Unesco official wants death for politicians into illegal logging

BANGKOK, Thailand – An official of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) supported yesterday the need to impose the death penalty on politicians all over the world who are proven to be involved in illegal logging operations.

Karl Lindberg, Adviser of Swedish National Commission for UNESCO, said that parliamentarians, senators and congressmen all over the world who will participate in the International Conference to be held in Nairobi in May next year must endorse the proposal for a UN resolution calling for the imposition of death on politicians violating environmental laws.

Lindberg, a resource person in the four-day Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) for the media hosted by UNESCO in this city, said that parliamentarians of the world must join together in campaigning for the protection of the earth against environmental degradation.

“Honest members of parliaments have to raise this issue to protect the future of the people in the world. Like every other issue, the Education for Sustainable Development must be honestly discussed in parliament,” Lindberg told The Star.

Lindberg said they have effective environmental laws in Sweden that are respected by almost all citizens, particularly the lawmakers.

He emphasized that climate change is more than just an environmental issue.

“Climate change is an all-encompassing threat. It is a threat to health since a warmer world is one in which infectious diseases such as malaria and yellow fever will spread further and faster,” Lindberg said.

Lindberg said world leaders must take a strong stand on the decision made at the summit in Johannesburg, and subsequently taken up by the UN General Assembly, to declare the years 2005-2014 a Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

Lindsberg presented a 10-point agenda for world leaders and the UNESCO that includes:

• Informing as many people as possible about the aims of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD 2005-2014), particularly journalists who work on educational issues;

• Calling on ministers of education and other ministers to develop action plans on ESD, giving government agencies clear roles and responsibility;

• Informing the general public about strategies for sustainable development and the link between ESD and these strategies;

• Informing government and other stakeholders of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europestrategy on ESD, adopted in March 2005;

• Calling on national governments to act as driving forces for ESD in different international assemblies, for example within UNESCO, the Council of Europe, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and the EU;

• Calling on members of parliament to raise the importance of ESD with the government;

• Calling on national government bodies and agencies for international aid and cooperation in their negotiations with countries receiving support in the education area and impose conditions that educational activities be permeated to the perspective of sustainable development;

• Making politicians in local and regional government, especially those responsible for school issues, aware that ESD is an important dimension of quality education;

• Ensuring that conferences dealing with any aspect of sustainable development always discuss the importance of the role of education; and

• Urging national and international NGOs to inform their supporters and staff about ESD and monitor how national governments meet their international commitments towards it.