Don't let the name fool you. The Earth Charter Summit, despite sounding like an uppercrusty event involving heads of state whose names you can't pronounce from nations you can't locate on a map, is by, for and about the people of the world.
Scheduled to take place Saturday, Sept. 29, via satellite links to 12 cities, including Tampa, the summit is a U.S. coming-out for the Earth Charter. Essentially, this document is an international grassroots people's treaty. It contains 16 principles ranging from ecological protection for the Earth to human rights issues. Crafters and proponents hope that governments, societies, businesses and individuals will adopt the Earth Charter as a blueprint for more just and sustainable societies.
Because of the Sept. 11 attacks, the Earth Charter is "more important now than ever," says Jan Roberts, the president and founder of Tampa's Institute for Ethics and Meaning and one of the principle organizers of the Charter Summit in Tampa, where the event will take place at Plant Park and Pepin/Rood Stadium.
"(The Charter) is all about the fact that we are interdependent with one another and with other nations, and we have to nourish and support that interdependence."
That means the Earth Charter can now be viewed not just as a document calling for worldwide sustainable living, but also as an entrypoint for negotiation and peace rather than retaliation and war.
Could the Earth Charter possibly be, if not the plan, a guiding light?
Roberts believes so. "I just feel it's time to come together now in a peaceful, positive way and go forth."
Though not tackling terrorism directly, part of the charter's preamble takes on a different ring in this new era: "As the world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and one Earth community with a common destiny."
With roots stretching back to the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987, the document was finally drafted by an international committee in 1997. Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union and founder of Green Cross International, and Steven Rockefeller, grandson of John D. and chair of the drafting committee, each played a role in bringing the Charter to life. It was written with contributions from thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations around the world.
The process was stymied at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, says Roberts, because governments, including the U.S., refused to sign off on the creation of an Earth Charter.
Based on her years of activism, Roberts figures there are two types of people who want to get involved: those who come in and say, "Where do I start?" and those who step in more thoughtfully, who want to know what they're getting into before they endeavor further.
The Earth Charter Summit will accommodate both. "We're gonna have speakers doing different workshops that will be more action-focused," Roberts says. "And then we're gonna have small group discussions, 25 people in a group, having conversations around the principles they're most interested in."
Facilitators in the groups are committed for two months. Then, organizers hope, someone will emerge in each group to facilitate the group on an ongoing basis. By early 2002, Roberts says, "We want plans of action to develop out of all this. On a personal level and a community level and a state level."
In the wake of the latest day of infamy, Roberts is frequently asked how the Earth Charter Summit will be affected.
"The ones that are having a more alternative view of what we need to do (in response to the attack) are becoming louder and louder," says Roberts. Their input is welcome, and needed, Saturday at the University of Tampa.
Quoting Gandhi, Roberts says: "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."
"And I believe that."
The Earth Charter Summit takes place from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at Plant Park's Pepin/Rood Stadium, located on the University of Tampa campus, at 401 W. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa. Call 813-760-0577 or visit www.earthchartersummit.org.
Contact Dave Jasper at 813-248-8888, ext. 111, or jasper@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Sep 27 – Oct 3, 2001.