Secretary-General's message to People's World Conference on Climate Change and Mother Earth Rights

Cochabamba, Bolivia, 20 April 2010


Mother Earth – our only home – is under pressure. We are making progressively unreasonable demands on her, and she is showing the strain. For all of human history we have depended on nature's bounty for sustenance, well-being and development. Too often we have drawn on nature's capital without putting back. We are now beginning to see the consequences of failing to safeguard our investment.


地球母亲——我们唯一的家园——面临着压力。我们对她的索求越来越不合理，使之渐露疲态。在整个人类历史中，我们一直依赖大自然的赐予维持生计、增进福祉和谋求发展。我们常常提取大自然的资本而未予以回报。现在，我们渐渐看到没有确保投资的后果。


Climate change and the depleted ozone layer are among the starkest examples. Biological diversity -- the incredible variety of life on Earth that sustains us -- is in rapid decline. Freshwater and marine resources are increasingly polluted; soils and once-prolific fisheries are growing barren.


气候变化和臭氧层耗减就是其中最明显的例子。生物多样性——我们赖以为生的地球上难以置信的大量物种——正在迅速减少。淡水资源和海洋资源日益受到污染；土壤和一度丰富多产的渔场日趋贫瘠。


The impact of our neglectful stewardship is being felt most by the world's most vulnerable people: those who live on the desert margins; indigenous communities; the rural poor; the inhabitants of the squalid slums of the world's expanding megacities. If they are to break out of the poverty trap and prosper, they need – at the very minimum – fertile land, clean water and adequate sanitation.


对管理疏忽的影响感受最深的是世界上最脆弱的群体：即那些在沙漠边缘生活的人们、土著民族、农村穷困者和世界上不断扩大的特大城市的贫民窟居民。他们如要摆脱贫困的束缚和实现繁荣，就至少要有肥沃的土地、清洁的饮水和适当的卫生条件。


Environmental sustainability – the wise management of Mother Earth's bounty – is one of eight Millennium Development Goals adopted a decade ago by United Nations Member States. The deadline for achieving the goals is 2015. This September, I will convene a summit in New York to review progress towards the MDGs and develop an agenda for action – a practical, results-oriented plan, with concrete steps and timelines. Protecting Mother Earth must be an integral component of our strategy.


环境可持续性——即明智管理地球母亲所赐财富——是联合国会员国十年前通过的八个千年发展目标之一。实现这些目标的最后期限是2015年。今年9月，我将在纽约召集举行一次首脑会议，审查实现千年发展目标的进展情况，并制定一项行动议程——即一项切合实际和注重成果的计划及其具体步骤和时间安排。保护地球母亲的工作必须成为我们战略中不可分割的组成部分。


Without a sustainable environmental base, we will have little hope of attaining our objectives for reducing poverty and hunger and improving health and human well-being. For these reasons and more, the General Assembly has proclaimed that each year on 22 April we will observe International Mother Earth Day. I call on all governments, businesses and citizens of the world to give our Mother Earth the respect and care she deserves.


如果没有可持续的环境基础，我们就没有什么希望实现减少贫困和饥饿、改善健康和人类福祉的目标。出于这些和其他原因，大会已宣布我们每年4月22日纪念国际地球母亲日。我呼吁世界各国政府、企业和公民给予地球母亲应有的尊重和关爱。