rivers

Science, Spirituality, Solidarity: Weaving Interconnections for Change

On Oct. 20, you are invited to join the Temple of Understanding – in collaboration with Marble Collegiate Church – for FORUM2022!

FORUM2022 is a call to action on the global crisis facing humanity and all life on planet Earth. Connecting the variable causes of the climate crisis, our speakers bring together ancient wisdom and modern science to address this time of severe destruction with positive and effective solutions.

Program

Distinguished 19th Generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe, Chief Arvol Looking Horse, will open FORUM2022 with traditional Native American Sioux prayers.

“Earth Democracy: Sustainability and Justice” Keynote dialogue between Bill McKibben and Dr. Vandana Shiva will expound upon the era of unrestricted capitalism and inspire us to embrace a moral and spiritual perspective for restoring our bio-system.

Prayers will be offered for the global ecological crisis by several world religious leaders:

  • The Rev. Sally Bingham, Canon for the Environment for the Diocese of California, or you can use founder and President Emerita, Interfaith Power and Light. (Christian)
  • Imam Saffet Catovic, Director, Interfaith, Community Alliances, and Government Relations, Islamic Society of North America, Washington, D.C.(Muslim)
  • Rabbi David Rosen, KSG CBE, International Director of Interreligious Affairs, American Jewish Committee (Jewish)
  • Pandit Shukla Ji, Hindu Priest, Hindu Samaj Mandir Mahwah, New Jersey (Hindu)

“Sacred Soil & Sacred Forests” panelists examine the relationship between ancient knowledge and current scientific thinking and present practical solutions for the climate crisis. Ray Archuleta, an American soil scientist, is joined by Irish botanist and author Diana Beresford-Kroeger and Patricia Kombo, passionate environmentalist, founder of the PaTree Initiative, and she is a United Nation Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Land Hero, to discuss the crucial importance of healthy soil and vibrant forests for life on our planet, balancing the climate, harnessing water and sustaining food supplies.

A short video will introduce Jerusalem artist Beverly Barkat’s “Earth Poetica,” a phenomenal sculpture constructed from plastic waste collected from around the world, which will be exhibited at New York City’s World Trade Center complex next year.

Panelists on “Caring for our Endangered Oceans and Waterways” analyze the many ways to address the trashing of our oceans, create an international water policy, and tackle ocean warming. Dave Ford, founder of the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network, USA, an activist to industry organization, is joined by David Helvarg, executive director of Blue Frontier, and Dr. Kelsey Leonard, a citizen of the Shinnecock Nation, who is a water scientist, legal scholar, policy expert, writer, and assistant professor, University of Waterloo, Canada.

Co-sponsors 

Interfaith Center of New York, Interfaith Power and Light, Islamic Society of North America, Parliament of the World’s Religions, World Interfaith Network

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations, please visit rngos.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, please visit facebook.com/NGOCoRIP. For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development/NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development/Vienna, please visit ngocsdvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Human Rights, please email the co-chairs at bknotts@uua.org or bobbinassar@yahoo.com. 

[monthly mtg] NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

Agenda for June 16, 2022

Zoom link: https://fordham.zoom.us/j/85797881478

1. Moment of Silence in Honor of the Land we are on and the Native Peoples of this Land

2. Welcome and Review of Agenda

3. Meeting Minutes of April 21, 2022

4. Report of the Executive Committee

5. Guest Speaker: Dan Baron Cohen is a community performance educator and eco-cultural activist of Welsh-Quebecois origin and has lived in Brazil since 1998 and in the Brazilian Amazonian city of Marabá since 2009. He has developed numerous programs with indigenous peoples of the Amazon/Brazil and worked with UNESCO and UNICEF. See below for more.

6. Update on Indigenous Health Subcommittee [Rashmi]

7. Update on the Education Subcommittee [Rick]

8. Other Items and Announcements

Guest speaker bio for Dan Baron Cohen, community educator and eco-cultural activist:

Dan works with Afro-Indigenous Youth in Amazonian region of Para, Brazil. The Rivers of Meeting education project, began by awakening sleeping cultural roots and human rights through Afro-Contemporary percussion, dance and lyrics workshops. Over 12 years, excluded youth were nurtured to become community workshop leaders and coordinators of medicinal plants, street library/cinema projects, dance and audiovisual companies, annual festival and workshop courses in their Community University of the Rivers, to defend the River Tocantins and nurture an eco-village based on eco-pedagogies for sustainable community.

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CoNGO Notes: The NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is a Substantive Committee of the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations. Likewise, for more information on the NGO Committee on Human Rights, please email the co-chairs at bobbinassar@yahoo.com or bknotts@uua.org. 

Food from Oceans, Rivers and Lakes

“Food from Oceans, Rivers and Lakes”

Taking place on Friday 28th January 2022

Date and time: January 28, 2022, London 06:00- 07:35; Geneva, Lagos, Rome 07:00-8:35, Cairo, Johannesburg, Lomé 08:00-09:35, Nairobi, Antananarivo 09:00-10:35, New Delhi 11:30-13:15, Bangkok, Jakarta 13:00- 14:35; Beijing, Manila, Taipei 14:00- 15:35, Honiara, Sydney 17:00-18:35, Suva 18:00- 19:35, Apia, Auckland 19:00- 20:35 & Tahiti – January 27 20:00- 21:35

An upcoming webinar will offer speakers’ insights on “Food from Oceans, Rivers and Lakes.” Offered on 28 January, the webinar will explore the vital role of blue, or aquatic, foods in the wellbeing and livelihood of 3 billion people in the world. But the health of the water bodies is being degraded by climate change, pollution, unsustainable overfishing, and mining.

Speakers will offer insights on how communities of faith must be at the forefront if we are to see a sustainable future. They will discuss decisive steps in restoring and protecting marine and freshwater ecosystems, and reducing pollution that contaminates those systems. The audience will hear about innovative approaches and ways to adapt food preferences and lifestyles to uphold creation as a gift.

The year 2022 has been declared by the UN as the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture.

The Webinar will be held in English and French.

Register for the Webinar

Background documents in English & French

For additional information, please go to this link: Webinar: “Food from Oceans, Rivers and Lakes” | World Council of Churches (oikoumene.org)

 

Sophie Dhanjal

Project Assistant

Economic and Ecological Justice

World Council of Churches

150, route de Ferney

1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland

Phone: +41-22 791 67.05

Email: sdl@wcc-coe.org

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on CoNGO–the Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations, visit www.ngocongo.org. For specific information about how CoNGO and its substantive committees (also known as NGO Committees) work on matters related to the subject of the event on this page, visit NGO Committees. 

Universal Access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Draws Closer to Epic Goal Despite Global Pandemic

50 Years and Billions Spent: New Reporting Shows Universal Access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Draws Closer to Epic Goal Despite Global Pandemic

Join a special session with Ambassador Mark Green featuring groundbreaking reporting on one of the most stubborn challenges in human history—universal access to water, sanitation and hygiene.

Register here: https://engage.wilsoncenter.org/a/50-years-and-billions-spent?_ga=2.257362504.2142016265.1620277195-242578209.1620277195

Over the last half century a global galaxy of projects, programs, banks, philanthropies, government departments, idea centers, utilities, service companies, research groups, and consultancies devoted itself to one objective—providing every person on Earth clean water, sanitation, and hygiene. In 2020, many of the sector’s leaders worried that the COVID-19 pandemic would sidetrack investment and slow progress. But while the signs of a potential catastrophe were apparent, the actual effects of the pandemic in delivering water and sanitation to people who needed it were not nearly as dire as anticipated.

Decades of frontline experience provided the WASH sector keen understanding of the various components of their ecosystem—finance, governance, installation, management, operations, oversight—and how each influenced the other. In essence, the WASH community developed a set of approaches that simplified the complexity of what they were after. Achieving universal access to clean water and hygiene is reachable by 2030. Universal access to sanitation could come by mid-century.

Program

Opening Remarks:

  • Ambassador Mark Green – President, Director, & CEO, Wilson Center

Framing Remarks:

  • Maura Barry – Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Resilience and Food Security and interim Global Water Coordinator, U.S. Agency for International Development

Reporting Presentation:

  • Keith Schneider – Senior Editor and Chief Correspondent, Circle of Blue

Panelists:

  • Sheila Kibuthu – Communications Director, Sanergy
  • Joel Kolker – Program Manager, Global Water Security and Sanitation Partnership, World Bank
  • Duncan McNicholl – Director and Co-founder, Uptime
  • Tanvi Nagpal – Director, International Development Program, School for Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
  • Keith Schneider – Senior Editor and Chief Correspondent, Circle of Blue

Closing Remarks:

  • Peter Laugharn – President and Chief Executive Officer, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Human Rights, please email the co-chairs at bobbinassar@gmail.com or bknotts@uua.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit ngocsdvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, please visit 

Some are Hazardous Environmental Legacy Sites, some are Monsters: Why sustainable development needs to include environmental crime

The Committee on Sustainable Development cordially invites its member organisations to a talk by Prof. Verena Winiwarter (BOKU) on Some are Hazardous Environmental Legacy Sites, some are Monsters: Why sustainable development needs to include environmental crime.

Time 6:30pm – 8:30pm (Vienna)/ 12:30 – 2:30pm EST

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87097371746?pwd=SHp0b3ROWnlCSzZmMzJ6TlFmWU1PUT09

Meeting ID: 870 9737 1746       Kenncode: 240089

About Verena Winiwarter

Professor of Environmental History at Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt since 2007, Verena Winiwarter transferred to BOKU 2018 with the Institute of Social Ecology. She holds a PhD in Environmental History (1998) and a venia legendi in Human Ecology (2003) from University of Vienna. Since 2016, she is a full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OEAW), Chairperson of the Commission for Interdisciplinary Ecological Studies, and co-founded the European Society of Environmental History. Her main research interests comprise the history of landscapes, in particular rivers and the environmental history of soils and legacy sites. Her 2014 co-authored book “Umwelt hat Geschichte. Sechzig Reisen durch die Zeit” was elected as Wissenschaftsbuch des Jahres in Austria and Umweltbuch des Jahres in Germany and is now in its 3rd imprint. In 2013, she was „WissenschaftlerIn des Jahres“ in Austria and in December 2019 she was awarded the “Preis der Stadt Wien für Geisteswissenschaften”.

To register please send an e-mail to the secretary (ngocsd.vienna@gmail.com). We look forward to seeing you!

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit ngocsdvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Disarmament, Peace, and Security, please visit ngocdps.wordpress.com.

Compassion, Commitment, and Innovation: A Symposium on Onchocerciasis Control in Africa

Bruce Benton’s book, Riverblindness in Africa: Taming the Lion’s Stare (2020), documents the origins, stories, successes, and challenges of controlling, and eventually eliminating, onchocerciasis, a widespread and debilitating disease in Africa. This event probes dimensions of the human side of the onchocerciasis-control story, including the role of compassion and the importance of trust. It examines how compassion, commitment, and innovation, which have been central to the long-term success of onchocerciasis control, can lead to completion of that effort in Africa.

Register here: https://georgetown.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_fZyB5O3yR3asKzMfU38JCQ

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee for Rare Diseases, please visit ngocommitteerarediseases.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org.

River Missionaries, Deforestation, and COVID-19

Rodrigo Pedroso is a Brazilian journalist who reports for CNN. As part of the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Journalism Fund, his project “River Missionaries: The Catholic Counteroffensive in the Amazon” explores the dynamics and work of Catholic missionaries in an area where evangelical Christians and the theology of prosperity are booming alongside deforestation.

In this conversation, Pedroso will share the stories of parishes struggling to survive and missionaries who serve hard-to-reach villages in the Amazon region. He will be joined by Niyanta Spelman, founder and CEO of Rainforest Partnership, and the two will discuss the role of religious communities in combatting deforestation, as well as how Catholic, Indigenous, and local communities in the Amazon have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The dialogue will be moderated by Rev. Fletcher Harper, executive director of GreenFaith.

This event is part of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs collaboration with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Register here: https://georgetown.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_kY_8mGHbTz6K3KNAEX3kYQ

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Financing for Development, please visit ngosonffd.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, please visit facebook.com/NGOCoRIP. 

World Water Day

World Water Day, held on 22 March every year since 1993, focuses on the importance of freshwater.

World Water Day celebrates water and raises awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to safe water. It is about taking action to tackle the global water crisis. A core focus of World Water Day is to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.

View the 2021 World Water Day toolkit and explore this year’s slated events here. All are welcome to participate!

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CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-NY, please visit ngocsd-ny.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development-Vienna, please visit ngocsdvienna.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, please visit facebook.com/NGOCoRIP. 

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