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On May 18, leaders of the world’s eight largest economies (the G8) will gather at Camp David, a walled-off retreat reserved for the US President and his guests. There, they will make decisions that will affect all of us, no matter where we live.
But women’s human rights advocates refuse to be ignored. We are putting forward our own G8 agenda. We need your input to craft it.
Every day, we’ll be addressing the priorities that should be on the G8 agenda. We’re asking you to submit your comments, concerns and suggestions. Together, we can craft an agenda that voices the demands of women’s human rights advocates around the world.
Today, we’re looking at the Environment and Natural Resources:
This Is the Reality:
Land Grabbing: Small-scale women farmers in the Global South produce most of their families’ food. But their communities are being dispossessed by corporations to make way for industrial agriculture and biofuel plantations.
Extractive Industries: G8 governments have misdirected vital investment dollars into industries like oil and mining. In communities from Peru to the Congo, people are confronting the harmful practices of extractive industries on their land—often facing brutal retaliation.
Climate Change: We are fast approaching a global point of no return—irreversible climate change, including droughts and famines, unpredictable farming seasons and intensified disasters.
This Is Our Vision. Women Demand G8 Policies That:
Promote the sustainable use of resources. End policies that push cash-strapped governments to pursue short-sighted resource exploitation.
Provide access to financing for climate change adaptation at the grassroots level. That is where climate change is most acutely felt and where the most innovative solutions are emerging.
Increase investment in renewable energy sources.
Take urgent action to address climate change: impose caps on greenhouse gas emissions and work towards zero-waste, low carbon economies.
Add your voice here.
Photo credit: Elizabeth Rappaport
- Published by Stephanie Küng in: G8 Agenda 2012 Website
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4 Responses to “A Women’s Human Rights Agenda for the G8: The Environment and Natural Resources”
Dear MADRE – In many cultures for many centuries, women have traditionally tended house and hearth. What is so moving about your G8 manifesto is to see that women are the ones who have expanded the word “house” to mean “planet.” It was a woman, after all, who wrote “Diet for a Small Planet” some 40 years ago. We are moving from being caretakers of the family to caretakers of the Earth, a sensible and empowering transition. Three cheers for MADRE! Kay
I fully support this vision and I would only add a demand for peace, disarmament and lack of funding for projects related to destruction and warfare. By the same token I would request to reduce the use of nuclear energy and invest in research for clean energy and sustainable economies. For our elders, for our children, for ourselves. Thank you.
I am fully in big support of women’s rights , and creat a level playing ground for every WHRD . LGBTI rights are human rights we need to live freely and belong to where ever we want to be
I believe that it will be women who will change the world. Women have left it to men for too long, and as Barack Obama said, now it’s time to take our place at the table and at the head of the table no less! Men have made all the rules since time immemorial and though they have done many good things, much of those good things have not come with peace and well-being for everyone. Women can change this – we must disarm the war machine and use our feminine force to benefit humanity and the planet. Every woman needs to rise up. Men have had long enough to get it right. Now it’s time for change, change we all can live with happily. Men think it can’t be done but that’s because they are boxed in by thinking of the past. The world is different now and the dangers we face call for all of us to do better.
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