EYE ON EARTH SUMMIT 2011 HYPOTHETICAL PANELIST.MTS

Simran Vedvyas Earth Charter International Youth Task Force Group Country Activator UAE participated in the Hypothetical debate conducted by Geoffrey Robertson QC.
Geoffrey Robertson QC moderated a "hypothetical" debate involving 14 leading EOE participants, among them
H E Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, Secretary-General, Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD),
Sylvia Earle, Leading American Oceanographer
Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN
Jacqueline McGlade, European Environment Agency
Henry Puna, Prime Minister The Cook Island
John Scanlon, CITES
Dennis Garrity, World Agroforestry Centre
Professor Jose Achache, The Group on Earth Observations ( GEO )
Hassan Fattah, Editor of The National
David Lodge, Professor of Biological Sciences
Juliana Rotich, Executive Director of Ushahidi
Marcelo De Andrade, Earth Capital Partners
Sergio Chiarndini, AGIP NV
Robertson guided the participants through a creative role-play, where each represented a different kind of societal actor in a fictitious small island nation struggling to balance the complex and often unpredictable tradeoffs inherent in conservation and development. The role-play interwove dilemmas over threatened species and cures for cancer, scientific uncertainty and demands for action, spiritual values and mining profits, and national sovereignty and global pandemic. The cast of characters juggled the various government, civic, business, media and scientific perspectives in play, finding opportunities to forge unexpected alliances always amid insufficient information. Robertson summarized the role-play with reference to the tragedy of the commons, whereby the various dilemmas faced by this fictitious island stood for other pressing problems like climate change, illustrating the need for better information and possibility of acting together for the common good. Simran represented the commons in this hypothetical and was extremely confident and formed the backbone of this 90 minutes unscripted, unrehearsed but interesting debate session.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Eye on Earth 2011
• Geoffrey Robertson
• HE Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak