7th World Conference on Sport and the Environment - International ...

Report
These are, of course, environmental disasters of a different kind but which are no less devastating on a
fragile ecology, on a fragile social fabric and on countries that have little economies to talk about. Around
the teeming urban settlements have grown the unplanned dwellings, sometimes derogatorily referred to
as shacks or shanty towns or ghettoes.
The IOC Sport and Environment seminars around the world have, in effect, been designed to contribute
to the Olympic Movement’s desire to be true to the word of its founding principles, the main one of which
is to place sport at the service of man.
Yesterday, at least two presenters spoke about the Olympic Solidarity and the Commission’s tremendous
efforts to reach out to our sportspersons through their National Olympic Committees, and educate them
on the need to be environmentally conscientious and to participate in tree planting and other like actions.
Coupled with this has been the effort to drive young people into acquiring education, using sport as a
disciplining factor and a major ingredient for character building. We heard this morning in one of the
forums, justification for sport and nature camps which have become in some cases, the sole source of
educational opportunities for hundreds, if not thousands of children from marginalised societies.
The people who run these camps, the unsung Olympians and other sportspersons who run these
facilities but remain in the background, those who support such projects, are in my book Champions
of the Earth like Wangari Mathaai, Jacques Rogge, the IOC and Al Gore.
We have seen the IOC Commission and Olympic Solidarity undertaking their assignment over the years
with great zeal. Their problems have never been in getting young people to plant trees. There have always
been tree planting days on our national calendars. Their challenge, and for all of us, IS to get the young
people to understand the reasons why they have to plant trees at all and not walk away.
Quite often we have been asked if sport can make a difference. Yes it can. And it is. If the road from
Lillehammer to Beijing is any example, we can proudly say sport is making a difference. Not only to the
cities in which the mega-events are being organized, or their nations, but the world over.
Indeed, the very nature of sport, its universality, its reach and its popularity, make it a perfect vehicle for
great-cause actions such as environmental care, education, development and peace. Yes, a small and
less known project in Africa, developed and run on the back of a penny, is getting young people to do
sport, to do education and to do environment. OlympAfrica, Sadili Oval, Mathare Valley Youth Sports
Association may not be as household names as BOCOG, VANOC and TOROC. But they are making a
difference by using sport as a powerful catalyst for education and environmental care.
Greenhouse gases, carbon offsetting, the expanding hole in the ozone layer and the depleting polar
ice caps are important to the human race. But in the IOC, we acknowledge that closer to home issues
such as the lack of basic education and health care, the economic depravity and rampant child mortality
are the now issues for some continents. They are as much a result of depravation and exclusion as the
deterioration in the health of our earth which is attributed to the carelessness with which we have treated
it over the years.
In concluding, Mr. Chairman, here is my request to us all: The Olympic Movement and many international
federations, have taken to tailored environmental education. A lot has been done. Great advances have
been achieved in that respect. But more must be done by us all.
Moving from Plan to Action should not be but a catchy phrase for a conference. The same efforts that
international organizations, NGOs and sports bodies have put in conscientizing populations in developed
countries, must also be applied to the other side. The Third <strong>World</strong>, developing countries, are not a lost
cause. The entire developed world has gone through traumatic experiences. They have come out of it
victorious. But through it all, there was someone prepared to genuinely lend a helping hand.
Developing countries need our helping hand. But tokenism will only breed sceptics. Then the reverse
result will be assured.
I am convinced that if all sport could do more, to address issues of poverty and education like the
Olympic Movement is striving to do, by putting more resources in the development of promising, nay
revolutionary “new products” like the Youth Olympic Games, the day may not be all that far when the
playing field will be truly level.
<strong>7th</strong> <strong>World</strong> <strong>Conference</strong> on Sport and the Environment
International Cooperation and Development Dept.
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