Subject: World Environment Day
              MESSAGE BY MS. 
ELIZABETH DOWDESWELL,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
              
UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME

            ON THE 
OCCASION OF WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY

Nairobi, 2 June 1997 - 

 
    "Today, 5 June, we celebrate World
Environment Day - a 
day to bring our focus
towards something that cries for 
attention
365 days a year - that fragile speck of dust
in a 
vast cosmos that we call our home - the
Earth. 

     World 
Environment Day 1997 is special. 
This year the United 
Nations Environment
Programme celebrates a number of 
significant
milestones since its creation 25 years ago
at the 
Stockholm Conference.  This year, the
world also marks the 
10th anniversary of the
historic negotiation of the 
Montreal
Protocol to preserve the ozone layer; 10
years since 
the ground-breaking Brundtland
report; and five years since 
world leaders
gathered in Rio for the Earth Summit.

     
This happy coincidence of celebrations
is symbolic of one 
common purpose:  the
preservation of life on Earth.
     
   
  Just as no two fingers are identical, so
no two beings are 
alike.  Every country has
its own unique culture and 
traditions. 

     But there is one universal message which
can embrace the entire world.  A message
which is common to 
different national
governments, to people who bear no
resemblance to each other, to cultures alien
to one 
another.

     It is the message of the sanctity of
Life on 
Earth.

     And this is the theme for this year's
World 
Environment Day:  "For Life on Earth".

     To a visitor from another planet the
world would present 
a spectacle as
melancholy as it is bewildering.  It would
see 
civilization in danger of perishing
under the oppression of a 
gigantic paradox. 
It would see multitudes of people 
starving
in the midst of plenty.  It would observe
that even 
with a steady growth in our
technical ability there is a 
seemingly
inexorable deterioration of our environment.


    
 According to UNEP's recently released
Global Environment 
Outlook report, the
quickening pace of our assault on the
environment continues to be dramatic in its
impact. 

       
                       - 2 -

     Global warming, the 
depletion of the
ozone layer, the decline of biological
diversity, the loss of soil and forests, the
contamination of 
our fresh water supplies
and even the great oceans, 
vanishing
fisheries, the flood of toxic substances
entering 
our environment and our bodies and
threatening our health - 
all signal that we
continue to make excessive demands on 
the
global environment that sustains us.

     But we are not 
visitors from another
planet. We are inhabitants of the 
Earth. 

     This is our world, and we must make the
best of 
it. 

     Whatever we do or fail to do will
influence the 
future of life on earth. 

     By throwing our joint weight 
into the
scales of history on the right side, we can
tip the 
balance decisively in favour of a
healthy environment which 
can sustain life
on earth.

     The sanctity of all life on 
earth should
find expression in all our actions:  In
understanding that human wealth and economic
development 
ultimately derive from and
depend upon the resources of the 
Earth; In
seeing economic development and care for the
environment as compatible, interdependent
and necessary; In 
knowing that economic
development can help solve 
environmental
problems only if it is accompanied by an
attitude of responsibility and stewardship
for the Earth; And 
in knowing that the key
to socially sustainable development 
is the
participation, organization, education and
empowerment 
of people.

     On this World Environment Day, let us
not 
despair, but instead examine the state
of our environment.  
Let us consider
carefully the action which each of us must
take and then -address ourselves to our
common task of 
preserving all life on earth
in a mood of sober resolution 
and quiet
confidence.

     Let this World Environment Day 
become a
celebration of our past achievements, but
most 
importantly a vehicle for establishing
a universal concord 
for all living beings,
for establishing peace and for 
nurturing our
ecological heritage."

                        
     ******
For more information:

Tore J. Brevik            
                         
Chief, Information and Public 
Affairs                  
UNEP Headquarters                  
                
P.O. Box 30552, Nairobi, Kenya              
       
Tel:  254-2-62-3292, Fax:  254-2-62-3927             
       
Email:  
Tore.Brevik@unep.org                       

Patricia L. 
Jacobs
Information Officer
UNEP Headquarters
P.O. Box 30552, 
Nairobi, Kenya
Tel:  254-2-62-3088, Fax:  254-2-62-3692
Email:  Patricia.Jacobs@unep.org


UNEP News Release 1997/19

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