ECOLOGY CRIMES  (CONT)

Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) said the fact that over 80 world leaders were meeting Monday at the United Nations at a high-level summit on climate change was "a sign of growing consensus on the need for the international community to act on climate change."

An equally important meeting, under the auspices of the United Nations, is also scheduled to take place in Bali, Indonesia in December, he added.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who initiated Monday's summit, says that climate change will be one of the top priorities during his five-year tenure in office.

But Kumar, editor of Resurgence, sounds very sceptical of the U.N. role in global environment.

"The U.N. approach to environment is very limited and rather shallow because the United Nations still thinks that the environment is there for the benefit of human kind and therefore we need to protect the environment," he told IPS.

This is a very utilitarian approach. Human beings are seen as in charge, as superior and somehow more important than all other species, he pointed out.

"This is a very old and out of date concept. The United Nations needs to see environment and ecology and humanity as one interconnected and inter-dependent web of life," Kumar said.

And human beings are no more important and no more superior than animals, plants, forests, rivers, oceans -- and they have intrinsic value.

"The United Nations does not accept the intrinsic value of the natural world. It says the value of the environment is only in relation to its usefulness to humans. That's a very anthropocentric, very human-centred, and a very narrow view," he added.

Therefore, the United Nations needs to do a lot of work to embrace this bigger vision which has a more respect and reverence and recognition of the intrinsic value of all living beings and humanity as part of it, he declared.

Asked if he was blaming member states or the U.N. Secretariat, Kumar said: "I think it's the Secretariat, because member states have no one single view."

He said each member state has its own particular emphasis and its own particular angle. The Secretariat can bring together a cohesive and more holistic view. "And the Secretariat lacks that holistic view and that's where I think the United Nations is weak."

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