Earth Day Query: anthropology at the Rio+20 Earth Summit?

A message to CASCA members from the World Council of Anthropological
Associations and the Wenner-Gren Foundation:

Dear Colleagues,

The planetary right to a healthy environment and the related notion of
sustainability was a key concept emerging from the 1990 global Earth
Day activism and subsequent 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de
Janerio. The Earth Summit was attended by representatives of 172
governments and 2,400 NGOs, who, concerned about the relationship
between economic development and environmental degradation, adopted
three major agreements (Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment
and Development, the Statement of Forest Principles), and two
legally-binding conventions (the United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change and the United Nations Convention on Biological
Diversity). A number of anthropologists attended that Summit to
support initiatives to protect livelihood resources and serve as
advocates with and for indigenous peoples. The American
Anthropological Association, for example, sent one delegate (and
subsequently sought consultative status with the UN so it can engage
in future events and negotiations). Many other anthropologists
attended the 1992 Earth Summit as civil society delegates,
representatives of NGOs (for example, members of the Cultural Survival
and Survival International delegations), or official delegates of
their nation.

Two decades later, the number of anthropologists involved in scholarly
advocacy in one form or another on these matters numbers the
thousands. To gauge some sense of current interests and scholar
advocate pursuits, I am doing an informal poll to determine who in the
anthropology community has plans (or hopes) to attend the UN Earth
Summit (Rio+20) conference this June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro.

If this is you, can you write to me directly with:
1. the name of your accredited organization;
2. where your formal presence will take place (governmental meetings?
civil society/alternative conference? side events?);
3. your scholar/advocacy agenda; and,
4. whether your primary affiliation with professional anthropology
associations?

And please do distribute this query, with my apologies to readers who
encounter through multiple cross-listings.

yours truly

Barbara Rose Johnston
Senior Research Fellow, Center for Political Ecology, Santa Cruz, California
and American Anthropologist Associate Editor for Public Anthropology
e-mail: bjohnston@igc.org<mailto:bjohnston@igc.org>