Two UB professors attended the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa, during the first week of September - one to present research, and the other to meet with indigenous peoples from across the globe.
Donald J. Jacobs, associate dean for Research and Technologies in the graduate school of education and the director for UB's Center for Applied Technologies in Education, and Chief Oren J. Lyons, a professor in the Center for the Americas, traveled to Johannesburg, South Africa, on Sept. 3 to participate in the conference.
According to Jacobs, sustainable development is "a value system that is concerned with reusing materials, sensitivity to the local environment, and also an overarching concern for what is called Social Ecology."
Lyons, who is the Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Nation, Haudenosaunee of the Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy, and leader of the American Indian Law Alliance, joined groups of indigenous peoples from all over the world to discuss their role in sustainable development.
His goal in attending the summit was to achieve U.N. recognition of the role of indigenous peoples in the global economy. He feels they should be looked upon as groups with widely varying backgrounds, not simply as a single group.
During the conference, Lyons took part in the creation of the Kimberly Declaration, a bill of rights for indigenous peoples.
The document states, "We are the original peoples tied to the land by our umbilical cords, and the dusts of our ancestors. Our special places are sacred and demand the highest respect."
Members of the U.N. voted on the Kimberly Declaration and approved it.
Lyons also went to the summit in hopes that the United Nations would officially recognize the Earth Charter, a document concerned with the way the earth should be treated, but he is unsure at this time about the response to the document.
Lyons' message echoed the concepts of morality and peace.
"The world has to have more equity and the concept of sharing has to be relearned," he said.
Jacobs attended the conference to present a collaboration with Jane Goodall on the uses of communication and information technologies in environmental education and projects across the world.
He and Goodall have spent more than four years researching and developing two projects called Hopenet and Lessons-for-Hope.
Hopenet uses Integrated Services Digital Networks to create a way for communities to share information on environmental projects on a local and international level. Currently, Hopenet is based in eight locations throughout the world, including the United States, Germany, Costa Rica and China.
Lessons-for-Hope is a Web-based curriculum for high school students, designed to develop a person's view of the environment and to inspire him or her to seek sustainable development.
The conference originated in 1992 when it was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in an effort to bring worldwide awareness to the effects of social and economic activities on the environment. According to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development's Web site, the conference's primary purpose was to design a plan that will allow development and economic progress while maintaining the Earth's environment.
The recent summit was held as a follow-up to the first conference to summarize the progress of the past 10 years and to serve as a forum for new ideas.
The conference was attended by citizens, scientists, indigenous peoples, diplomats, policy makers, press, heads-of-states, U.N. agencies, multilateral financial agencies, and non-governmental organizations, according to UB News Services.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
