Monday, September 3, 2007

OzGreen Presentation; Cultural reflections

Today we were hosted by Mallesons Stephen Jacques law firm 61 floors above Sydney for a presentation from OzGreen. This Australian NGO promotes community projects aimed at improving sustainable development in a country where the average resident has an ecological footprint even more damaging than the typical American. Co-founder Sue Lennox argued that current rates of consumption and population growth are unsustainable. The tipping points for phenomena like temperature rises and glacial melting may be closer than we think. OzGreen seems to follow the bottom-up development model that I’ve found to be most effective in development efforts.

On the walk back from the event, I had the pleasure of conversing with a participant from central Australia. The young man is an aborigine educated in white schools who now straddles the two worlds. He told me about the need for improved education in his community and how the lack of it has allowed everyone from mining executives to art dealers to exploit his people. He told me how difficult it is to effect change as a young person in a culture in which the word of elders is to be obeyed without question. The tension between aboriginal and Western culture had a painful, beautiful expression in my interlocutor. He is a mediator on the front lines of a cultural conflict. And here I am, writing like a devotee of Dr. Huntington in spite of myself.

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