TradiTional Knowledge and BiodiversiTy - UNU-IAS - United ...

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draft by naming it A Draft Declaration by Citizens of Aichi
Nagoya. The appeal was made public, and the drafters had
a press briefing on 28 October, 2010 at a press briefing
room of CBD COP 10.
With respect to consensus building, SNS did not function
as an effective tool, overall. Although the content of
the draft was discussed on the SNS, the key debate on
economic growth was not visible on the website. Instead
of using the SNS site, people opted for discussions in
person, during forums for example, or they opted for
emails among small groups, such as the members of the
steering committee of JCN-CBD and some members of
RCE Chubu.
Conclusion
A cross-boundary learning approach was applied to
the Cyber Dialogue. Although the target of this project
was civil society, many intellectuals, NGO members and
people from the business sector participated in the
project. Through the Cyber Dialogue, participants learned
the different views of multistakeholders. This sharing
of knowledge and ideas will be expanded during in the
second (2011-12) and third stages (2013-14).
In the second stage of the Cyber Dialogue, which looks
toward COP11, both Japanese and English languages
are being used on the SNS site and a dialogue among
RCEs in and out of Japan is in preparation. In order to
develop a dialogue based on concrete experience, the
Cyber Dialogue site has a section dedicated to good
practices. All the RCEs are invited to give a brief report,
including pictures and, eventually, audio of their good
practices. The dialogue will thus not be too abstract and
will instead be a forum for the RCEs and other participants
to discuss concrete examples of how specific problems
of ecologically, economically and socially unsustainable
realities can become the object of mutual learning,
common understanding and joint action. It is RCE Chubu’s
hope that interested members of different RCEs will
join the international dialogue, after sharing their good
practice examples with all the other participants from
different regions of the world.
The dialogue among RCEs will become the priority activity
of the third stage of the Cyber Dialogue, during which
it will become important for RCEs to prepare their joint
contribution to the 2014 concluding evaluation of the UN
Decade on ESD. A comparison of their respective
activities will be a key topic in the third stage of the Cyber
Dialogue, focusing on the 2014 and the end for the UN
Decade on ESD.
The catastrophic events of the March 11 East Japan
earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear explosion
at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant will also be a focus
of the second stage of the Cyber Dialogue. The spread
of radioactive materials in the aftermath of the nuclear
explosion provides a globally relevant focus for the
discussion that involves the issue of nuclear electric plants
as well as the mass production, consumption and disposal
lifestyle that is based on a high energy consumption
approach. Re-evaluating traditional knowledge of
indigenous communities and other local communities as
stressed in the CBD will also be a focus of the second stage.
One concrete target of the second stage cyber dialogue
is the preparation of reports for distribution during the
Hyderabad COP 11. The active participation of activists and
intellectuals from indigenous communities will provide a
rare occasion for an international dialogue between those
victims of the March 11 catastrophe in Japan who are
trying to revive traditional knowledge and those within
communities where such knowledge is already playing
an important role in supporting sustainable community
development.
In its second phase (2011-2012), the Cyber Dialogue
will use the SNS Facebook system where “friends” of
participants in the Biodiversity Cyber Dialogue are invited
to participate in themes that might concern them, such as
keeping traditional wisdom in indigenous communities
and other communities. It will also involve those
exchanging information about the Fukushima Daiichi
nuclear explosion, providing them an occasion to expand
the Cyber Dialogue to concerned citizens, in and out of
Japan, who have had no previous access to ESD. It is hoped
that the inclusion of a special section on good practices
will help all participants – especially the RCEs –
to join the discussion by sharing their concrete experience
as an entry-point. The Cyber Dialogue will be enriched by
these additions and others; the Japanese experience on
and after March 11 alone could become the focus of an
ESD dialogue on how to overcome unsustainability based
on wrong attitudes and values, which led to the collision
between humans and Mother Nature.
References
RCE Chubu, 2010. Biodiversity Cyber Dialogue, [online] Available at:
http://biodiversity-COP 10.ning.com [Accessed 26 June 2012]
Chubu RCE-ESD Promoting Network (CREPN) 2011, The Report on Global
ESD Dialogue Project – i-dialog, pp.5-6.
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