Born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, Severn
Suzuki founded the Environmental Children's Organisation (ECO) when she was
only just nine years old. When she was twelve, she and three friends managed to
raise the money to travel to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. She
highlighted how the diverse environmental problems are seen by young people.
Here is her speech:
»Hello, I’m Severn Suzuki speaking for
E.C.O. – The Environmental Children’s Organisation.
We are a group of twelve and thirteen-year-olds
from Canada trying to make a difference: Vanessa Suttie, Morgan Geisler,
Michelle Quigg and me. We raised all the money ourselves to come six thousand
miles to tell you adults you must change your ways. Coming here today, I have
no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future.
Losing my future is not like losing an election
or a few points on the stock market. I am here to speak for all generations to
come.
I am here to speak on behalf of the starving
children around the world whose cries go unheard.
I am here to speak for the countless animals
dying across this planet because they have nowhere left to go. We cannot afford
not to be heard.
I am afraid to go out in the sun now because of
the holes in the ozone. I am afraid to breathe the air because I don’t know
what chemicals are in it.
I used to go fishing in Vancouver with my dad
until just a few years ago we found the fish full of cancers. And now we hear
about animals and plants becoming extinct every day — vanishing forever.
In my life, I have dreamt of seeing the great
herds of wild animals, jungles and rainforests full of birds and butterflies,
but now I wonder if they will even exist for my children to see.
Did you have to worry about these little things
when you were my age?
All this is happening before our eyes and yet
we act as if we have all the time we want and all the solutions. I’m only a
child and I don’t have all the solutions, but I want you to realise, neither do
you!
- You don’t know how to fix the
holes in our ozone layer.
- You don’t know how to bring
salmon back up a dead stream.
- You don’t know how to bring
back an animal now extinct.
- And you can’t bring back
forests that once grew where there is now desert.
If you don’t know how to fix it, please stop
breaking it!
Here, you may be delegates of your governments,
business people, organisers, reporters or politicians – but really you are
mothers and fathers, brothers and sister, aunts and uncles – and all of you are
somebody’s child.
I’m only a child, yet I know we are all part of
a family, five billion strong, in fact, 30 million species strong and we all
share the same air, water and soil — borders and governments will never change
that.
I’m only a child, yet I know we are all in this
together and should act as one single world towards one single goal.
In my anger, I am not blind, and in my fear, I
am not afraid to tell the world how I feel.
In my country, we make so much waste, we buy
and throw away, buy and throw away, and yet northern countries will not share
with the needy. Even when we have more than enough, we are afraid to lose some
of our wealth, afraid to share.
In Canada, we live the privileged life, with
plenty of food, water and shelter — we have watches, bicycles, computers and
television sets.
Two days ago here in Brazil, we were shocked
when we spent some time with some children living on the streets. And this is
what one child told us: “I wish I was rich and if I were, I would give all the
street children food, clothes, medicine, shelter and love and affection.”
If a child on the street who has nothing, is
willing to share, why are we who have everything still so greedy?
I can’t stop thinking that these children are
my age, that it makes a tremendous difference where you are born, that I could
be one of those children living in the favelas of Rio; I could be a child
starving in Somalia; a victim of war in the Middle East or a beggar in India.
I’m only a child yet I know if all the money
spent on war was spent on ending poverty and finding environmental answers,
what a wonderful place this earth would be!
At school, even in kindergarten, you teach us
to behave in the world. You teach us:
- not to fight with others,
- to work things out,
- to respect others,
- to clean up our mess,
- not to hurt other creatures
- to share – not be greedy.
Then why do you go out and do the things you
tell us not to do?
Do not forget why you’re attending these
conferences, who you’re doing this for – we are your own children. You are
deciding what kind of world we will grow up in. Parents should be able to
comfort their children by saying “everything’s going to be all right” , “we’re
doing the best we can” and “it’s not the end of the world”.
But I don’t think you can say that to us
anymore. Are we even on your list of priorities? My father always says “You are
what you do, not what you say.”
Well, what you do makes me cry at night. You
grown-ups say you love us. I challenge you, please make your actions reflect
your words. Thank you for listening.«
– Severn Suzuki
You can find a video of this moving speech on
YouTube.
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