Earth Restoration Project

An important initial element is a proposal that the United Nations declare this to be the Century of Restoring the Earth.

 

As the body established to represent the peoples and nations of the world, the UN has a unique global mandate and such a declaration could act as a beacon of hope and a rallying call to help achieve the major shift which is required of us.

 

In tandem with this declaration, each nation would be asked to commit sufficient resources, either in cash or in kind, to ecological restoration work. These might well be drawn from existing military resources which would give a new sense of value and fulfilment to the military, as they engage in addressing real threats to environmental security. Precedents for this already exist - the US Army Corps of Engineers is currently involved in major work to help restore the Everglades ecosystem in Florida, the Indian army has undertaken extensive ecological restoration projects throughout the sub-continent, while the South African military responded heroically to the flooding and environmental disaster in Mozambique at the turn of the millenium.

 

In addition to funding international coordination of specific restoration projects, governments could allocate funds to those corporations and enterprises that choose to invest in activities, especially in Africa, Asia, and South America, that promote sustainability (recycling, renewable energy sources and their delivery to homes, farms and businesses, appropriate technology transfers, etc). Mark Hertsgaard's concluding piece in the TIME magazine special global issue suggests that "we could make restoring the environment the biggest economic enterprise of our time, a huge source of jobs, profits and poverty alleviation."