Gender: Diverse Women For Diversity

The Bratislava Declaration

Statement by Diverse Women for Diversity to the Plenary of the Fourth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity

We are women from diverse regions and diverse movements committed to the continuation of the rich and abundant life on Earth. We come from different backgrounds, in full recognition of our history, and we believe there are and should be limits to human use and appropriation of the Earth and its diverse living beings. We take responsibility for our use of the things of this Earth and demand that all others of our species do the same.

We are moral human beings. We know that we occupy a given time and given space and are responsible for how we live in that time and the condition in which we leave that space for the future. We do not accept distrust, greed, violence, and fear as ways of relating to each other or to other beings. We reject such ways of relating, whether they take the form of negative personal actions, unacceptable products, or structural alliances among transnational corporations and national governments that trade weapons, risk wars, and form free trade treaties and other devices that roll back hard won social and environmental protections, appropriate and monopolise the living diversity of our planet, and threaten our democracies, our farms, our livelihoods, our cultures, and our communities.

We support Article 8(j) of this Convention because we recognise that communities have boundaries and rights. And we insist that the sovereignty of communities with respect to their knowledge and resources take precedence over the freedom of outsiders to access and appropriate that knowledge and those resources.

We assert that we and our communities will make the decisions that affect our lives, our livelihoods, our lands, and the community of species with which we share our space.

We recognise the wisdom that joins precaution to the search for knowledge. We see that precaution is needed to prevent harm to all that we love and value and steward and seek to understand and we know that whoever arrogantly discards the precautionary principle puts at risk very basis of our lives.

We seek a world of good health and nutritious, safe, and affordable food for all.

We reject the patenting of life in any form and we avoid those technologies and products that threaten the food security, health and well being of any living being.

We recognise and celebrate the diversity and interrelatedness of species, cultures, and ways of knowing. We reject that which does not sustain the diversity of life and culture and so we reject the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the Multilateral Agreement on Investments, and other such agreements and collusions. And we support the Convention on Biological Diversity this important little treaty that creates tiny spaces for people to act and beckons us all to take a small step in a new direction and move towards mutual respect and joint well being.

Bratislava, Slovakia

May 4, 1998