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Eternal Spring - Presentations
The English version was presented to:
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Flemish Parlement
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Belgian Minister President
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ACP/EU conference
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President of the Republic of Suriname
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Chairman of the Senate of Suriname
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President of the Republic of Guyana
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Caricom
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Minister Pronk from the Kingdom of the
Netherlands
During the
presentations speeches were made by:
Reactions on the
presentations:
The Flemish Parlement purchased 35 books for the various sub-committees
to study this work thoroughly.
Address on 3th of April 2002
For the official presentation of: Eternal Spring: Living with Enough in a World of Abundance
By Jef Crab, author
Mr. President,
The beginning of the 21st century is marked by a newly emerging cold war. The increasing gap between rich and poor is a potential time bomb hindering genuine stable social development, and it poses a continuous threat to our ecosystem. In addition, every government finds itself confronted with the pressure and involvement of various international organisations and treaties, such as the WTO and FTAA, free trade agreements, and treaties on climate and biodiversity.
This is also the arena in which the globalists and anti-globalists move. While one shouts that only increased production will provide all our needs, the other screams that this will only increase poverty and prove burdensome to the environment. At the same time both stubbornly hold on to their own apparently rivalling values. And meanwhile, the high speed train of free enterprise hurtles forward, leaving behind a trail of destroyed earth, increased poverty and impoverished urban centres.
Clearly we understand little about real economy and trade for if we did, we would already be living in a World of Abundance.
Thus worldwide, we see ourselves confronted with questions like: What development model can lead us out of this endless labyrinth of social, economic, ecological and cultural problems? Is the currently practised free-trade model our only choice? Or are there other possibilities?
Eternal Spring: Living with Enough in a World of Abundance presents a unified vision, a global overview, a roadmap; a coherent development model with sound, well-defined chalk lines, showing new ways and new approaches.
Thus, the book offers a framework and an action plan for the execution of local policy integrated within global ethical-ecological development - a peaceful world of abundance.
Fundamental to this action plan is the proper sequencing of seven contracts that play an essential role in each society. In what I call in the book - the natural sequence of the contracts - the ecological contract supersedes all the others - and in order to be global it must take precedence. The ecological contract comprises two action points:
- Restoration and increase of soil fertility
- Restoration and increase of bio-diversity
If we choose for the execution of the ecological contract, our primary sectors - food, clothing, housing and energy - will provide abundant and sustainable employment with just incomes.
However, equal attention has to be given to the local contract as this starts from the uniqueness of each bio-region. The bio-region with its own geography, climate, vegetation, traditions, culture and inhabitants ought to become the standard for our economic activities.
The question that arises now is not how to fit or place ecology beside economy, but how to integrate economy within our ecosystem and the cultures that reside therein. The detrimental effects that our current economic activities impact on our lives can be redirected, and the damage inflicted can be restored. For this desired integration of economy into our ecosystem, we urgently need new paradigms.
Eternal Spring offers new paths and models for this. We are looking for a harmonious marriage between our economic activities and our continued existence in a healthy, humane and dignified social structure. In other words: striving towards a peaceful world of abundance in which free enterprise is only limited by the limits imposed by nature itself and the conditions necessary for our own preservation.
The supporting of the bio-region in this way, as part of the global ecological contract, is the true reason why economic activities cannot be exclusively regulated by distant shareholders meetings. Far reaching local and national participation has to protect and ensure the cultural, social, economic and political contracts, which together embody the local contract.
Besides the problem of choosing a suitable development model, there is the issue of the coming generations: How will we prepare coming generations for a peaceful, dignified life in their own bio-region? What kinds of education offer us good guarantees for the safeguarding of the local contract with its specific cultural, social, economic and political characteristics?
Eternal Spring would be incomplete if it left these questions unanswered.
Finally, your Excellency, I'd like to point out that the possibilities to create the world of abundance are within our reach and accessible. Various projects world-wide in natural farming and sustainable community building demonstrate that productive, self-sustainable, profitable agriculture is profitable with minimal investments, and minimal support of external inputs. Therefore, today, I plea with Dr. Maurits Coppieters (Honorary Chairman of the Flemish Parliament), Dr. Vrede and Dr. Edmunds, for active support in the identification and the implementation of projects leading to the local and global world of abundance.
With your support, our children and grandchildren will be grateful to us. After all it is each child's birthright to live meaningfully and peacefully with enough in a World of Abundance.
Thank you very much.
ADDRESS
by Delegation Head - AMBASSADOR DR. JOSEPH EDMUNDS, O.B.E.
On the occasion of the Book Launch
Eternal Spring: Living with Enough in a World of Abundance
At this juncture in world affairs when the breaking news of the day revolves around the horrors of terrorism and the slaughter of humankind through retaliatory measures reflecting man's inhumanity to man, it is refreshing and sobering to participate in the launching of a book which dedicates itself to the possibilities of an 'eternal spring' and the restoration of our ecosystem, before it is too late.
The book Eternal Spring must be looked upon in the context of its global dimension - North and South, East and West - its connotation and commitment, and what needs to be done through local, national, regional and international cooperation to arrest the head-on course which we seem to have taken, and which will ultimately result in the destruction and depletion of biodiversity on our planet.
From my experience as a scientist, senator and ambassador of my country, St Lucia, and my dealings in the international world, it is clear to me that every level of our society must engage itself in an urgent restoration movement for the sustainable development of man in his natural environment. The author of Eternal Spring, Mr Jef Crab, draws our attention to this fundamental imperative, and the need to channel our resources in a manner which would avert the further pollution of planet earth, our human population and environmental deterrioration.
The author's profound preoccupation for the plight of humanity in our biosphere and his espousals of the steps we must all take to check the further deterrioration of our God-given inheritance, is aptly put to us in the words that we are but 'Stewards of the Earth', and that it is our duty to preserve that inheritance for our children and our children's children. This responsibility is put to us in a call for well-defined action plans within three circles which have their domain in spiritual, economic and human dimensions. In order to achieve this, the author propounds that we need to engage in functional contracts which are: Ecological, Global, Local, Cultural, Social, Economical & Political, in content, with connectedness between the circles themselves and the contractual commitments.
Eternal Spring is a message to our world at all levels of our societies and to the leaders of all nation-states and communities to implement programmes of sustainable development, in a deep spiritual, philosophical and pragmatic manner.
As a trained agricultural scientist, 1 am pleased that the author refers to agriculture as the 'guardian of nature', and that 'agriculture ought to be and can form the basis for a stable global society'. Let me however add to the author's expressions by saying "provided we do not rape our God-given resources through greed, exploitation and narrow national self-interests."
I recommend Eternal Spring: Living with Enough in a World of Abundance to you and all of humanity.
20th March, 2002, Brussels, Belgium
Remarks addressed to:
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The Flemish Parliament - Brussels, Belgium
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ACP Headquarters - Pacific House (Brussels, Belgium)
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The Belgian Prime Minister's Office
ADDRESS
by DR ALBERT VREDE on the occasion of the Book Launch of
Eternal Spring: Living with Enough in a World of Abundance
20th March, 2002 - Brussels, Belgium
Excellencies - Ambassadors - Esteemed members of the Diplomatic Corps
Honoured Guests
Members of the Press
Ladies and Gentlemen -
It is indeed an honour as the Chairman of Ecosystem 2000, to be invited to speak to you, an esteemed assembly of persons here in the capital city of Europe, Brussels, on the occasion of the launching of Eternal Spring: Living with Enough in a World of Abundance.
Since 1994, Ecosystem 2000 has been engaged in:
One major centrepiece of our work has been: our Earth Restore Programs - or ERPs as we commonly call it - in which our energies and concerns revolve in practical and tangible terms on:
(1) The restoration and improvement of soil fertility
& (2) The increase of bio-diversity.
But our work has only just begun as witnessed by the continued global decline in soil fertility and the continued increasing loss of bio-diversity world-wide.
Allow me to speak to you from my experience as a pathologist for the past 40 years.
My friends, we are living on the edge of a volcano because in fact we are consciously engaged in slowly eating ourselves to death. This process began in 1958 when the World Health Organisation officially accepted and blessed the concept of 'minimal toxicity' which in fact, years later, has amounted to 'official food poisoning'. Today, GEO 2000 - the Global Environment Outlook - continues to warn us that:
'There is far less knowledge about the toxicological effects of many new chemicals coming onto the market... chemicals that are present in household products; cosmetics and even
pharmaceuticals.'
Our hazardous waste production world-wide in the early 1990s stood at 400 million tonnes. UNEP statistics show that more than 75% - that is 300 million tonnes - were produced by OECD countries and has actually entered our food chain.
Coming back to what started in 1958, we may say that we are living by the grace of minimal and maximal toxicity for it is only after years that we have begun to experience its harmful cumulative effects. And this is what we are witnessing today especially in developing societies where more than 25 million persons (incidentally that is the population of the entire Caribbean) are suffering from chronic diseases of unknown etiology including perhaps toxicity from food.
There is particular and growing concern about the threats that the intake of large amounts of chemicals pose to our children's health. The main problems include both acute exposure leading to poisoning and chronic, low-level exposures causing functional and organic damage during periods of special vulnerability - that is, when neurological; enzymatic; metabolic and other systems are still developing. Exposure of unborn children to toxic chemicals produces irreversible effects: this includes, for example, severe effects on the foetuses of pregnant mothers who ingest contaminated food; and even adverse effects on general psychological equilibrium, the ability of children to learn, integrate socially, fend off disease, reproduce, and their general growth pattern.
Forgive me for being truthfully harsh: 'Through our economic greed, we are committing intellectual genocide of our future generations.' The value of human beings in the modern world has been economized, and economy has de-humanized people. The French adage is most applicable to our civilisation: 'apres nous le deluge.' And still, at the moment, our system refuses to examine the root causes of countless diseases which will become full-blown in the coming years.
On the side of maximal dosages of toxicity, due to over-consumption of saturated fats in our unbalanced food system, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, breast cancer, etc., are living testimonies of our excesses and imbalances.
Let us go back to the diminishing of bio-diversity. Our planet cries out for help. The cry is heard by too few.
Ecosystem and Ebron are organisations which heard this cry. The members of these organisations, as children of this Earth and citizens of their respective countries, consider it their duty to assist in the search for solution of these problems. We recognize that only a comprehensive, integrated approach to our problems can result in real solutions. Thus, we have sought a transcultural model with global appeal truly expressive of the wholeness of life.
We have expressed this in a model of life and living in three circles, which clarifies existence on several levels which combined form one whole.
This model is utilized to analyse problems, synthesise solutions and effect deeds and actions.
The complexity and severity of the problems which confront us, ask for immediate action. Little time is left if we want to guarantee to future generations a life of dignity. We must start with the solutions we have at hand. For sure Eternal Spring offers concrete solutions from which we can start to work with. During the process of implementation other possibilities will become evident. But unlike three decades ago, today, we no longer have the luxury of engaging in further years of repetitive research.
Ladies and gentlemen, as a scientist and pathologist, and as a humanist concerned about future generations, I want to poignantly ask: Can't we invest the billions spent in 2001 on persistent organic pollutants (POPS) and other toxic chemicals - all to the detriment of coming generations - can't we invest those billions in real humane education with preventive health care for individuals, society and nature - being primary beneficiaries?
If we honestly reflect on that single mis-step that we took in 1958, we would realize that to correct our path of sure death, we need ethics based on scientific research that - free of fear from commercial lobbies - would bend nerve and sinew to re-define new standards of health not simply based on terms of toxicity and harmful dosages but a knowledge of the earth as an integrated whole.
The future belongs to our children and their children's children. But today it is you and I, decision and policy makers who hold that future in our hands. My friends, it is the decisions and choices that we take today, that will either make or break our children's tomorrow. This puts a heavy responsibility on our shoulders. But if we co-operate, our children can inherit a world of abundance
THANK YOU.
Remarks addressed to:
The Flemish Parliament, Brussels, Belgium
ACP (Headquarters) - Pacific House, Brussels, Belgium
The Belgian Prime Minister's Office (Brussels)
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