THE EARTH CHARTER

Prepared by the Non-Governmental Organizations

Gathered Together in RIO DE JENEIRO

Preamble

We are Earth, the people, plants and animals, rains and oceans

breath of the forest and flow of the sea.

We honour Earth as the home of all living things.

We cherish Earth’s beauty and diversity of life.

We welcome Earth’s ability of renewal as being the basis of all life.

We recognize the special place of Earth’s Indigenous Peoples,

their territories, their customs

and their unique relationship to Earth.

We are apalled at the human suffering, poverty and damage

to Earth caused by inequality of power.

We accept a shared responsibility to protect and restore

Earth and to allow wise and equitable use of

resources so as to achieve an ecological balance

and new social, economic and spiritual values.

In all our diversity we are one.

Our common home is increasingly threatened.

We thus commit ourselves to the following principles,

noting at all times the particular needs of women,

indigent people, the disabled and

all those who are disadvantaged.

Principles

1. We agree to respect, encourage, protect and restore Earth’s ecosystems to ensure biological and cultural diversity.

2. We recognize our diversity and our common partnership. We respect all cultures and affirm the rights of all people to basic environmental needs.

3. Poverty affects us all. We agree to alter unsustainable patterns of production and consumption to ensure the eradication of poverty and to end the abuse of Earth. This must include a recognition of the role of debt and financial flows from the South to the North and opulence and corruption as primary causes. We shall emphasize and improve the endogenous capacity for technology creation and development. Attempts to eradicate poverty should not be a mandate to abuse the environment and attempts to protect or restore the environment should not ignore basic human needs.

4. We recognize that the national barriers do not generally conform to Earth’s ecological realities. National sovereignty does not mean sanctuary from our collective responsibility to protect and restore Earth’s ecosystems. Trade practices and transnational corporations must not cause environmental degradation and should be controlled in order to achieve social justice, equitable trade and solidarity with ecological principles.

5. We reject the build up and use of military force and the economic pressure as means of resolving conflict. We commit ourselves to pursue genuine peace, which is not merely the absence of war but includes the eradication of poverty, the promotion of social justice and economic, spiritual, cultural and ecological well-being.

6. We agree to ensure that decision-making processes and their criteria are clearly defined, transparent, explicit, accessible and equitable. Those whose decisions or activities may affect the environment must first prove the absence of harm, Those likely to be affected, particularly populations in the south and those in subjugation within existing States, should have free access to information and effectively participate in the decision making processes.

7. States, institutions, corporations and peoples are unequal in their contribution to environmental harm, experience of ecological degradation and ability to respond to environmental destruction. While all are responsible for improving environment quality, those who have expropriated or consumed the majority of Earth’s resources or who continue to do so must cease such expropriation or reduce such consumption and must bear the costs of ecological restoration and protection by providing the majority of financial and technological resources.

And I brought you into a plentiful country to eat the fruit there of and enjoy the goodness there of. But when ye entered, ye defiled my land and made mine heritage an abomination.

- From Geremiah - Old Testament.

[If these principles are meticulously observed by all the nations, the world will be a better place to live in.] –Editor

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