Changes Needed to Promote Sustainable Development: Perspectives of Selected Women in Canada: Part 1

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We asked contributors to this Guide, "what changes are needed in order reach sustainable development?" This resulted in a wide array of opinions ranging from specific concerns to the acknowledgement of the need for a redefinition of our entire socioeconomic system....

Societal dilemmas which need to be addressed:
1) economic 'marginalisation'/'invisibility' of women's work and their contribution.
2) social and cultural negatives.
3) women need education that is genuine.
4) political empowerment of individuals.
5) government/international organizations must change their approach to world order and relations
..................................................Rajani Alexander

Changes Needed: Governments at all levels should stop using S.D. as a buzz word and instead make a recognizable commitment to their ideal. Communities will only become sustainable when S.D.is incorporated at the grassroots community level. Women's equal participation in development planning and decision making is crucial if the complete needs and concerns of the community are to be met. Women's perspectives, experiences and priorities often differ from men, and thus will be able to contribute to the community from a different perspective.
..................................................Mary Annis

Societal dilemmas which must be addressed: pattern of consumption in the North; unequal distribution of power; over industrialization; dichotomy between developed/developing countries; consumption patterns (change through 'civic' education policies/fair taxation for redistribution); recognition that industralization is not the only answer; environmental impacts of wars.
..................................................Michelle Armand

Changes needed: Changes in overall thought patterns at all levels; a need for education and awareness projects.
..................................................Marieka Arnold

In order for sustainablility to become a reality we must devote at least 50% of our activities to practical hands-on changes at the community level.
..................................................Jean Arnold Allan

1) We must move to equitable societies where men and women work in partnership.
2) We must recognize the spiritual basis of our lives in order to find the meaning of life in non-material things and in order to cherish life on earth.
..................................................Mary-Wynne Ashford

Changes needed: increase collaboration through the understanding that even though different women's values vary, there is a sense of solidarity and the need to realize that all women must have the freedom of choice.
..................................................Salima Bandali

We need to understand the economic and political connections of sustainable development.
Deregulation, privatization, free trade, and economic globalization are powerful forces working against environmental stewardship and cannot be dismissed. It is on these grounds that the battle for a healthy planet must be worked.
..................................................Maude Barlow

Changes Needed: I believe that appropriate decision making for sustainability must encompass the quality of life of a community. For example, in the case of the Metis, revitalization and preservation of the Metis identity should be the main goal and focus in strengthening the community. Land claims and self-government alone will not build a sustainable community.
..................................................Deborah Barron-McNabb

Societal dilemmas which must be addressed: Justice for First Nation's people, equal pay and respect for women and 'minorities", control of basic needs and resources for local communities and a recognition that the environment is not an externality.
..................................................Tzeporah Berman

We need a greater transparency and public participation in sustainable development decision making and a greater willingness to contemplate fundamental changes in lifestyle, consumption patterns. The role of the Nation-State in international policy making and programs should be reviewed.
..................................................Victoria Berry

Changes needed for sustainability: The trade-off for development (in the sense of gaining money and power) is life and health. We need to measure and constantly make visible what is potentially or actually lost.
..................................................Rosalie Bertell

List of attributes of today's system that should be changed in order to approach sustainability; attitudes, education, access/representation of women, job equity/ distribution of jobs and wealth.
..................................................Kathy Bisset

Changes Needed:
1) Channel resources and decision making power to grassroots communities/groups who are already practicing sustainability.
2) Challenge the dominant economic model with its emphasis on growth and consumption-and support the emergence of community based 'sustainable' economies.
3) Challenge materialism over consumption and make choices that improve the 'quality' of life.
4) Challenge top-down, elitist, male-dominated decision making processes and build participatory, democratic, and inclusive structures and processes.
5) Acknowledge our rootedness in, and dependence on the Earth. Cultivate relations that nuture our connections to ourselves, our communities
..................................................Priscilla Boucher

Changes needed: Change in the composition of decision making policies; diverse ways of doing things; change in the thinking of women and men as well. We need a longer term view of effects of what we do today.
..................................................Rosalind Cairncross

We need to restructure our economic incentives systems to discourage inefficient uses of natural resources and energy.
Environmental NGO's have to move into the economic system and change it from the inside; we have been too willing to ignore it for ideological reasons.
..................................................Stephanie Cairns

Societal attributes which must be changed: move to co-operation away from competition; pursuit of peace-internationally and in our homes; freedom from violence and fear of violence; access to education as a right, not a privilege; forum for the voices of the traditionally marginalized.
..................................................Gillian Calder

Insitutions in society have to be able to lead and manage people we work with in ways that are empowering; top-down styles are not effective, even in the military. We need to find new and creative ways to finance human development and security. We have to tackle people's disenchantment with governance and find the right balance between state, the marketplace and civil society. We have to link ourselves as people to what we do and what we say -- we have to integrate our values into all that we do .
..................................................Sharon Capeling-Alakija

Development is not sustainable. If we are to work on the problems, we need to use appropriate language.
..................................................Karen Carlyle

Changes needed: Big question-- essentially a shift in basic values from $ to life, from growth as expansion to growth as enrichment, etc.
..................................................Elizabeth Carlyle

List of Changes Needed to Promote S.D. : redistribute ownership of and control of land and resources to local communities.; all resource use must be within the bounds of ecological processes/limits; reduce consumption; change attitudes of the public which will force political change.
..................................................Adriane Carr

Changes needed: courses at educational institutions (especially public schools) must go beyond recycling as our children will be the key to change. Sustainable development must be a priority nationally--we must lead the way. At UD/international level, we must have trade policies that enforce sustainable development--it must be a global priority to work.
..................................................Dena Carroll

Awareness, awareness, awareness,--- that all is not as it appears. A slowing down of development, taking stock of what is in progress right now and what we really need to survive today, tomorrow and the future. We must look at the alternatives, explore the past, study what is good and discard the unnecessary.

We need a new "revolution of development" and to do this, we must bring the elders from around the world, the rich and poor, the business people and the entrepeneurs together to communicate with one another. We all must ask the question; "how much do we really need to achieve happiness and how much can we share."
..................................................Shirley Carter

People have to keep pushing sustainable development so that it becomes an unignorable political force. Though personal commitment will go quite far, we need national regulation and enforcement; regulations and standards are key. We need to see sustainable development as positive for economic activity and just as much part of real growth as fair trading practices and these are issues for the national level. We also need to slug away at the personal level. The international level is not really too helpful.
Agreements at Rio give legitimacy and set the climate for change, but the actual impace of a UN resolution depends on work behind the scenes to build consensus and requires the emanation of real change in political will. To change the world, you need to understand how the world works.
..................................................Margaret Catley-Carlson

Changes Needed: (Locally) We need to become a healthy, participatory democracy. The average person must have some influence in society. People need to "take back their own life", become less addicted (ie to alcohol, work, T.V.etc.) and more organized with their time. As well, there needs to be more people working for change. Only after this transition will changes towards a healthier environment begin to happen.

(Nationally) Our economy and society needs to be less consumptive and more in harmony with the environment.The economy is not an act of God- it is man made. Women must work to apply our ideas of sustainable development, ecofeminism, and participatory democracy to transform the economy of exploitation to a system based on need not greed, where health is placed central and primary. Banks and large corporations need to be more effectively regulated with regards to sustainable development.

(Internationally) We need to end the arms trade and invest more monies into community health. There also needs to be further regulation and cooperation in trans-national agreements with respect to common property resources. Deals such as the NAFTA agreement which ultimately lead to an unhealthy environment should be abolished. Banks and large corporations also need to be regulated on an international scale.
..................................................Marianne Cerilli

Societal factors which need to be addressed: cooperation instead of competition; revamping of values away from $ to sense; concrete examples of sustainability in other cultures as well as our own; political and economic planning with timeframes of a generation instead of 3-5 years.
..................................................Julia Chadwick

Societal attributes which need to be addressed: 1) Women's distorted views of themselves- "beauty myth"
2) Value for the intuitive arts.
3) Much less emphasis on acquiring material goods.
4) A new definition of success.
5) Reverence for the natural environment.
..................................................Nina Chatelain

SD is only made known in our community lately. Information is needed to distribute to service groups or P.G.
..................................................Lily, Siew-San Chow

We need clear goals and clear, realistic action plans through involvement of public, government and industry.
..................................................Betty Collins

There need to be changes at the personal level as well as at the global level. At the personal level, there are changes I need to make in my life -- I need to stop driving my car to work, I need to develop a sustainable lifestyle that reflects and integrates what I do "for a living" into what I eat, how I play, how I relax. The mentality that farmers and fishers have, where everything you do in your life revolves around the environment, is beginning to be adopted by those of us living in urban environments. Globally, I get the sense from the Earth Negotiations Bulletin that leaders still bring largely vested interests to the table. This has to change. Leaders have to go to international meetings with the international community at heart rather than (or at least in addition to) their own particular nation. For example, in Cairo, many participants didn't bring with them the sense that we all have to do something about a looming, complex problem.
..................................................Heather Creech

Societal attributes which need to be addressed:
-re-assert and re-vision the 'sacred' and/or the 'cherished' among our values set.
-place the environment (natural, home, organizational) at the center.
-learn how to cooperate and collaborate with one another in establishing meaning, directions and actions.
-re-vision "leadership" and "democracy".
-increase and declare the presence of women in all decision making processes (with special attention to young women and women from indigenous cultures).
..................................................Fiona Crofton

Factors that need to be addressed:
Networking among women locally, and networking globally, access to education for all, and more participation in political lobbying.

To facilitate these changes we need education to be funded entirely by the government, so as to have equality in access to education, on a global basis. Large scale networking among women's groups could be achieved by the use of new technology. Women must be given access to areas that were once forbidden and for some still are. The use of radio, television, written and computer medium is a necessity for successful networking. Access to the media is a form of political lobbying. It doesn't stop there. Women have to become familiar with the democratic process that dictate their lifestyles, and challenge them, together.
..................................................Pat Currie

The implementation of sustainable development is so primordial that it demands a fundamental restructuring of all of our present systems of governance, which must include at its very core, the full and meaningful participation of women at all levels of decision-making and a society that is not simply just, but equitable. Equity must apply both regionally, nationally, and internationally, as a world where over 10,000 children a day die of starvation is simply not civilized. Immediately, world-wide programs to develop women-led family centers that allow women globally the right to control the timing, the spacing and the number of children they bear is urgently needed, followed by education programs. Human population levels must be brought down, as the path of our "current development" is clearly not sustainable.
..................................................Ann Dale

List of changes needed to approach S.D.: economic rights, social justice, equal distribution of wealth, full women's participation in decision making.
..................................................Khatun Damji

List of issues which need to be addressed in order to induce change: Gender inequality; patriarchal structure; women participating in decision making; pooling local resources.
..................................................Asrukana Das

Changes Needed:
The underlying ideology has to change; basic values about what is desirable. The attitude that industrial solutions are best must change. These are not new ideas, but in the past thirty years, they have not had an important and widespread impact.

We have to shift to a frame of reference so that we can plan holistically and with a long-term horizon: locally, nationally, and internationally. We have to see the connection between our actions and impacts on many systems simultaneously. This requires really stretching current thinking. Moreover, as the Mohawks do, we need to think about the impact of our actions on the seventh generation.

As activists, we need to think about the pressure points in global decision-making systems. We need to plan actions that will make a difference to change, through mass mobilization. We also need to assess the opportunities that new communications technologies are opening up.
..................................................Lynne Davis

Changes Needed:
1) more elected political representatives who are female.
2) more funding (public and private)
3) more connection between grassroots activists and policy makers (more dialogue)
4) more communications among elected disciplines, environmment human rights, economy, etc.
..................................................Brenda L. Dodds

Changes Needed: We need more initiatives as well as putting more theory into practice at all levels.
..................................................Marian Dodds

Changes are needed in people's attitudes leading to behaviour change. An increased sense of personal relevancy in sustainable development is needed.
..................................................Carla Doucet

Patriarchy needs to change to a gynocentric system so equality can flourish and education can be human centered vs. $ centered.
..................................................Rita Douglas

We need to focus on changing attitudes and behaviour -- long-term, fundamental education. We need some sense of urgency; UNCED is an example of an event in time that had to deliver something. We need a few highly visible targets and schedules that keep us on track. We need highly accessible and understandable indicators -- five things that can go into daily newspapers every week that tell ushow we're doing. I fundamentally believe that we must see the convergence of sound science, social consensus and good public policy.
..................................................Elizabeth Dowdeswell

List of changes needed to promote change towards sustainable development:
1) development agendas designed by those who will focus on local impacts and needs.
2) integration of social, economic, and environmental goals.
3) equal participation by women and men in decision making and planning for future change at all levels.
4) empowerment of women so women are trained and willing to assume roles of leadership.
..................................................Susan Dowse

Issues that need to be addressed to induce change towards a sustainable society.
-A fundamental shift in planning which is long term rather than short term.
-Stop the drain of resources from North to South.
-Reduce the consumptive lifestyle of the North.
-Equitable sharing of resources.
..................................................JoAnne Drebett

List of changes needed to promote a sustainable society: alternative economic system (ie barter), more feminist women in elected positions with real power, a return to understanding the land and agriculture, overcome the 'backlash', helping men to become feminist.
..................................................Elaine Driver

Changes needed to promote sustainability:
1) most severe crisis is the ecological crisis. Few believe we are entering an era of great ecological change,
2) affluence & waste of the developed countries,
3) global economic system-I am no longer certain what aids people to change except severe personal pain.
..................................................Heather Eaton

Anti-cartel legislation is needed -- if there is control of more than a certain percentage of the market, company would have to pay 100% tax; this would reverse some of the trends. Changes are needed in the information industry. There should be a green tax on everybody, and people can earn their way out of it. The computer may be helpful if we can use it well; it can be democratizing in opening channels of communication. There is no hope unless sustainability has equity criterion built in locally, regionally, nationally and internationally. We can't ask people to better than we've been. We just have to change the world, that's it!
..................................................Margrit Eichler

List of changes needed in our social and economic framework to promote sustainability:
1) We need to be open to changing and integrating our ways of thinking and stop securing the world in terms of winners and losers,
2) We should be open to use the insights from other peoples' learning and experience,
3) We should end unsustainable consumption patterns,
4) We need new models for economic growth,
5) There should be movement away from technical fixes.
..................................................Terre Flower

We need to restructure society to allow equal access to resources (Et al.)
This question is broad enough to generate enough answers to fill a library. There are no short answers.
..................................................Linda Foubister

Building peaceful sustainable communities requires the careful, intelligent, ecological, ethical, cooperative practice most women attempt in their lives. We need to move these models to local, national, and global governance for equality, sustainability and peace.

List of changes needed to promote sustainability:
Locally: There should be much more participation in decision making by "Feminist Women" who understand the need for the IJC (International Joint Commision on the Great Lakes) 7th Biennial Report call for "zero discharge of all persistent toxic chemicals including radionucleotides" and insist on its implementation. Many corporations don't want to observe timelines. In Saskatchewan, for example, the dangerous implications of the expansion of uranium mining: waste and tailing problems get little attention in the rest of Canada. The toxicity of these longlived radio active wastes is affecting people's health and security. The nuclear industry in Canada recieves 200 million dollars per year to support public relations, promotion of exports of reactors and food irrations to mostly third world countries. This is most unsustainable development which most Canadians do not want here or anywhere else. At the " Voice of Women, Pre-Beijing Conference", Toronto in June, 1994, these issues were clearly enunciated and are in the conference report. The recommendations of this report should be widely used.

Internationally:
1) Women should work to cancel the third world debt policies and stop structural adjustment policies (SAPs) which are killing people in so many countries. It's been paid back many times. Let those who were personally involved take responsibility (see "Odious Debt" by Pat Adams of Probe International).
2) a. Women should be involved in the discussions around the "Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review" next year. This treaty promotes the expansion of nuclear technology around the world-- then we are shocked and indignant when those recipient nations want to make nuclear weapons.
b. Canada's uranium goes into nuclear weapons directly and indirectly as in France, Russia, England--the civilian and military programs are joined. Our depleated uranium goes into US nuclear weapons and also into US bullets, tanks and missiles to make them stronger and also radioactive. This is clearly unsustainable.
3) Women are doing much to stop exports of toxic and radioactive wastes to other countries. We need to support our sisters everywhere in their struggles to stop them in their communities. We also need to stop it at the source.
..................................................Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg

Changes Needed: The need for personal growth and transformation; bridging the gap between the personal and the collective; more humour.
..................................................Claire Gram

There should be a recognition that we are in this together-not individuals but ..................................................communities.
Penny Gurstein

We need to reduce development by an endless economic growth, partriarchy; militarization and force-hierachical power structure and violence. The above can be changed by questioning our capitalist assumptions of growth & promote egalitarianism and participation.
..................................................Parvine Guyarashi

Societal and economic changes needed:
1) We need a better understanding/appreciation of our place in the global and local ecosystem. We must behave as part of the ecosystem, not above it and separate from it.
We are one species among many.
2) We must eradicate war as a method of solving disputes.
3) We must decrease our energy consumption.
4) We must control and decrease the global population.
5) We must seriously address the inequities between developed and developing countries.
6) We must empower women everywhere.
7) We must change our basic thinking and practice of economics.
..................................................Heather Hamilton

Changes needed: total economic and philosophical restructuring and transformation.
..................................................Suzanne Hawkes

List of changes needed to promote sustainable development:
1) we need a new paradigm which would simultaneously unblock decision making processes, distribution of resources and power relations.
2) new paradigm would be ecological and actualize recognition of the interdependence of everything.
..................................................Sandra Hawkins

Changes needed:
Women having equal decision making power
Much less verbiage and much more implementation of excellent alternatives
...................................................Eleanor Heise

List of changes needed in order to approach sustainability:
1) Health-womens' health-must be a priority-economics, access, availability, etc., must be in place before women will survive.
2) education-economics, health must be in place before you can teach - ie: can't learn on an empty stomach,
3) economics - can't eat, learn, live etc. without money - government must help save women,
4) violence - women cannot develop, sustain, grow without security,
5) advancement in politics-women moving into this sector will allow women to have a voice.
..................................................Marsha G. Henry

I think we need to develop a collective vision of a sustainable future that involves fundamental change in the way we live, work and carry on economic and social activity.
Achieving that vision will require profound institutional and individual change. It is my hope that we are able to see the changes as opportunities for a better world, with an improved quality of life, rather than only as restricting limitations.
..................................................Ann Hillyer

List of changes needed in order to approach S.D.:
1) there needs to be an increase in understanding (re:access to information) throughout the entire population (re:what it is, how to get there, what to do?),
2) change in institutional structures and actions international development and international trade, political economy, renewable resource management, South-North partnerships, self-government, Northern Canadian economic development.
..................................................Aileen Horler

List of changes needed to approach S.D.: Globally- Changes in attitude; rigorous environmental assessment of activities--including studies of carrying capacities, regulation of toxic substances (production, transportation, use and disposal). An appreciation of the true meaning of sustainable development--and that environmental protection is not just preservation and prohibition.
..................................................Valerie Hume

List of changes needed in our society to promote sustainability :
1) knowledge of how the world really works,
2) courage to act as individuals,
3) commitment to solutions best for all,
4) sense of urgency,
5) working together to support a new direction.
..................................................Lynn Hunter

Changes are needed in primary education, and in education of women, especially in the developing world, to take control of their lives. Canada has to solve the debt problem and stop the big lie that we are sustianable. We are overcutting by 50% in BC and exporting the technology that makes that overcutting possible. Everyone's future is at stake.
..................................................Vicky Husband

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