NBEJN Delegation in Bali WSSD Prepcom IV

June 7, 2002, Bali, Indonesia - The National Black Environmental Justice Network (NBEJN) was part of a eight-person delegation that participated in the World Summit on Sustainable Development Prepcom IV meeting held in Bali, Indonesia. The meeting was held on June 4-7, 2002 and was attended by government and nongovernmental leaders from around the world. As part of a delegation sponsored by the Ford Foundation, NBEJN members also linked up with other environmental justice and social justice advocates from around the world. "We see this meeting as an extension of our international environmental justice work at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban. (NGO Environmental Racism Statement) As we move forward to the WSSD in Johannesburg this August," said Robert Bullard, who directs the Environmental Justice Resource Center at Clark Atlanta University in the United States. Bullard, who has authored several books on environmental justice and environmental racism, served as a panelist in the Poverty and Social Equity Workshop at the Indonesia's People's Forum (click HERE to view full text of Bullard's paper entitled "Poverty, Pollution, and Environmental Justice: Strategies to Build Healthy and Sustainable Communities")

Bullard and his NBEJN colleagues organized several workshops, facilitated meetings of an ad hoc International Environmental Justice Caucus, distributed facts sheets (click HERE to view NBEJN EJ Fact Sheet), policy papers, conducted briefings, and prepared environmental justice language on a range of issue documents.

Because of the frustration and disappointment with the Precom IV process and expected outcomes, the Sustainable Development Issues Network (SDIN) held an NGO press conference of a dozen caucuses. The caucuses released a collective statement, "What on Earth is Missing?" They conclude that Bali has failed glaringly in addressing issues related to rebalancing the economic context of environmental degradation and fundamental inequities of the international economic system. The statement ends with a challenge to all who attended the meeting. It reads, "this global challenge of sustainable development must begin with each and everyone of us."