PROVIDENCE -- When the United Nations held its first international environmental conference in Sweden in 1972, only eight countries in the world had national agencies devoted to solving environmental problems. Now, every country has such an agency.
In 1972, there were only a few significant advocacy groups focusing on the environment, few universities had environmental studies programs and news coverage of the environment was nearly nonexistent.
Now, says Nay Htun, executive director for Asia and the Pacific of the U.N.'s University for Peace, "wherever I go in the world, I pick up a newspaper and there's always an article about the environment or natural resources."
Htun said the dramatic rise in environmental awareness, studies and journalism all give him hope for the future despite dire global environmental problems that appear to be worsening around the world.
Htun spoke at Brown University yesterday at ceremonies for 12 environmental professionals from around the world who graduated from Brown's Watson International Scholars of the Environment Program.
The scholars came from the Philippines, Nepal, Uganda, Tajikistan, Brazil, China, Mongolia, Gambia, Pakistan, Kenya, Bolivia and Mauritania for four months of studies in biodiversity assessment, ecological risk analysis, global climate change and other courses designed to help them solve environmental problems at home. The Brown program is one of three U.N. environmental scholar programs in the world and the only one in the United States.
For a long time, Htun said, people abused the environment because they were unaware of its importance to human well-being and welfare.
Three things worked together to change attitudes, he said. First came a series of catastrophes -- the Torrey Canyon oil spill in the United Kingdom, the killer fogs in London, the mercury poisonings in Japan, and Love Canal in New York.
Three women, Rachel Carson, Barbara Ward and Margaret Meade, wrote books that raised awareness about what was happening to the earth's natural resources, Htun said. And during this period, transistor radios and color televisions became so commonplace that people around the world were alerted to environmental crises.
Despite more awareness, Htun said fishermen around the world are catching less, farmers are growing less, the cultures of 800 million forest-dwelling people are threatened and there is startling growth of dozens of mega-cities in the world's developing countries.
The cities are teeming with millions of young people who can't find work and spend their lives coping with pollution, poverty and crime, Htun said.
"Does it take much to understand the anger, the sense of marginalization and helplessness these people have?" Htun said.
He said he hopes growing awareness of the importance of a healthy environment will eventually cause countries around the world to develop the political will to take action. Growing concerns about climate change may be the catalyst that brings countries together, he said.
The scholars joked about struggling with the cold of Providence in the middle of winter, the need to improve their English and a curriculum that included 200 pages of reading every week. But they said they learned a great deal to take home.
In a brief speech, Momodou Badou Sarr, deputy executive director of the National Environmental Agency in Gambia, said he learned much about the environment. And he added:
"For me as an African, it gives me a great sense of pride to study in one of the most prestigious universities in America, whose president happens to be an African-American."
For more information, go to http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Watson--Institute/programs/hhpe/ise/index.html.
