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Commonwealth Secretariat press release

Commonwealth Environment Ministers Meet in New York +to Review Progress Since Rio

23 June 1997

Commonwealth Environment Ministers will meet at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 24 June 1997 to discuss progress and failures since the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992. The Commonwealth meeting coincides with a special session of the UN General Assembly which is scheduled to review the implementation of Agenda 21, the global programme of action on sustainable development agreed by the Rio Summit.

The Commonwealth meeting will be chaired by Senator the Hon Robert Hill, Australia's Minister for the Environment. In addition to Ministers, participants are expected to include The Hon Lester Bird, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, and the Rt Hon John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister of Britain. The Commonwealth Secretary-General will be represented by the Hon Sir Humphrey Maud, Commonwealth Deputy Secretary-General (Economic and Social Affairs). He will also address the Special Session on behalf of the Commonwealth. Commonwealth Environment Ministers will take stock of developments since Rio as well as identify priorities for further collective action by the Commonwealth, both at the Special Session and after it. Specifically, Ministers will consider how their association can identify and agree on practical measures to accelerate the implementation of international conventions (covering areas such as climate change, biodiversity, forests and fisheries); integrate economic and environmental policies, particularly through the use of economic instruments like pollution taxes and user charges; and encourage greater resource flows to support environmentally sustainable development in poorer developing countries. Ministers will also focus on strengthening Commonwealth and wider international support for the Iwokrama International Rain Forest Programme in Guyana. By combining conservation of biological diversity with sustainable use of forest resources, in an area of almost a million acres of virgin rain forest generously set aside by the Guyanese government, the Programme is a major Commonwealth contribution to the implementation of the Rio agreements on forests, biodiversity and climate change.

The conclusions and recommendations of the Environment Ministers will be taken up by Commonwealth Heads of Government when they meet later this year in Edinburgh, Scotland.

 

97/27  23 June 1997

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