Fidel Castro
Environment:
Tomorrow Will Be Too Late
Fidel Castro
(We are printing this warning delivered by Fidel Castro in a speech to the 1992 Earth Summit
in Rio Di Janeiro in the context of the fires now engulfing the forests of Amazonia.)s
Mr. UN Secretary General
Boutros Boutros-Ghali; Your
Excellencies
An important biological
species is in danger of
disappearing due to the fast aand
progressive destruction of its
natural living conditions: humanity.
We have become aware of
this problem when it is almost too
late to stop it.
It is necessary to point out that
consumer
societies
are
fundamentally responsible for the
brutal destruction of the
environment. They arose from the
old colonial powers and from
imperialist policies which in turn
engendered the backwardness
and poverty which today afflicts the
vast majority of mankind.
With only 20 percent of the
world’s population, these societies
consume two-thirds of the metals
and three-fourths of the energy
produced in the world. They have
poisoned the seas and rivers,
polluted the air, weakened and
punctured the ozone layer,
saturated the atmosphere with
gases which are changing weather
conditions with a catastrophic
effect we are already beginning to
experience.
The forests are disappearing.
The deserts are expanding. Every
year billons of tons of fertile soil end
up in the sea. Numerous species
are becoming extinct. Population
pressures and poverty trigger
frenzied efforts to survive even
when it is at the expense of the
environment. It is not possible to
blame the Third World countries for
this. Yesterday, they were colonies;
today, they are nations exploited
October - 2019
and pillaged by an unjust
international economic order
The solution cannot be to
prevent the development of those
who need it most. The reality is that
anything that nowadays contributes
to underdevelopment and poverty
constitutes a flagrant violation of
ecology. Tens of millions of men,
women, and children die every year
in the Third World as a result of
this, more than in each of the two
world wars. Unequal terms of trade,
protectionism and the foreign debt
assault the ecology and promote
the destruction of the environment.
If we want to save mankind
from this self-destruction, we have
to better distribute the wealth and
technologies available in the world.
Less luxury and less waste by a few
countries is needed so there is less
poverty and less hunger on a large
part of the Earth. We do not need
any more transferring to the Third
World of lifestyles and consumption
habits that ruin the environment. Let human life become more
rational. Let us implement a just
international economic order. Let
us use all the science necessary
for pollution-free, sustained
development. Let us pay the
ecological debt, and not the foreign
debt. Let hunger disappear, and
not mankind.
Now that the alleged threat of
communism has disappeared and
there are no longer any more
excuses for cold wars, arms races,
and military spending, what is
blocking the immediate use of
these resources to promote the
development of the Third World
and fight the threat of the ecological
destruction of the planet?
Let selfishness end. Let
hegemonies end. Let insensitivity,
irresponsibility, and deceit end.
Tomorrow it will be too late to do
what we should have done a long
time ago.
Thank you
contd from page 4 indigenous control are far better
protected than those managed by
the profit-driven corporations. The
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change and Land stressed
the importance of indigenous and
community land rights as a key
climate change solution.
Imperialism is setting the world
on fire. Since the days of
colonialism the people are resisting
its violence. Put an end to the
imperialist machinations and
vesting the land rights to forest
dwellers is our best hope to restore
the climate to such a status where
all the biological species can exist
on the earth.
5
occurring around the globe. As the
Amazon is on fire, larger jungle
fires are burning down the Central
African rainforest. In two days of
August 22 & 23, NASA’s satellites
recorded 6900 fires in Angola and
3400 in Congo which are five times
as many as in the same days in the
Brazilian Amazon. The MNCs
interested in the enormous mineral
reserves and hydrocarbon
resources of central Africa have
got the governments of Angola and
Congo to let the jungle burn.
The scientific research is
showing that lands under