PREAMBLE
We stand at a critical moment in Earth's
history, a time when humanity must choose its future. As the
world becomes increasingly interdependent and fragile, the
future at once holds great peril and great promise. To move
forward we must recognize that in the midst of a magnificent
diversity of cultures and life forms we are one human family and
one Earth community with a common destiny. We must join together
to bring forth a sustainable global society founded on respect
for nature, universal human rights, economic justice, and a
culture of peace. Towards this end, it is imperative that we,
the peoples of Earth, declare our responsibility to one another,
to the greater community of life, and to future generations.
Earth, Our Home
Humanity is part of a vast evolving universe. Earth, our home,
is alive with a unique community of life. The forces of nature
make existence a demanding and uncertain adventure, but Earth
has provided the conditions essential to life's evolution. The
resilience of the community of life and the well-being of
humanity depend upon preserving a healthy biosphere with all its
ecological systems, a rich variety of plants and animals,
fertile soils, pure waters, and clean air. The global
environment with its finite resources is a common concern of all
peoples. The protection of Earth's vitality, diversity, and
beauty is a sacred trust.
The Global Situation
The dominant patterns of production and consumption are causing
environmental devastation, the depletion of resources, and a
massive extinction of species. Communities are being undermined.
The benefits of development are not shared equitably and the gap
between rich and poor is widening. Injustice, poverty,
ignorance, and violent conflict are widespread and the cause of
great suffering. An unprecedented rise in human population has
overburdened ecological and social systems. The foundations of
global security are threatened. These trends are perilous—but
not inevitable.
The Challenges Ahead
The choice is ours: form a global partnership to care for Earth
and one another or risk the destruction of ourselves and the
diversity of life. Fundamental changes are needed in our values,
institutions, and ways of living. We must realize that when
basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about
being more, not having more. We have the knowledge and
technology to provide for all and to reduce our impacts on the
environment. The emergence of a global civil society is creating
new opportunities to build a democratic and humane world. Our
environmental, economic, political, social, and spiritual
challenges are interconnected, and together we can forge
inclusive solutions.
Universal Responsibility
To realize these aspirations, we must decide to live with a
sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with
the whole Earth community as well as our local communities. We
are at once citizens of different nations and of one world in
which the local and global are linked. Everyone shares
responsibility for the present and future well-being of the
human family and the larger living world. The spirit of human
solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened when we
live with reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the
gift of life, and humility regarding the human place in nature.
We urgently need a shared vision of basic values to provide
an ethical foundation for the emerging world community.
Therefore, together in hope we affirm the following
interdependent principles for a sustainable way of life as a
common standard by which the conduct of all individuals,
organizations, businesses, governments, and transnational
institutions is to be guided and assessed.
PRINCIPLES
I. RESPECT AND CARE FOR THE COMMUNITY OF
LIFE
1. Respect Earth and life in all its diversity.
- Recognize that all beings are interdependent and every
form of life has value regardless of its worth to human
beings.
- Affirm faith in the inherent dignity of all human beings
and in the intellectual, artistic, ethical, and spiritual
potential of humanity.
2. Care for the community of life with understanding,
compassion, and love.
- Accept that with the right to own, manage, and use natural
resources comes the duty to prevent environmental harm and
to protect the rights of people.
- Affirm that with increased freedom, knowledge, and power
comes increased responsibility to promote the common good.
3. Build democratic societies that are just,
participatory, sustainable, and peaceful.
- Ensure that communities at all levels guarantee human
rights and fundamental freedoms and provide everyone an
opportunity to realize his or her full potential.
- Promote social and economic justice, enabling all to
achieve a secure and meaningful livelihood that is
ecologically responsible.
4. Secure Earth's bounty and beauty for present and future
generations.
- Recognize that the freedom of action of each generation is
qualified by the needs of future generations.
- Transmit to future generations values, traditions, and
institutions that support the long-term flourishing of
Earth's human and ecological communities.
In order to fulfill these four broad commitments, it
is necessary to:
II. ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY
5. Protect and restore the integrity of Earth's ecological
systems, with special concern for biological diversity and the
natural processes that sustain life.
- Adopt at all levels sustainable development plans and
regulations that make environmental conservation and
rehabilitation integral to all development initiatives.
- Establish and safeguard viable nature and biosphere
reserves, including wild lands and marine areas, to protect
Earth's life support systems, maintain biodiversity, and
preserve our natural heritage.
- Promote the recovery of endangered species and ecosystems.
- Control and eradicate non-native or genetically modified
organisms harmful to native species and the environment, and
prevent introduction of such harmful organisms.
- Manage the use of renewable resources such as water, soil,
forest products, and marine life in ways that do not exceed
rates of regeneration and that protect the health of
ecosystems.
- Manage the extraction and use of non-renewable resources
such as minerals and fossil fuels in ways that minimize
depletion and cause no serious environmental damage.
6. Prevent harm as the best method of environmental
protection and, when knowledge is limited, apply a precautionary
approach.
- Take action to avoid the possibility of serious or
irreversible environmental harm even when scientific
knowledge is incomplete or inconclusive.
- Place the burden of proof on those who argue that a
proposed activity will not cause significant harm, and make
the responsible parties liable for environmental harm.
- Ensure that decision making addresses the cumulative,
long-term, indirect, long distance, and global consequences
of human activities.
- Prevent pollution of any part of the environment and allow
no build-up of radioactive, toxic, or other hazardous
substances.
- Avoid military activities damaging to the environment.
7. Adopt patterns of production, consumption, and
reproduction that safeguard Earth's regenerative capacities,
human rights, and community well-being.
- Reduce, reuse, and recycle the materials used in
production and consumption systems, and ensure that residual
waste can be assimilated by ecological systems.
- Act with restraint and efficiency when using energy, and
rely increasingly on renewable energy sources such as solar
and wind.
- Promote the development, adoption, and equitable transfer
of environmentally sound technologies.
- Internalize the full environmental and social costs of
goods and services in the selling price, and enable
consumers to identify products that meet the highest social
and environmental standards.
- Ensure universal access to health care that fosters
reproductive health and responsible reproduction.
- Adopt lifestyles that emphasize the quality of life and
material sufficiency in a finite world.
8. Advance the study of ecological sustainability and
promote the open exchange and wide application of the knowledge
acquired.
- Support international scientific and technical cooperation
on sustainability, with special attention to the needs of
developing nations.
- Recognize and preserve the traditional knowledge and
spiritual wisdom in all cultures that contribute to
environmental protection and human well-being.
- Ensure that information of vital importance to human
health and environmental protection, including genetic
information, remains available in the public domain.
III. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
9. Eradicate poverty as an ethical, social, and
environmental imperative.
- Guarantee the right to potable water, clean air, food
security, uncontaminated soil, shelter, and safe sanitation,
allocating the national and international resources
required.
- Empower every human being with the education and resources
to secure a sustainable livelihood, and provide social
security and safety nets for those who are unable to support
themselves.
- Recognize the ignored, protect the vulnerable, serve those
who suffer, and enable them to develop their capacities and
to pursue their aspirations.
10. Ensure that economic activities and institutions at
all levels promote human development in an equitable and
sustainable manner.
- Promote the equitable distribution of wealth within
nations and among nations.
- Enhance the intellectual, financial, technical, and social
resources of developing nations, and relieve them of onerous
international debt.
- Ensure that all trade supports sustainable resource use,
environmental protection, and progressive labor standards.
- Require multinational corporations and international
financial organizations to act transparently in the public
good, and hold them accountable for the consequences of
their activities.
11. Affirm gender equality and equity as prerequisites to
sustainable development and ensure universal access to
education, health care, and economic opportunity.
- Secure the human rights of women and girls and end all
violence against them.
- Promote the active participation of women in all aspects
of economic, political, civil, social, and cultural life as
full and equal partners, decision makers, leaders, and
beneficiaries.
- Strengthen families and ensure the safety and loving
nurture of all family members.
12. Uphold the right of all, without discrimination, to a
natural and social environment supportive of human dignity,
bodily health, and spiritual well-being, with special attention
to the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.
- Eliminate discrimination in all its forms, such as that
based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion,
language, and national, ethnic or social origin.
- Affirm the right of indigenous peoples to their
spirituality, knowledge, lands and resources and to their
related practice of sustainable livelihoods.
- Honor and support the young people of our communities,
enabling them to fulfill their essential role in creating
sustainable societies.
- Protect and restore outstanding places of cultural and
spiritual significance.
IV. DEMOCRACY, NONVIOLENCE, AND PEACE
13. Strengthen democratic institutions at all levels, and
provide transparency and accountability in governance, inclusive
participation in decision making, and access to justice.
- Uphold the right of everyone to receive clear and timely
information on environmental matters and all development
plans and activities which are likely to affect them or in
which they have an interest.
- Support local, regional and global civil society, and
promote the meaningful participation of all interested
individuals and organizations in decision making.
- Protect the rights to freedom of opinion, expression,
peaceful assembly, association, and dissent.
- Institute effective and efficient access to administrative
and independent judicial procedures, including remedies and
redress for environmental harm and the threat of such harm.
- Eliminate corruption in all public and private
institutions.
- Strengthen local communities, enabling them to care for
their environments, and assign environmental
responsibilities to the levels of government where they can
be carried out most effectively.
14. Integrate into formal education and life-long learning
the knowledge, values, and skills needed for a sustainable way
of life.
- Provide all, especially children and youth, with
educational opportunities that empower them to contribute
actively to sustainable development.
- Promote the contribution of the arts and humanities as
well as the sciences in sustainability education.
- Enhance the role of the mass media in raising awareness of
ecological and social challenges.
- Recognize the importance of moral and spiritual education
for sustainable living.
15. Treat all living beings with respect and
consideration.
- Prevent cruelty to animals kept in human societies and
protect them from suffering.
- Protect wild animals from methods of hunting, trapping,
and fishing that cause extreme, prolonged, or avoidable
suffering.
- Avoid or eliminate to the full extent possible the taking
or destruction of non-targeted species.
16. Promote a culture of tolerance, nonviolence, and peace.
- Encourage and support mutual understanding, solidarity,
and cooperation among all peoples and within and among
nations.
- Implement comprehensive strategies to prevent violent
conflict and use collaborative problem solving to manage and
resolve environmental conflicts and other disputes.
- Demilitarize national security systems to the level of a
non-provocative defense posture, and convert military
resources to peaceful purposes, including ecological
restoration.
- Eliminate nuclear, biological, and toxic weapons and other
weapons of mass destruction.
- Ensure that the use of orbital and outer space supports
environmental protection and peace.
- Recognize that peace is the wholeness created by right
relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures,
other life, Earth, and the larger whole of which all are a
part.
THE WAY FORWARD
As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek
a new beginning. Such renewal is the promise of these Earth
Charter principles. To fulfill this promise, we must commit
ourselves to adopt and promote the values and objectives of the
Charter.
This requires a change of mind and heart. It requires a new
sense of global interdependence and universal responsibility. We
must imaginatively develop and apply the vision of a sustainable
way of life locally, nationally, regionally, and globally. Our
cultural diversity is a precious heritage and different cultures
will find their own distinctive ways to realize the vision. We
must deepen and expand the global dialogue that generated the
Earth Charter, for we have much to learn from the ongoing
collaborative search for truth and wisdom.
Life often involves tensions between important values. This
can mean difficult choices. However, we must find ways to
harmonize diversity with unity, the exercise of freedom with the
common good, short-term objectives with long-term goals. Every
individual, family, organization, and community has a vital role
to play. The arts, sciences, religions, educational
institutions, media, businesses, nongovernmental organizations,
and governments are all called to offer creative leadership. The
partnership of government, civil society, and business is
essential for effective governance.
In order to build a sustainable global community, the nations
of the world must renew their commitment to the United Nations,
fulfill their obligations under existing international
agreements, and support the implementation of Earth Charter
principles with an international legally binding instrument on
environment and development.
Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new
reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability,
the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the
joyful celebration of life.
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