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Seminar 7
“Humanity and the Biosphere: The Next Thousand Years”
September 20–22, 2006 | UNESCO, Paris, France
Summary
 Scholars from five continents participated in the seminar “Humanity and the Biosphere: The Next Thousand Years,” jointly sponsored and conducted by the Foundation For the Future (Bellevue, Washington USA) and the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences of UNESCO (Paris, France) at UNESCO, September 20–22, 2006, in Paris.
The purpose of the seminar was to provide
a forum for dialogue amongst academics, scientists, conservationists,
resource managers, and practitioners in international environment relations
to explore critical components of the human-environment relationship
with significant implications for the future of Planet Earth. Observing
throughout the seminar were various representatives of the UNESCO Division
of Ecological and Earth Sciences, particularly those who are directly
tasked with the implementation of UNESCO’s
Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme.
The core issue
determined by the scholars to be the most critical, going forward into
the far future, was the overarching goal of influencing change to foster
the well-being of the biosphere – a goal with four main facets:
(a) evolution of consciousness, (b) exploration and research into the
driving forces of change, (c) education and communication for dissemination
of knowledge, and (d) ethics/equity, including intra-species equity,
inter-species equity, and intergenerational equity.
The
seminar combined the focus of UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere Programme with the Foundation For the Future’s emphasis on the long-term future of humanity. MAB is part of UNESCO’s Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences (www.unesco.org/mab). Since 1971, MAB has worked continuously for the sustainable use and conservation of biological diversity and an improved relationship between people and their environment globally. It is a pioneer international program for co-operation on research, training, education, and information- and knowledge sharing on all problems that straddle the human-environment interface. MAB will take into consideration the four-faceted goal recommended as the most critical issue for humanity’s
thousand-year journey into the future in its current efforts to reform
and reinvent its agenda in line with UNESCO mission and mandates.
Proceedings (8.7
MB PDF) with full transcripts from the UNESCO/FFF
seminar, “Humanity and the Biosphere: The Next Thousand Years,” available for download.
Background Material
The Human Journey (942
KB PDF)
The Human
Impact on Planet Earth (6.6 MB PDF)
Participants
Daniel B. Botkin
Founder
Center for the Study of the Environment
NY, USA
Eric J. Chaisson
Director, Wright Center
for Innovative Science Education
Tufts University
MA, USA
Albert de Haan
Commercial Director
European Climate Exchange
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Sylvia Earle
President
DOER Marine
CA, USA
Ricardo Guerrero
Scientific Secretary
Institute for Catalan Studies
Barcelona, Spain
Malcolm Hadley
Biologist
UNESCO Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences
Paris, France
David W. Macdonald
Director
Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Oxford University
United Kingdom
Lynn Margulis
Professor
Department of Geosciences, University
of Massachusetts
MA, USA
June Marie Mow
Director
Providence Foundation
Bogota, Colombia
Magnus Ngoile
Team Leader
Marine and Coastal Environment Management Project
Tanzania, Africa
Shekhar Singh
Convenor
National Campaign for
People’s Right to Information
New Delhi, India
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