A A R H U S A N D N G O S
The traditional picture of NGOs meeting with government or business is coloured with confrontation. Notable instances include Greenpeace boats planting themselves in the paths of environmental "enemies," such as whalers and nuclear waste transporters, and tragic consequences such as the destruction of their ship the Rainbow Warrior.Confrontation can also be found within auditoriums and workshops when "the public," usually represented by NGOs, meets for discussions with government and business leaders. While not embodied in physical violence, these revolutions of words epitomise the gaps in communication and understanding between the players in the environmental arena, especially when exposed in mass media. Confrontation makes for good headlines. And while some argue that pressure tactics are inevitable to environmental democracy and are at times the only means to environmentally-friendly ends, others argue that cooperation should bridge the differences.
The Aarhus Ministerial Conference, more than any before it in the Environment for Europe process, put significant weight on instilling cooperation and mutual support between governments, business and NGOs. But did it succeed?
Perhaps for the first time in the history of ministerial conferences, NGOs were given the responsibility of organising an NGO Session — a half-day dialogue between themselves and ministers on the subject of public participation.
"The opportunity for the public, individuals or more usually NGOs to become involved must be built in so as to allow full participation from the beginning of the process," wrote Mary Robinson, UN Commissioner for Human Rights, in the opening message to the NGO Session.
NGOs also successfully influenced the wording of the Aarhus Ministerial Declaration, "to avoid it from being watered down too much," noted Theresa Herzog, Chair of the Steering Committee of the European ECO Forum and Vice-Chair for the NGO Session. Herzog said that NGO comments on the draft declaration were included in the final version, including a line in Article 61 which read: "The Environment for Europe process should build on the work done so far and, in particular, move forward from policy commitments to practical implementation."
"We hope that this is the beginning of more cooperation between NGOs and ministers," said Herzog. "The ministers often listened to NGOs and respected us like partners. But we didn't always agree."
The importance of NGOs was also increasingly recognised by governments attending Aarhus. "Our work cannot be done without help from NGOs," said Bulgarian Environment Minister Evdokia Maneva. Swedish Environment Minister Anna Lindh also praised the NGO Session and added her hopes that it become a tradition for future conferences between NGOs and ministers.
"It was very good that we had an NGO session," said Peter Roderick of Friends of the Earth UK. "But it was very controlled — too much like a government session."
"I hope that the NGO process will be more independent from the governmental process," said Jiri Dlouhy from the Society for Sustainable Living in Prague. "We only now do what the officials do — make comments."
While diplomatic dialogue dominated the conference, notable exceptions occurred.
A printed NGO resolution on the Convention continued the attack. "We particularly deplore ...the scandalous failure of the Convention to guarantee public participation rights in decision-making on GMOs," it noted.
While recognising that a problem did exist, William Kakebeeke, chairman of the group preparing the Convention, diplomatically stated that: "GMOs were included but in an imperfect way."
Another noteworthy item inviting NGO criticism concerned those countries which refused to sign the Convention.
"We are shocked that some of these countries who participated in drafting the Convention will now not sign," said Jeremy Wates of the NGO delegation.
"We are appaled that at least one of these countries, Germany, intends to add insult to injury by not signing the Convention," noted the NGO Declaration on the Convention.
A press release by environmental groups which met with the German minister also had some unpleasant words to say. "The delegation expressed its anger about this decision, because during the two year negotiations on this Convention, Germany has been the most obstructive country in diluting or deleting essential provisions."
While Danish Environment Minister Sven Auken thanked NGOs "for their participation and criticism even when it really hurts," others felt that certain boundaries of diplomacy had been overstepped. "We are impressed with the strong support of NGOs ... but the degree of criticism does not increase with the level of inappropriate words used," said a member of the German delegation.
NGOs and governments did bridge some of their gaps at Aarhus. This was demonstrated symbolically at the end of the NGO Session, when the whole NGO delegation, sang out the Battle Hymn of the NGOs for all of the ministers, with William Kakebeeke and Peter Roderick side by side in center stage.
— Paul Csagoly
