The arts issue "hot" cry on desertification
02-Sep-2003: By GUY ROGERS at the 6th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification in Havana, Cuba
A UNIQUE forum here at the Palacio de las Convenciones in Havana has issued a rallying cry to artists around the world to join the battle against desertification to prevent the planet “drifting back into barbarism”.
Convened parallel to the mainstream often bland technocratic debate of the coference, the exchanges between participants was refreshingly “hot” as one Japanese participant put it, reminding observers of the desperate reality of the issues: searing poverty resulting from and caused by severe land degradation, in turn the fall out of over-population and poor land use choices, over grazing and the decimation of forests as well as the growing problem of climate change and steepling temperatures.
Setting the tone, the forum was launched with a presentation of the heart-breaking award-winning Mauritanian film Life on Earth, a story of social and environmental degradation.
Forum participants ranged from writers and film directors to sculptors and cultural attaches from mostly developing countries as well as a radical political street theatre exponent from Germany and other delegates brought in from the more sedate halls of the convention. South Africa’s representative University of Potchefstroom ecologist Prof Klaus Kellner provided some solidity to the sometimes diffuse, if always impassioned debate.
The closing rallying cry, the Call of Culture, began by noting that “Nature is the common heritage of mankind.”
“Men and women of culture cannot therefore remain silent in the face of the challenge presented to our world by globalisation and neo-liberalism to conserve and manage our resources properly. The negative consequences of not meeting this challenge are increased ecological imbalance and social inequality.”
Desertification is spreading all over the world. In China, from the 1950s onwards sandstorms and increasing desertification have devastated about 700 000ha of harvested land, 2.35 million ha of pasture and 6.4 million hectares of forests.
Desertification is particularly bad in Sub-Saharan Africa and South America however where arable land has been lost and farmers are migrating to the cities resulting in economic and social dislocation. If land degradation trends continue, it is expected that some 60 million people will by 2020 abandon their homes, the vanguard of an apocalypic wave of eco-refugees in search of a place to survive inevitable sparking conflict in areas where resources are already hard pressed.
The forum called for a radical change in the “values and direction” of governments.
“It is only through the use of culture and technology in the interest of all mankind that we shall stop the ever-present threat of our world drifting back into barbarism.”
Supporting the Call of Culture, the forum’s action programme calls for the preparation and promotion of books and films on desertification. Sculptors and painters should be be urged to create monuments to the Earth, a website should be established, dance should be choreographed, plays should be staged and songs and plays should be written, it said.
ends