1989

January: "Save the Forest - Save the Planet" Campaign
Year of the Save the Forest - Save the Planet Campaign demanding an emergency session of the UN General Assembly to adopt a rescue plan for tropical forests.

May: Committee meeting
Committee Meeting in Vagliagli/Siena (Italy), hosted by Edward and Catherine Goldsmith

September: 3.3 million signatures handed over
3.3 million signatures for "Save the Forest - Save the Planet" Campaign are handed over to UNEP Director Noel Brown

November: Gaia Symposium
Gaia Symposium in Wadebridge (UK)

November: Meeting
Meeting in Metz (France), hosted by Jean-Marie Pelt and Bernard Zamaron

Save the Forest - Save the Planet

The campaign Save the Forest - Save the Planet gathered 3.3 million signatures in September 1989 when it was handed to Noel Brown (UNEP), and 10 million signatures by 1991. It was co-organized jointly with the World Rainforest Movement and supported by The Ecologist.

Letter to Noel Brown (UNEP)

To: Mr Noel Brown, Director, United Nation Environment Programme
From: Edward Goldsmith Dear Mr Brown,
[...] The World Rainforest Movement, based in Penang, Malaysia, in conjunction with Ecoropa, based in Paris, France, have drawn up a petition asking for an extraordinary meeting of the United Nations to consider the critical and urgent problem of global deforestation, and to work out an effective plan to bring this intolerable trend to a halt. Over three million signatures have been gathered in support of this petition, which we would like to present to Mr Perez de Cuellar himself on the 19th September of this year in New York. [...]
Our plan is for the petition to be presented by forest people from Sarawak, Brazil, the Himalayas and the Canadian West Coast, together with religious leaders. Our petition is a strictly non-political one. Our only aim is to prevent this continued destruction of the world's rain forests, whose implications are far reaching and indeed which could well give rise to global climatic changes, which when compounded with those brought by the emission of greenhouse gases from industrial and agricultural sources could make much of our planet uninhabitable in a matter of decades. [..]

Gaia versus Servoglobe

The core content of Sigmund Kvaloey's article was originally given as a talk at an international conference on the "Gaia theory", arranged by ECOROPA in Cornwall, England in 1987.