[Sdpg] DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE by David Suzuki

[Santa Barbara Permaculture Network]

DECLARATION OF INTERDEPENDENCE

by David Suzuki

THIS WE KNOW

We are the earth, through the plants and animals that nourish us. We are 
the rains and the oceans that flow through our veins. We are the breath of 
the forests of the land, and the plants of the sea. We are human animals, 
related to all other life as descendants of the firstborn cell. We share 
with these kin a common history, written in our genes. We share a common 
present, filled with uncertainty. And we share a common future, as yet untold.

We humans are but one of thirty million species weaving the thin layer of 
life enveloping the world. The stability of communities of living things 
depends upon this diversity. Linked in that web, we are interconnected -- 
using, cleansing, sharing and replenishing the fundamental elements of 
life. Our home, planet Earth, is finite: all life shares its resources and 
the energy from the sun, and therefore has limits to growth. For the first 
time, we have touched those limits. When we compromise the air, the water, 
the soil, and the variety of life, we steal from the endless future to 
serve the fleeting present.

THIS WE BELIEVE

Humans have become so numerous and our tools so powerful that we have 
driven fellow creatures to extinction, dammed the great rivers, torn down 
ancient forests, poisoned the earth, rain and wind, and ripped holes in the 
sky. Our science has brought pain as well as joy: our comfort is paid for 
by the suffering of millions. We are learning from our mistakes, we are 
mourning our vanished kind, and we now build a new politics of hope. We 
respect and uphold the absolute need for clean air, water, and soil. We see 
that economic activities that benefit the few while shrinking the 
inheritance of many are wrong. And since environmental degradation erodes 
biological capital forever, full ecological and social costs must enter all 
equations of development. We are one brief generation in the long march of 
time; the future is not ours to erase. So where knowledge is limited, we 
will remember all those who will walk after us, and err on the side of
caution.

THIS WE RESOLVE

All this that we know and believe must now become the foundation of the way 
we live. At this turning point in our relationship with earth, we work for 
an evolution: from dominance to partnership; from fragmentation to 
connection; from insecurity to interdependence.

http://www.davidsuzuki.org

Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
(805) 962-2571
sbpcnet at silcom.com
www.sbpermaculture.org

"We are like trees, we must create new leaves, in new directions, in order to
grow." - Anonymous

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