T H E E A R T H C H A R T E R
P R E A M B L E
We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s historical past, a time when humanity should select its future. Because the world
turns into more and more interdependent and fragile, the long run at as soon as holds nice peril and nice promise. To maneuver
ahead we should acknowledge that in the midst of a magnificent range of cultures and life varieties we’re one human
household and one Earth group with a frequent future. We should be part of collectively to convey forth a sustainable international
society based on respect for nature, common human rights, financial justice, and a tradition of peace. In direction of
this finish, it’s crucial that we, the peoples of Earth, declare our accountability to at least one one other, to the higher
group of life, and to future generations.
Earth, Our Residence
Humanity is a part of a huge evolving universe. Earth, our house, is alive with a distinctive group of life. The
forces of nature make existence a demanding and unsure journey, however Earth has offered the circumstances
important to life’s evolution. The resilience of the group of life and the well-being of humanity rely
upon preserving a wholesome biosphere with all its ecological programs, a wealthy number of crops and animals, fertile
soils, pure waters, and clear air. The worldwide setting with its finite sources is a frequent concern of all
peoples. The safety of Earth’s vitality, range, and wonder is a sacred belief.
The World State of affairs
The dominant patterns of manufacturing and consumption are inflicting environmental devastation, the depletion
of sources, and a large extinction of species. Communities are being undermined. The advantages of
growth are usually not shared equitably and the hole between wealthy and poor is widening. Injustice, poverty,
ignorance, and violent battle are widespread and the reason for nice struggling. An unprecedented rise in
human inhabitants has overburdened ecological and social programs. The foundations of worldwide safety are
threatened. These traits are perilous—however not inevitable.
The Challenges Forward
The selection is ours: kind a international partnership to take care of Earth and each other or threat the destruction of
ourselves and the variety of life. Basic modifications are wanted in our values, establishments, and methods of
dwelling. We should notice that when primary wants have been met, human growth is primarily about being
extra, not having extra. We have the data and expertise to supply for all and to scale back our impacts
on the setting. The emergence of a international civil society is creating new alternatives to construct a
democratic and humane world. Our environmental, financial, political, social, and religious challenges are
interconnected, and collectively we are able to forge inclusive options.
Common Duty
To appreciate these aspirations, we should resolve to reside with a sense of common accountability, figuring out
ourselves with the entire Earth group in addition to our native communities. We are at as soon as residents of
completely different nations and of 1 world in which the native and international are linked. Everybody shares accountability for
the current and future well-being of the human household and the bigger dwelling world. The spirit of human
solidarity and kinship with all life is strengthened once we reside with reverence for the thriller of being,
gratitude for the present of life, and humility relating to the human place in nature.
We urgently want a shared imaginative and prescient of primary values to supply an moral basis for the rising world
group. Subsequently, collectively in hope we affirm the next interdependent rules for a sustainable method of
life as a frequent normal by which the conduct of all people, organizations, companies, governments, and
transnational establishments is to be guided and assessed.
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P R I N C I P L E S
I . RESPECT AND CARE F OR THE COMMUNITY O F LIFE
1. Respect Earth and life in all its range.
a. Acknowledge that every one beings are interdependent and each type of life has worth no matter its price to human
beings.
b. Affirm religion in the inherent dignity of all human beings and in the mental, inventive, moral, and religious
potential of humanity.
2. Take care of the group of life with understanding, compassion, and love.
a. Settle for that with the fitting to personal, handle, and use pure sources comes the obligation to forestall environmental
hurt and to guard the rights of individuals.
b. Affirm that with elevated freedom, data, and energy comes elevated accountability to advertise the
frequent good.
three. Construct democratic societies which can be simply, participatory, sustainable, and peaceable.
a. Be sure that communities at all ranges assure human rights and elementary freedoms and supply everybody
a possibility to appreciate his or her full potential.
b. Promote social and financial justice, enabling all to realize a safe and significant livelihood that’s
ecologically accountable.
four. Safe Earth’s bounty and wonder for current and future generations.
a. Acknowledge that the liberty of motion of every era is certified by the wants of future generations.
b. Transmit to future generations values, traditions, and establishments that Help the long-term flourishing of
Earth’s human and ecological communities. In an effort to fulfill these 4 broad commitments, it’s essential to:
I I . ECOLO GICAL INTEGRITY
5. Shield and restore the integrity of Earth’s ecological programs, with particular concern for
organic range and the pure processes that maintain life.
a. Undertake at all ranges sustainable growth plans and rules that make environmental conservation and
rehabilitation integral to all growth initiatives.
b. Set up and safeguard viable nature and biosphere reserves, together with wild lands and marine areas, to guard
Earth’s life Help programs, keep biodiversity, and protect our pure heritage.
c. Promote the restoration of endangered species and ecosystems.
d. Management and eradicate non-native or genetically modified organisms dangerous to native species and the
setting, and forestall introduction of such dangerous organisms.
e. Handle using renewable sources similar to water, soil, forest merchandise, and marine life in methods that don’t
exceed charges of regeneration and that defend the well being of ecosystems.
f. Handle the extraction and use of non-renewable sources similar to minerals and fossil fuels in ways in which
decrease depletion and trigger no critical environmental injury.
6. Forestall hurt as the very best methodology of environmental safety and, when data is restricted,
apply a precautionary method.
a. Take motion to keep away from the potential of critical or irreversible environmental hurt even when scientific data
is incomplete or inconclusive.
b. Place the burden of proof on those that argue that a proposed exercise won’t trigger important hurt, and make
the accountable events responsible for environmental hurt.
c. Be sure that resolution making addresses the cumulative, long-term, oblique, lengthy distance, and international
penalties of human actions.
d. Forestall air pollution of any a part of the setting and permit no build-up of radioactive, poisonous, or different hazardous
substances.
e. Keep away from navy actions damaging to the setting.
7. Undertake patterns of manufacturing, consumption, and replica that safeguard Earth’s
regenerative capacities, human rights, and group well-being.
a. Cut back, reuse, and recycle the supplies used in manufacturing and consumption programs, and be certain that residual
waste could be assimilated by ecological programs.
b. Act with restraint and effectivity when utilizing power, and rely more and more on renewable power sources similar to
photo voltaic and wind.
c. Promote the event, adoption, and equitable switch of environmentally sound applied sciences.
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d. Internalize the complete environmental and social prices of products and providers in the promoting worth, and allow
customers to determine merchandise that meet the best social and environmental requirements.
e. Guarantee common entry to well being care that fosters reproductive well being and accountable replica.
f. Undertake life that emphasize the standard of life and materials sufficiency in a finite world.
eight. Advance the research of ecological sustainability and promote the open alternate and broad
utility of the data acquired.
a. Help worldwide scientific and technical cooperation on sustainability, with particular consideration to the wants of
growing nations.
b. Acknowledge and protect the standard data and religious knowledge in all cultures that contribute to
environmental safety and human well-being.
c. Be sure that info of important significance to human well being and environmental safety, together with genetic
info, stays obtainable in the general public area.
I I I . SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
9. Eradicate poverty as an moral, social, and environmental crucial.
a. Assure the fitting to potable water, clear air, meals safety, uncontaminated soil, shelter, and protected sanitation,
allocating the nationwide and worldwide sources required.
b. Empower each human being with the schooling and sources to safe a sustainable livelihood, and supply
social safety and security nets for many who are unable to Help themselves.
c. Acknowledge the ignored, defend the susceptible, serve those that endure, and allow them to develop their
capacities and to pursue their aspirations.
10. Be sure that financial actions and establishments at all ranges promote human growth in
an equitable and sustainable method.
a. Promote the equitable distribution of wealth inside nations and amongst nations.
b. Improve the mental, monetary, technical, and social sources of growing nations, and relieve them of
onerous worldwide debt.
c. Be sure that all commerce helps sustainable useful resource use, environmental safety, and progressive labor
requirements.
d. Require multinational firms and worldwide monetary organizations to behave transparently in the general public
good, and maintain them accountable for the results of their actions.
11. Affirm gender equality and fairness as conditions to sustainable growth and guarantee
common entry to schooling, well being care, and financial alternative.
a. Safe the human rights of girls and women and finish all violence in opposition to them.
b. Promote the lively participation of girls in all elements of financial, political, civil, social, and cultural life as
full and equal companions, resolution makers, leaders, and beneficiaries.
c. Strengthen households and make sure the security and loving nurture of all members of the family.
12. Uphold the fitting of all, with out discrimination, to a pure and social setting
supportive of human dignity, bodily well being, and religious well-being, with particular consideration to the
rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.
a. Eradicate discrimination in all its varieties, similar to that based mostly on race, colour, intercourse, sexual orientation, faith,
language, and nationwide, ethnic or social origin.
b. Affirm the fitting of indigenous peoples to their spirituality, data, lands and sources and to their associated
apply of sustainable livelihoods.
c. Honor and Help the younger individuals of our communities, enabling them to satisfy their important position in creating
sustainable societies.
d. Shield and restore excellent locations of cultural and religious significance.
IV. DEMOCRACY, NONVIO LENCE, AND PEACE
13. Strengthen democratic establishments at all ranges, and supply transparency and accountability
in governance, inclusive participation in resolution making, and entry to justice.
a. Uphold the fitting of everybody to obtain clear and well timed info on environmental issues and all
growth plans and actions that are prone to have an effect on them or in which they’ve an curiosity.
b. Help native, regional and international civil society, and promote the significant participation of all
people and organizations in resolution making.
c. Shield the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, peaceable meeting, affiliation, and dissent.
d. Institute efficient and environment friendly entry to administrative and unbiased judicial procedures, together with cures
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and redress for environmental hurt and the specter of such hurt.
e. Eradicate corruption in all private and non-private establishments.
f. Strengthen native communities, enabling them to care for his or her environments, and assign environmental
tasks to the degrees of presidency the place they are often carried out most successfully.
14. Combine into formal schooling and life-long studying the data, values, and abilities
wanted for a sustainable lifestyle.
a. Present all, particularly youngsters and youth, with instructional alternatives that empower them to contribute
actively to sustainable growth.
b. Promote the contribution of the humanities and humanities in addition to the sciences in sustainability schooling.
c. Improve the position of the mass media in elevating consciousness of ecological and social challenges.
d. Acknowledge the significance of ethical and religious schooling for sustainable dwelling.
15. Deal with all dwelling beings with respect and consideration.
a. Forestall cruelty to animals saved in human societies and defend them from struggling.
b. Shield wild animals from strategies of searching, trapping, and fishing that trigger excessive, extended, or avoidable
struggling.
c. Keep away from or remove to the complete extent doable the taking or destruction of non-targeted species.
16. Promote a tradition of tolerance, nonviolence, and peace.
a. Encourage and Help mutual understanding, solidarity, and cooperation amongst all peoples and inside and
amongst nations.
b. Implement complete methods to forestall violent battle and use collaborative drawback fixing to handle
and resolve environmental conflicts and different disputes.
c. Demilitarize nationwide safety programs to the extent of a non-provocative protection posture, and convert navy
sources to peaceable functions, together with ecological restoration.
d. Eradicate nuclear, organic, and poisonous weapons and different weapons of mass destruction.
e. Be sure that using orbital and outer house helps environmental safety and peace.
f. Acknowledge that peace is the wholeness created by proper relationships with oneself, different individuals, different cultures,
different life, Earth, and the bigger complete of which all are a half.
T H E W A Y F O R W A R D
As by no means earlier than in historical past, frequent future beckons us to hunt a new starting. Such renewal is the promise of
these Earth Constitution rules. To meet this promise, we should commit ourselves to undertake and promote the values
and aims of the Constitution.
This requires a change of thoughts and coronary heart. It requires a new sense of worldwide interdependence and common
accountability. We should imaginatively develop and apply the imaginative and prescient of a sustainable lifestyle regionally, nationally,
regionally, and globally. Our cultural range is a valuable heritage and completely different cultures will discover their very own
distinctive methods to appreciate the imaginative and prescient. We should deepen and broaden the worldwide dialogue that generated the Earth
Constitution, for we’ve a lot to study from the continuing collaborative seek for fact and knowledge.
Life typically entails tensions between necessary values. This will imply tough selections. Nevertheless, we should discover
methods to harmonize range with unity, the train of freedom with the frequent good, short-term aims with
long-term objectives. Each particular person, household, group, and group has a very important position to play. The humanities, sciences,
religions, instructional establishments, media, companies, nongovernmental organizations, and governments are all
known as to supply artistic management. The partnership of presidency, civil society, and enterprise is crucial for
efficient governance.
In an effort to construct a sustainable international group, the nations of the world should renew their dedication to the
United Nations, fulfill their obligations underneath present worldwide agreements, and Help the implementation of
Earth Constitution rules with a world legally binding instrument on setting and growth.
Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for all times, the agency resolve to realize
sustainability, the quickening of the battle for justice and peace, and the festivity of life.
O R I G I N O F T H E E A R T H C H A R T E R
The Earth Constitution was created by the unbiased Earth Constitution Fee, which was convened as a follow-up to the 1992 Earth Summit in order
to provide a international consensus assertion of values and rules for a sustainable future. The doc was developed over almost a decade by way of an
in depth technique of worldwide session, to which over 5 thousand individuals contributed. The Constitution has been formally endorsed by 1000’s of
organizations, together with UNESCO and the IUCN (World Conservation Union). For extra info, please go to www.EarthCharter.org.

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