Earth charter vote in vermont

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Vermont towns prepare to vote on " Earth Charter "

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USA: March 5, 2002

 

 

MIDDLEBURY - Twenty years after sparsely populated Vermont helped boost national

interest in nuclear disarmament, environmentalists are hoping the state's voters

can galvanize the movement for sustainable economic development by endorsing an

Earth Charter this week.

 

 

Supporters of the charter, which promotes economic development strategies that

are self-perpetuating and environmentally friendly, are trying to build momentum

for adoption of the document at a United Nations summit on the issue to be held

this summer in South Africa.

The initiative, and Vermont's potentially out-sized role in setting national

priorities, hearkens back to March 1982. That year nuclear disarmament activists

used the state's tradition of direct democracy to demonstrate grass-roots

support for a freeze by the United States and Soviet Union on the production,

testing and deployment of nuclear weapons.

 

The freeze proposal was endorsed in 161 of the 185 towns in which it appeared on

the ballot, helping to swell participation in one of the largest nuclear weapons

protests ever held. An estimated 250,000 people marched to U.N. headquarters in

New York in June 1982 in support of the freeze.

 

" The nuclear freeze campaign showed that when town meetings in Vermont unite to

say something, the world will listen, " said Gwendolyn Hallsmith, the charter's

chief promoter in Vermont. " We're one of the few places on Earth where people

actually convene on a local level to decide matters of importance. "

 

LIVELY INTERNATIONAL DEBATE

 

The Earth Charter vote, which will take place on March 5 at town meetings in

more than three dozen Vermont communities, comes amid a lively international

debate over the future of economic development aid.

 

U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill has publicly questioned the effectiveness

of development aid programs while his British counterpart, Gordon Brown, has

called for a huge increase in aid money and cancellation of debt payments by the

world's poorest countries.

 

Against that background, the Earth Charter sets forth a series of values and

aspirations on the theme of " respect and care for the community of life " and

calls for " a sustainable global society founded on respect for nature, universal

human rights, economic justice, and a culture of peace. "

 

The document has its origins in a 1987 U.N. commission proposal for a world

charter to guide economic development along environmentally sensitive lines.

Draft versions were then circulated internationally among nongovernmental

organizations, professional societies and specialists in various fields.

 

The charter's final form was presented at The Hague two years ago.

 

Voters in 40 of Vermont's 251 towns will be asked to endorse a call for

government officials at all levels to use the Earth Charter " to guide

decision-making on issues of local, state, national and international

importance. "

 

Hallsmith expects the Earth Charter referendum to win approval in most towns but

the document's occasionally fuzzy formulations have not insulated it from

opposition.

 

James Ehlers, editor of Outdoors magazine, has been urging fellow Vermont

hunting enthusiasts to give the charter a critical reading.

 

Ehlers objects in particular to a provision saying that wild animals should be

protected from " methods of hunting, trapping, and fishing that cause extreme,

prolonged or avoidable suffering. "

 

" Even though the language is very vague, that could be interpreted as leading to

a ban on all hunting, " Ehlers said. " When I see organizations known to have

anti-hunting and anti-fishing agendas endorsing this charter, I get skeptical. "

 

Ehlers also finds fault with references in the charter to " ecological management

of resources, " suggesting they " might be masking a no-growth agenda. "

 

Outdoors magazine is published in Burlington, Vermont's largest city, which has

already endorsed the Earth Charter via a city council vote.

 

Brattleboro, Middlebury and Williston are some of the more populous towns that

will be voting on the charter in the state of approximately 610,000 residents.

 

 

 

 

Story by Kevin Kelley

 

 

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE