Is "meeting" the way?

As an editor in search of suitable material for this publication, I couldn't have planned it better myself. Sitting on my desk the day I returned from the Sofia "Environment for Europe" Ministerial Conference was Island Sunsets, a book containing the following environmental poem. These verses sum up, in just a few short lines, many of the issues and problems policymakers and the public face in their push to clean up the planet: priorities, public participation, responsibility, self-interest, disinterest - it's all there.

It's good to see that the environment has made its way onto the global agenda in a way experts couldn't have foreseen thirty years ago. Inevitably, part of the globalization process is conferences like the one held in Sofia recently, conferences that draw attention and resources to the environmental movement. While these gatherings are not necessarily useful tools by themselves, they are part of the road toward a better future, rest areas at which to take stock and plan for the future.

But after spending a week covering both the official ministerial conference, where bureaucrats argued endlessly about whether to "endorse" or "support" nonbinding articles and strategies and guidelines, and the NGO parallel conference that has been built up alongside it, this poem left me wondering: Is the "process" we have created to solve environmental problems sufficient enough to save the planet?

Editor of THE BULLETIN

The Meeting

The animals met in the forest, the meeting was called to see,
If anyone could find a solution, to the environmental calamity.
The mouse crawled up on the podium, said he would like the chair.
Someone suggested he was too small, inquired if the rat was there.
No! He couldn't make it, sent the mouse in his place.
Said he was awfully busy; running his own rat race.

A motion came from the floor by the otter, "Are others as concerned as I am
About the pollution of water?" The beaver said he couldn't give a dam.
He was aware water was a problem, but he was worried about trees.
Someone shouted, "Self interest!"; there's noise at meetings like these.
Then the ducks started quacking, "You dealt with water too soon,
We were bringing a delegation, two old coots and a loon."

The skunk brought up the subject of the pollutions of air,
Said it was getting so he wasn't recognized, felt it was most unfair.
But the jays came in with such chatter; some shouted, "Noise pollution to boot."
There was such a racket; the owl said he wouldn't give a hoot.
The meeting went on for some hours, everyone had much to say;
As the night wore to a finish, the subject was in real disarray.

Some said, "Appoint a commission", and into the subject delved.
Others wanted more action, others the whole matter shelved.
Some fights broke out at the meeting, some dog started a fight.
No one solved any problems, but they created new ones that night.
As the sun rose over the forest and night came to an end,
They agreed it had been a good meeting, they'd solved their problems like men.

Mel Warren

THE BULLETIN * AUTUMN 1995