CONVENTION VIE ET NATURE POUR UNE ECOLOGIE RADICALE :
CHARTER OF THE ORGANIZATION
“CONVENTION VIE ET NATURE POUR UNE ECOLOGIE RADICALE” is both an ideological and an action organization. Its aim is to debate over new ideas based on the two following principles and to promote them:
1) Now all-powerful with technology and overpopulation, mankind has to establish new bonds with the world he lives in and for which he is fully responsible.
2) Man has to reconcile with nature and develop qualities which will enable him to live in perfect harmony with his fellow men as well as other living beings. Moreover, the ecological diversity has to be respected in this process.
The battle for the defence of ecology and nature is to be fought in many fields: politics, economy, society, judiciary, culture, technology, science, philosophy, and general behaviour. This fight adds an ecological aspect to the human rights. Entitlement to sound and safe environment is fundamental and constitutes a base for all the others given the fact that in a world without any green spaces, woods, water, or birds, freedom is nothing but an illusion.
Ecology is the only ideological movement of our time that implies that deep structures on which society is based should be thrown back into question. This ideology also implies that a new relationship should be established between people, between man and labour, between man and nature, and between rich countries and poor developing nations. The environmentalists rely on the global balance of the world and of the Earth that could offer a glimmer of hope of putting a definite stop to economy that leads citizens to exhaust themselves, to labour that creates a sense of alienation among human beings, and to culture that deadens people’s mind.
Traditional and conventional policies have all proved to be unable to solve the serious problems humanity and the Erath are faced with. Sensible economy can no longer damage and plunder nature and has to take into account the fact that natural resources are limited. Natural resources have to be shared and distributed in a fairly way and a new organization of both labour and trade has to be implemented. Such concern cannot be confined to the only western world that continues to impose its disastrous model on the Third World. A political system that is concerned about general welfare is bound to bring about a new conception of democracy.
New political structures such as referenda based on the population initiatives, a check on public funds, the abortion of a senate composed mainly of rural representatives, the elaboration of a European judiciary power and of international wildlife organizations, and many other measures prove to be urgent goals.
Clean and renewable energies have to be systematically developed to the detriment of oil and of nuclear energy and of the rash expansion of transport and other infrastructure. Productive farming poisons all natural elements, exhausts lands, damages landscape, and tortures animals. Genetic engineering and all experiments carried out on living beings are a risk to biological diversity and all the harmful effects of this process are still unsuspected. There is an urgent need to use respectful methods and to submit scientific and technical development to the citizens that will carry out a check on them.
Man shares the Erath with other living beings that have to be respected and protected. Animals, sensitive beings, have to be regarded as holders of a right: all cruel activities such as hunt, hunting, experimentations, bullfights, battery farming, or fur should be abolished in real democracies.
Destructive ideologies of development, anthropocentrism, trade propaganda campaigns, and consumer society should be denounced. It is only on this condition that a real environmental policy that actually protects, among other things, wildlife, natural sites, and climate could be implemented: in other terms, a policy that respects life and nature a whole.
Ecology is therefore not “a return to the land” but the drafting of a new chapter of political thought. There is an urgent need to put a stop to the myths of boundless expansion on a restricted planet, quantitative growth, destructive progress, cruel activities both towards humans and animals as well as traditions that justify them, financial powers and techno-science, consumerism, and other degrading entertainment.
At a time when republics have become ossified with vote-catching tricks, when socialism has collapsed, when liberalism tends to become the rule that consist in felling the trees, torturing animals, exploiting man, and degrading the world, it is high time to rethink society and to reach a new stage with more sensitiveness, awareness, and sympathy. Rethinking the world has definitely become a real challenge. In this way, beyond mentality, nationalities, ethnic groups, creeds, and communities, a revolutionary criticism , in other terms, a global, deep, and immediate change has to come out. This change is urgent since the other matters, as serious as they may be, will all seem to be a secondary consideration when the question is whether life is still possible on Earth tomorrow.