by Piyaporn Hawiset
13 March 2002
Development cannot be sustained amidst rising poverty and deteriorating quality of life, activists said. They criticised Agenda 21, a blueprint for sustainable development adopted in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio. Sustainability would not be achieved unless the government shifts development direction that focusses solely on macro-economy and free trade regime, said Dej Poomkhacha, a veteran Thai activist. Activists proposed an alternative country report on Agenda 21 to that being prepared by the Thai government. The 118-page report was compiled from practical experiences of activists, who monitored the state policy and performance over the previous 10 years.
Mr Dej said it was apparent that Agenda 21 played no part in reducing environmental conflicts. The principle of people's participation as enshrined in the constitution was largely disregarded by most governments and at best some such as Canada or Australia just paid lip service to the concept through the use of many buzzwords, he said.
The Thai government was preparing a report which would be presented at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which would take place in Johannesburg in August 2002. At the meeting of the working group to prepare the report on March 12, some members also criticised the growth-led economy and globalised free trade as incompatible with sustainability. Chamniern Vorratnchaiphan, of Thailand Environment Institute, said the state should establish mechanisms to prevent unfairness that may result from free trade regime.
``There are numerous cases that demonstrated that free trade without control mechanism has led to community collapse, undermining self-sufficiency,'' he said. He urged the government to adopt self-sufficiency economy as a way towards sustainable development. A senior environmental official promised the people's concerns would be reflected in the country report expected to be completed in April.
Wanee Sanpantarak, deputy secretary-general of the Office of Environmental Policy and Planning, said it would not be realistic to turn away from free trade given the country's high export volume.
Rawadee Prasertcharoensook, chairwoman of the NGO-Co-ordinating Committee on Development, said the report presented a sustainability framework in the following areas--democratic system under good governance, participatory politics, community rights over natural resources, self-sufficiency development, promotion of social capital, protection of communal laws, public welfare system that accentuates food safety and fair, rather than free, trade regime.
``The state-supported development direction has largely undermined the resource base of local people,'' she said. "Resources were now being extracted and used by the wealthy and ordinary people were now being denied access to the resources through various legal mechanisms."
The activists were also concerned about the pending ratification of two UN conventions on biological diversity and climate change, citing the lack of domestic mechanism to protect national interests. They said ratification of the Convention on Biodiversity should be delayed until the Community Forest Bill was passed into law.
They also cautioned against ratification of the Kyoto Protocol under the UN Framework convention on Climate Change, saying it would do more harm than good. The protocol contained mechanisms that allowed developed countries to conserve forest land in poor countries in exchange for claiming carbon credits.