About the World Sustainability Hearing

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What is the World Sustainability Hearing?

he World Sustainability Hearing is an event we organized to run in parallel with the U.N.'s "Rio+10" World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in August and September in Johannesburg, South Africa. In a separate venue close to the official summit site in Johannesburg, we prepared a Hearing in which ordinary people from around the world testified on their experiences of how the promise and practice of "sustainable development" has affected their lives over the past ten years of increasing globalization, and how they see environmental and social justice issues affecting them in the future. The Hearing achieved its goal of bringing the "State of the World" alive and giving it a human face. It evaluated the promise and reality of "sustainable development" raised in Rio de Janeiro 10 years ago, and raised concerns and issues with it as seen from the point of view of the people on the ground, those whose everyday lives are embedded in the ecosystems and lifestyles, the environmental and economic choices discussed at the official U.N. summit.

The format of the Hearing comprised a panel of scientific, religious, political and environmental leaders, and other eminent persons, who served as a council or grand jury before which these testimonies were heard. Each day was dedicated to different nexus of environmental and social justice issues, (for example, "Day of the Forests and Forest-Dependent Communities"; "Day of Energy and Climate Justice," and so on . We tried to create panels and witness groups representing the various issues and habitats, and balanced for gender, and geographic distribution but stressing those under-represented in UN, WTO, IMF, and World Bank policy processes. They reported on concrete "sustainable development" projects in their communities and whether the promises made by governments or corporations came true. The role of each the panels was to ask questions that fully draw out the experience and views of each person giving testimony, guide reflections and discussions on the themes heard each day, and provide synthesis statements summarizing the testimonies and issues discussed each day.

The World Sustainability Hearing, and the Earth Island project of the same name, have as their goals:

• To legitimate and give a direct voice to the people being affected by the successes and failures of the global forces engendered by "sustainable development", and to do so in full view of and dialogue with the high level Earth negotiations which dominate global environmental governance issues.
• To provide technical and logistical support for Hearing participants to network with each other as well as seek to engage their countries' UN delegates at the WSSD on the issues of concern to them.
• To provide a central meeting ground on environmental and social justice issues for the benefit of Hearing participants, UN delegates, the interested public and media, providing people's real life experiences with "sustainable development" as a counterpoint to the official assessment of how well we are doing globally.
• To create a space where issues of global concern can be discussed, and a variety of voices heard without the antagonism and violence, or the exclusivity and inaccessibility that have come to characterize many high-level global events.
• To establish an on-going format for direct popular participation and dialogue on environmental and social justice issues (and their inevitable link) through the Project's web site and follow-on services, activities and events.

By adding this outside forum to the one provided by the United Nations, a constructive dialogue can occur between the experts/global leaders and ordinary people from all over the world. The Hearing attempted to put the silent majority near to and face to face with high-level negotiations/negotiators. In addition to being open to the world press, and broadcast by internet and other media, the proceedings were recorded on broadcast-quality video to create a documentary record of the testimony and discussion.

Some Specific Target Activities of the World Sustainability Hearings Project in the run-up to the 2002 Hearing

• Collaborate with organizations and individuals around the world to locate and select a diverse and representative group of panelists and witnesses for the Hearing.
• Obtain funding for and organize travel, accommodations, and support services (translation etc.) for those testifying and, as necessary, a limited number of panelists.
• Organize pre-event publicity in collaboration with other partners, governments and media.
• Prepare video B-Roll on each day's issues, and make this video and video excerpts from each day of the Hearing available to world media.
• Collaborate with Rio+10 organizers or participants to establish a live video feed of the Hearing into various areas of the Rio+10 conference.
• Organize sponsors to permit live audio and video feeds over the internet of the testimony.
• Make hypertext versions of each panel's summary of their Hearing available on the internet, including links to audio and video archives of the testimony, and on-going facts and discussions.
• Make Hearing video material available for one or more documentaries which can present the human stories associated with sustainable development issues.
• Develop a range of follow-up activities and services to participants of the Hearings, including preparing and disseminating information in a variety of media, and linking communities around the world on specific issues.