Posted: Mike Sanderson
I was privileged to be able to attend the Eye on Earth summit convened under the Patronage of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates. AGEDI and UNEP gathered a panoply of world leaders in their fields for the plenary sessions. Jane Goodall talked enthusiastically about the chimps in equatorial Africa, polar explorer Rob Swan was passionate in his defence of Antarctica, Sylvia Earle (formerly Chief Scientist at NOAA) introduced us to blue carbon, Rebecca Moore from Google outreach talked about the Google Earth Engine. This was a call to arms event for sustainability.
The highlight was the presentation from Hernando de Soto of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, Peru. He talked about the Tunisian street trader, Mohamed Bouazizi who set himself on fire just over a year ago. Hernando described the feeling of hopelessness that this individual felt as he realised that to trade legitimately he had to seek permits from 73 government agencies. Development is key to human progress and cannot be avoided, so the role of government is to allow development whilst maintaining a balance with the environment and other individuals. The initiatives announced at the conference (see: http://www.iisd.ca/ymb/uncsd/eoes/) were purposeful but for us to return in 2013 and measure their success they need to pass the Bouazizi test (they need to produce a simpler form of interaction between the individual and government).
And for 1Spatial, the summit declaration contained the following words: ‘we need to develop effective mechanisms for collecting, managing and disseminating necessary environmental information, with the responsibility for quality assurance resting with those who collect or originate the data.’
