use of any other visual symbol - a clean, clear and potentially very powerful identity.

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