University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

Published: August 29, 2002

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing Editor

Two UB faculty members have been invited to make presentations at the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held Monday through Sept. 11 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Chief Oren J. Lyons, professor of American studies in the Center for the Americas, will participate in a roundtable discussion on Tuesday that is reserved for heads of state and will not be open to the public.

Donald J. Jacobs, founder and director of the Center for Applied Technologies in Education (CATE) and associate dean for research and technologies in the Graduate School of Education, will join world-renowned primatologist and environmental educator Jane Goodall in several presentations over the 10 days of the conference.

Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation, Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy), Lyons is internationally recognized as a distinguished spiritual leader of indigenous peoples.

He is and has been active in international indigenous-rights and sovereignty issues at the United Nations and other international forums for more than three decades. He is the publisher of Daybreak, a national Indian newsmagazine.

Lyons has participated in a number of UN forums on the rights and status of indigenous peoples, the environment and sustainable development.

Jacobs and Goodall will address their collaboration in the use of advanced information and communication technologies that support and enhance environmental education across the world. Among them are two joint projects: Hopenet and Lessons-for-Hope.

Hopenet is a teleconferencing network that links environmental groups across five continents and permits grassroots-level environmental project leaders to communicate and share information.

Lessons-for-Hope is an interactive, Web-based curriculum for high school students being developed at CATE for release to an international student audience in January 2003.

Heads of state, policy makers, diplomats, scientists, concerned citizens and representatives of indigenous peoples, UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) will attend the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development.

It will address global change that has occurred since the historic UN Conference on Environment and Development held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. The Rio summit adopted "Agenda 21," an unprecedented global plan of action for sustainable development.

The Rio and Johannesburg conferences are part of a massive international effort to focus the world's attention on the effects of human socioeconomic activities on the environment and vice versa. Johannesburg participants expect to arrive at what the UN calls "a comprehensive, frank and useful review of the past 10 years."

Jacobs says it also aims to direct action toward meeting difficult challenges, including improving people's lives and conserving natural resources in a world that is growing in population, with ever-increasing demands for food, water, shelter, sanitation, energy, health services and economic security.