14 August 2002
Jakarta (ASEAN Features) -- Chaerudin gives a blank stare when asked what the term "sustainable development" means. However, the Jakarta small banana grower provides an apt answer when asked what his working philosophy is. "Nature is not an inheritance from our forefathers. It is something that our grandchildren have entrusted us to take care," the fruit grower believes. Chaerudin, 48, explains he will ensure that his grandchildren can enjoy also the bananas he grows and the singing birds he hears.
Sustainable development is a big phrase that means the same thing. The 1987 Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, the Brundtland Report, states "sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." In other words, it calls for improving human life now and in the future without increasing the use of our natural resources beyond the earth's carrying capacity.
In 1992, the world's nations held the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro. It issued Agenda 21, an ambitious global plan for sustainable development with a long to-do list for all nations on entering the new century. It covers action by governments, international organizations and major groups in every area in which human activity has an impact on the environment.
Ten years on, Rio II convenes Aug 26 - Sept 4 under the name World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). World leaders will gather in Johannesburg, South Africa, to review Agenda 21, improve on it, and move on.
The United Nations, the organizing body of WSSD, admits that many of the aims of Agenda 21 are off-target. The U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development acknowledges that progress toward the goals of Rio "has been slower than anticipated, and in some respects conditions are actually worse than they were ten years ago."
The 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), for their part, have the vision "for a clean and green ASEAN" by 2020. By that year, ASEAN wants "with fully established mechanisms for sustainable development to ensure the protection of the region's environment, the sustainability of its natural resources and the high quality of life of its peoples."
The ASEAN State of the Environment Report 2000 cites three constraints to sustainable development in ASEAN: institutional limitations, inadequate manpower and technological capacities, and financial constraints
Hira Jhamtani, an Indonesian environment advocate who has followed work on Agenda 21 closely since Rio, disagrees. "No. The main challenges to sustainable development are public participation in decision making processes and the existence of a clean and accountable government. Law enforcement is another important issue," argues Jhamtani, board member, Komphalindo, the National Consortium for Forest and Nature Conservation in Indonesia.
To move Agenda 21 forward, ASEAN environment ministers in a joint statement to the WSSD believe that the WSSD "should set in place targeted, time-bound, practical and implementable actions for achieving specific sustainable development goals." One time-bound goal in a strategy against world poverty, for instance, specified at the 2000 Millennium Summit in New York, is halving by 2015 the number of people living on less than a dollar a day. The world has now some 1.2 billion extremely poor people. For its part, ASEAN has managed to more than halve the number of people earning less than a dollar a day for the period 1987 (24 per cent) to 1998 (11 per cent). In a 59-page report to the WSSD, ASEAN emphasizes regional governance mechanisms to achieve its sustainable development goals.
The Johannesburg Summit is to lay out a specific plan, an update of Agenda 21, required to achieve those goals. But four preliminary meetings, the last in Bali, Indonesia, ending 8 June, failed to produce a 10-year action plan to have been known as the Bali Commitment. The unfinished document, for further work in Johannesburg, was supposed to contain definite time-bound targets with clear commitments. Still unresolved is action on contentious issues in trade and finance and setting new targets in areas like reducing use of toxic chemicals and restoring fish stocks. ASEAN participation in the WSSD process has primarily been sharing its experience and vision for sustainable development in the region. It can do more, a Malaysia-based sustainable development NGO believes.
"ASEAN as an association does not take an active part in the WSSD, and only minimally so in UN processes. Member countries of course pursue their interest to greater or lesser degrees. It is less cohesive than EU and even some associations of African countries," according to Yin Shao Loong, researcher of the Third World Network in Penang who like Jhamtani attended the Bali meet. On means of implementation, the ASEAN environment ministers in their joint statement welcome partnerships as a mechanism for action. One recent ASEAN partnership initiative was the signing of an agreement on trans-boundary haze pollution in Kuala Lumpur this June. Member-states are committed to cooperate in controlling sources of land and forest fires. A country in which trans-boundary haze pollution originates is obligated to respond promptly to a request for information or consultations by a state that may be affected by the pollution, ASEAN Secretary General Rodolfo Severino explains.
The haze accord "is certainly a step in the right direction," Yin Shao Loong observes. There is a second kind of partnership that does not require full negotiation by governments but can be initiated from the local level up by interested parties, may they be businesses, cooperatives, farmers or other major groups. On these partnerships, called type 2 outcomes in the language of Agenda 21, ASEAN already has a catalog of results credited to the civil society of individual member countries. These partnerships show what committed action, participation, and knowledge and cost sharing by a citizens' group can do to make a difference toward a sustainable future.
In the Philippines, for example, private companies conduct antismoke belching activities. San Miguel Brewery Corp requires all vehicles, particularly large diesel-fuel trucks, entering its plant to be certified clean. The rule was easily implemented as it became a clause in the service contract of the beer maker's haulers. In less than a year the air quality in the plant's area improved and absenteeism among brewery personnel dropped.
Organizations like the Philippine Business for the Environment then persuaded other companies to adopt San Miguel's action. Soon enough, over 80 firms nationwide require their suppliers and haulers to have their vehicles clean. These include big firms like Caltex, Coke and Proctor & Gamble.
Meanwhile in Thailand one partnership model involves small businesses joined in a cooperative. A group of 80 Bangkok tanneries set up their own treatment plant to reduce environmental hazards of toxic, chromium-filled wastewater. The plant can treat 2,500 cubic meters of wastewater a day. A uniform rate for water treatment is figured into operating costs. The treatment fee is based on the weight of raw hides brought by each tannery: US$20 per ton.
In Indonesia, Chaerudin the fruit farmer has set up his own group. Some 70 small growers and traders of bananas in the south of Jakarta joined in the Sangga Buana (Pillar of the World) self-help group. They assist each other not only in cultivating and marketing their produce but also in protecting their environment. Chaerudin has been at the vanguard to protect the banks of the Pesanggrahan, one of 13 rivers that flow into Jakarta Bay. Over a five-kilometer stretch, he and his fellow farmers have cleaned the river of floating waste. They have also replanted both its banks with reportedly 8,000 fruit trees and herbal plants to prevent erosion and yield extra income.
With or without a deal in Johannesburg for an official plan of action, one thing is for sure: Ongoing, replicable ASEAN acts in partnership are already on track for a sustainable 21st Century. The sum of small acts can change and move things. ### JV/WD