This Green Economics Institute’s Biodivirstiy Summit will take place online on Wednesday 17 February 2021, 10:30 – 14:30 EST. This event is gearing towards stopping the 6th ever mass extinction of species, creating diversity and inclusion in nature. Attendees will discover what they can do personally to get involved, for your own sake and for future generations.
It is well known that expert opinion points to our maltreatment of nature as the leading cause of most pandemics in history including the current one. However with our renewed industrialization of food, this time it is bigger and different and more deeply engrained in our economics and food and agriculture systems. Our utter lack of respect for nature has meant we have now managed to wipe out a large percentage of insects and other animals and this presents a real and present danger to us. How did we do something so catastrophic, how did we not even notice it happening and how on earth can we turn this around and move forward into an age of caring and sharing the planet with our neighbors. The United Nations is running 2 major conferences this year that will address some of this. The IPBES has issued a number of incredibly important benchmark reports as has the IPCC and the UNFCCC. One of these will be in May in Kanmung in Chin. This workshop will take you through what they mean and what initiatives are out there to help us through and how you personally can get involved and do something about this, for your own sake and for future generations.
The green economics institute has always taken a lead in warning that this was happening- we are very sad that we were correct – now come and find out how it all works and what you can do. In the light of the Desgupta Review on biodiversity and the initiatives at COP 26 in Glasgow, there is real impetus this year to privatise and commodify what is left of nature. Today the weight of all human objects is greater than natural ones, plastic will become the most common thing in the sea- more than fish. All justified by profit and greed. This state of affairs cannot last as we have seen with the shock of covid. Nature really will bite back. We need to stop all this and think very deeply about our role in nature and get a grip rather fast. This conference attempts to unravel the catastrophic mess of economics, politics, and philosophy that got us in this sorry state.
Hear from experts like Dr Asia Mohamed, University of Khartoum Sudan, United Nations-IPBES lead Africa Dr. Susan Canney, Professor of Zooology, University of Oxford Dr. Djana Bejko, Former Minister of Environment, Albania and currently Director of the Environment Ministry. Professor of Ecology and Biology. Dr Vandana Shiva, Indian scholar, and environmental activist
Programme 15.30-19.30- PM UK time
Making a new contract with nature in 2021- Green Economics Institute Biodiversity Summit
Preparing for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference Conference of Parties (COP15) the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) and the UN COP 26 Glasgow, Scotland
15.30 -16.30 Introductory Session A
The need for nature- making a new contract with Nature- Recalibrating our relationship with the entire natural world and making an entire new philosophy.
Mainstream Economic Options- what are they offering and how do they differ.? Green wash or making a difference:Policy choices for Nature based solutions, Nature positive agenda, Ecosystem services – environmental economics -ecological economics, circular economy, stakeholder capitalism–
Co- Chairs: Sukriti Anand and Marlyn Hughes
Speakers
- Dr Asia Mohammed (Sudan ) IPBES United Nations Expert Biologist economist
- Dr Vandana Shiva, India Author Monocultures. Seed Savers, Founder and Director of Seed saving Institute ‘-Navdanya’ and many other influencial books and speeches.
- Bianca Madison- Vuleta- Human relationships with nature. (UK, Denmark, Croatia, Italy)
- Dorothy Nalubega, Biodiversity Loss in Uganda because of the attack on our forests and natural resources (Uganda )
- Sukriti Anand, Economist (India) Survival Solutions
- Miriam Kennet IPBES and United Nations COP15 Kunming, Biodiversity Conference in 2021.
Break 15 minutes 16.30-16.45
Session 1- Expert speakers presentations 16.45-17.30
Chair Marlyn Hughes and Bianca Madison – Vuleta
Panel 1 -The situation in nature in 2021
Setting the Scene–Results of scientific reports- and research. the shocking state of nature and how humans have wiped most of it out. How this has helped create a series of pandemics and a new environment which threatens our future.
Speakers include
- Dr Susan Canney, Research Associate at the Zoology Department, University of Oxford and author at the Green Economics Institute – Human-nature co-existence: a case study from Mali.
- RT Hon Lijiana Poposkova former MP North Macedonia. The water missusment and damage on biodiversity by economical activities in mining, send digging and hydropower plants in Balkan region. There is a mass destruction of nature and species..
Break 15. minutes 17.30-17.45 Break out session
Panel 2 – Expert speakers and debate with participants 17.50 -18.45
The Biodiversity Initiatives and activities in 2021 to deal with this- solutions, philosophical adjustments needed. Different paths and policy choices- humans at a cross roads. The International institutions such as the United Nations, The IPBES, President Macrons -One Planet Summit, Prince Charles Terra Carta etc. what are the initiatives offering-what are they offering and how do they differ.
Chairs : Sukriti Anand and Marlyn Hughes
Speakers include:
- Baronness Natalie Bennett, UK House of Lords.
- Dr Asia Mohamed, University of Khartoum Sudan, Economist, United Nations-IPBES lead Africa-Green Economics Institute Research Group TBC
Break 15 minutes 18.45-19.00
Panel 3-Participatory Debate with all participants: Methodologies of preserving life on earth 19.00-19.25
Chair Bianca Madison – Vuleta and Leena Ahmed /Facilitator Miriam Kennet
Case study : Miranda Brown Alberta University Canada.Presentation
The Okavango Delta- Oil and Gas on San Lands which have been matrifocally sustainably managed for millenia by Indigenous San People in Namibia- under threat from oil and gas exploration – why? What does tell us about how to manage biodiversity and what really matters.? What are real survival solutions-with the precautionary principle? Is time to adopt a Green economy and Deep ecology and existence value approaches
19.25-19.30 Conclusions and Next Steps
The Green Economics Institute delegati0on to, IPBES and United Nations COP15 Kunming, Biodiversity Conference in 2021. Opportunity to take part in our United Nations Delegations. -Ideas to take to IPBES and the United Nations and inputs and participation. Next steps – imputs to our main conference and to the United Nations and other initiatives to address this threat. All participants and discussion– Summer School and Biodiversity one course.COP26 climate conference Glasgow November 2021
Speaker Miriam Kennet
Green Economics and the role of nature (Kennet 2006)
Over the last few hundred years, mainstream economics has tamed and used nature as an expendable given resource, and has only valued scarce resources. Nature is abundant and therefore has been treated as a ‘free good’ and resource, and has been disregarded even though it is becoming more apparent that nature holds up the world economy and it is becoming more visibly fragile and ‘scarce’. Goldsmith (2005) shows that Environmental Economics does attempt to adjust neo-liberal economics to the needs and costs of nature. However, this only works if the adjustments are small, whereas if it tries to adjust to the whole of nature’s carrying capacity, which Goldsmith argues it does, then clearly the discipline of economics needs to be rewritten in order to include and to take into account the role of nature. This is the work of Green Economics.
Click here for the flyer
Click here to get tickets
