The term "Harmony with Nature" refers to a principle of amicable and holistic co-existence between humanity and nature. It is used in several contexts, most prominently in relation to sustainable development and the rights of nature, both aimed at addressing anthropogenic environmental crises. In 2009, the United Nations created a program of the same name. Following support from the Bolivian Government, the UN General Assembly approved further resolutions on the topic. Events like the United Nations Earth Summit 2012 have provided a platform for exchange between different stakeholders. Below is the text of the proposal.
Text of the proposal
Preliminary Proposal of the Plurinational State of Bolivia for the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20)
The achievement of sustainable development in the 21st Century requires a Social and Ecological Contract among human beings and our Mother Earth that brings together and builds upon the progress made in the World Charter for Nature (1982), the Rio Declaration (1992), the Earth Charter (2000), and the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (2010).
It would include the following premises:
I. WE ARE BREAKING THE BALANCE OF THE EARTH SYSTEM
1. Twenty years after the "Rio Declaration," it is necessary to update its First Principle such that it would state: "Human beings and nature are at the center of concerns for sustainable development." It is essential to get beyond this anthropocentric vision. Not only do human beings "have the right to a healthy life," but so too does nature, which is the basis of survival for all species including humans.
2. Nature is not just a set of resources that can be exploited, modified, altered, privatized, commercialized and transformed without any consequences. Earth is the only home we have. The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth.
3. The Earth is a living system. It is an indivisible, interdependent and interrelated community human beings, nature, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the geosphere. Any substantive alteration of one of its components can affect other areas and the entire system. The Earth is the source of life. It is a system that coordinates physical, chemical, biological and ecological elements in a manner that makes life possible. Through the term Mother Earth, we express this relationship of belonging to a system and respect for our home.
4. Human activity is altering the dynamics and functioning of the Earth system to a degree never before seen. We have exceeded the limits of our system. We have broken harmony with nature. We are living through a series of rising crises that could cause the collapse of the system. It is essential to restore, affirm and guarantee the existence, integrity, interrelation, interaction and regeneration of the Earth system as a whole and of all of its components.
II. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY
5. In this century, the two central challenges of sustainable development are to overcome poverty and inequality, and to reestablish balance within the Earth system. Both objectives are intrinsically linked, and one cannot be achieved without the other.
6. It is essential to recognize and affirm that growth has limits. The pursuit of unending development on a finite planet is unsustainable and impossible. It is unsustainable and impossible. The limit to development is defined by the regenerative capacity of the Earth's vital cycles. When growth begins to break that balance, as we see with global warming, we can no longer speak of it as development, but rather, the deterioration and destruction of our home. A certain level of growth and industrialization is needed to satisfy basic needs and guarantee the human rights of a population, but this level of "necessary development" is not about permanent growth, but rather, balance among humans and with nature.
7. Sustainable development seeks to eradicate poverty in order to live well, not generate wealthy people who live at the expense of the poor. The goal is the satisfaction of basic human needs in order to allow for the development of human capabilities and human happiness, strengthening community among human beings and with Mother Earth. In a world in which 1% of the population controls 50% of the wealth of the planet, it will not be possible to eradicate poverty or restore harmony with nature.
8. To end poverty and achieve an equitable distribution of well being, the basic resources and firms should be in the hands of the public sector and society. Only a society that controls its principal sources of income can aspire to a just distribution of the benefits needed to eliminate poverty.
9. The so-called "developed" countries must reduce their levels of over-consumption to reestablish harmony among human beings and with nature, allowing for the sustainable development of all developing countries. The ecological footprint of the developed countries is between 3 and 5 times larger than the average ecological footprint that the Earth system can sustain without an impact on its vital cycles.
10. The developing countries should follow new paradigms different from those used by developed countries in order to attend to the basic needs of their populations and reestablish harmony with nature. It is not sustainable or viable for all countries to follow the example of developed countries without causing our system to collapse.
11. Sustainable development cannot happen only at the national level. The well being of a country is only sustainable if it contributes to the well being of the entire system. The pillar of sustainable development can only be achieved from a global perspective. The so-called developed countries are still far from reaching sustainable development.
III. TOOLS FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
12. In an interdependent and interconnected system like that of Earth, we cannot recognize the rights of the human part of the system without affecting the rest of the system. To reestablish balance with nature, we must acknowledge its intrinsic value and clearly establish the obligations of humans toward nature, and also recognize that nature has rights that should be respected, promoted, and defended. Just as human beings have rights, the Mother Earth also has the right to exist, the right to maintain its vital cycles, the right to regeneration, the right to be free from structural alteration, and the right to relate to the other parts of the Earth system. Without respecting and guaranteeing the rights of nature, it is not possible to guarantee human rights and achieve sustainable development.
13. We have to end the system of consumption, waste and luxury. Millions of people are dying of hunger in the poorest parts of the globe, while in the richest areas, millions of dollars are spent to combat obesity. We must change the unsustainable patterns of consumption, production, and waste through public policy, regulations, and the conscious and active participation of society. This includes promoting ethics that value human beings for what they are, not what they have.
14. To guarantee the human right to water, education, health, communication, transportation, energy and sanitation, above all in the very poor and marginalized sectors, the provision of these services must be essentially public and based on efficient social management, not private business.
15. States should ensure the right of their populations to proper nutrition by strengthening food sovereignty policies that promote: a) food production by farmers, indigenous peoples and small agricultural producers; b) access to land, water, seeds, credit and other resources for family and community producers; c) the development of social and public enterprises for food production, distribution, and sale that prevent hoarding and contribute to the stability of food prices in domestic markets, thus halting speculative practices and the destruction of local production; d) the right of citizens to define what goods they wish to consume, the origins of those goods and how they are produced; e) consumption of what is necessary and the prioritization of local production; f) practices that contribute to reestablishing harmony with nature, avoiding greater desertification, deforestation, and destruction of biological diversity; g) the promotion of the use of indigenous seeds and traditional knowledge. Food production and commercialization must be socially regulated and cannot be left to free market forces.
16. Without water, there is no life. Humans and all living things have the right to water, but water also has rights. All States and peoples worldwide should work together in solidarity to ensure that loss of vegetation, deforestation, the pollution of the atmosphere and contamination are prevented from continuing to alter the hydrological cycle. These cause desertification, lack of food, temperature increase, sea level rise, migrations, acid rain, and physical-chemical changes that can cause ecosystems to die.
17. Forests are essential to the balance and integrity of planet Earth and a key element in the proper functioning of its ecosystems and the broader system of which we are a part. Thus we cannot consider them as simple providers of goods and services for human beings. The protection, preservation and recuperation of forests is required to reestablish the balance of the Earth system. Forests are not plantations that can be reduced to their capacity to capture carbon and provide environmental services. The maintenance of native forests and woodlands is essential for the water cycle, the atmosphere, biodiversity, the prevention of flooding, and the preservation of ecosystems. Forests are also home to indigenous peoples and communities. The preservation of forests should be pursued through integral and participatory management plans financed with public funding from developed countries.
18. It is essential to guarantee a real and effective reduction of greenhouse gases, particularly on the part of the developed countries historically responsible for climate change, in order to stabilize the increase in temperature to 1 °C during this century. We must therefore strengthen the Kyoto Protocol, not replace it with a more flexible voluntary agreement in which each country does what it chooses. It is necessary to eliminate carbon market mechanisms and offsets so that real domestic reductions are made within the countries with said obligations.
19. All forms of violence against women are incompatible with sustainable development, including violence done to women in militarily occupied territories and domestic or sexual violence that treats women as objects.
20. In order for sustainable development to exist, is essential to guarantee the full application of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
21. Under the framework of common but differentiated responsibilities established in the 1992 Rio Declaration, the so-called developed countries must assume and pay their historical ecological debt for having contributed the most to the deterioration of the Earth system. The payment of this ecological debt to developing countries and the sectors most affected among their own populations consists of the transfer financial resources from public sources and also the effective transfer of appropriate technologies required by developing countries.
22. The resources developed countries dedicate to their defense, security and war budgets should be used to address the effects of climate change and the imbalance with nature. It is inexcusable that 1.5 trillion dollars in public funding are used on these budgets, while, to address the impacts of climate change in developing countries, they want to dedicate just 100 billion dollars from public and private funds as well as market sources by 2020.