The Declaration of Interdependence

The “Declaration of Interdependence” was written in 1992 by David Suzuki and his wife, Tara Cullis, along with Raffi Cavoukian, Wade Davis, Guujaw and others.
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_x000D_ As the David Suzuki Foundation’s founding document, it expresses our values as an organization and provides a vision for the survival of the planet through a “new politics of hope” that promotes connection and interdependence.
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_x000D_ This we know
_x000D_ We are the earth, through the plants and animals that nourish us.
_x000D_ We are the rains and the oceans that flow through our veins.
_x000D_ We are the breath of the forests of the land, and the plants of the sea.
_x000D_ We are human animals, related to all other life as descendants of the firstborn cell.
_x000D_ We share with these kin a common history, written in our genes.
_x000D_ We share a common present, filled with uncertainty.
_x000D_ And we share a common future, as yet untold.
_x000D_ We humans are but one of thirty million species weaving the thin layer of life enveloping the world.
_x000D_ The stability of communities of living things depends upon this diversity.
_x000D_ Linked in that web, we are interconnected — using, cleansing, sharing and replenishing the fundamental elements of life.
_x000D_ Our home, planet Earth, is finite; all life shares its resources and the energy from the sun, and therefore has limits to growth.
_x000D_ For the first time, we have touched those limits.
_x000D_ When we compromise the air, the water, the soil and the variety of life, we steal from the endless future to serve the fleeting present.
_x000D_ This we believe
_x000D_ Humans have become so numerous and our tools so powerful that we have driven fellow creatures to extinction, dammed the great rivers, torn down ancient forests, poisoned the earth, rain and wind, and ripped holes in the sky.
_x000D_ Our science has brought pain as well as joy; our comfort is paid for by the suffering of millions.
_x000D_ We are learning from our mistakes, we are mourning our vanished kin, and we now build a new politics of hope.
_x000D_ We respect and uphold the absolute need for clean air, water and soil.
_x000D_ We see that economic activities that benefit the few while shrinking the inheritance of many are wrong.
_x000D_ And since environmental degradation erodes biological capital forever, full ecological and social cost must enter all equations of development.
_x000D_ We are one brief generation in the long march of time; the future is not ours to erase.
_x000D_ So where knowledge is limited, we will remember all those who will walk after us, and err on the side of caution.
_x000D_ This we resolve
_x000D_ All this that we know and believe must now become the foundation of the way we live.
_x000D_ At this turning point in our relationship with Earth, we work for an evolution: from dominance to partnership; from fragmentation to connection; from insecurity, to interdependence.