By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 25 -- With fifteen months to go until the “Sustainable Development Goals” are determined by the UN General Assembly, Palau's Ambassador Stuart Beck on Tuesday made the case for an oceans SDG. He recounted that only last night, Palau had its highest tide ever.
The seas have become so acid, he continued, that mussels and clams are having a hard time forming their shells.
Inner City Press asked Beck about Palau's shark sanctuary, which became with 600,000 square kilometers and is now up to 12.5 million square kilometers, with subsequent joiners like Mexico, Honduras and Costa Rica, Bahamas, Barbados, Micronesia and the Maldives. If sharks could say thanks, he concluded, they'd give thanks for the sanctuary. Video here from Minute 7:05.
Accompanying Beck was Ghislaine Maxwell of the TerraMar Project, who said the oceans account for 16% of humanity's food and spoke of using social media in the campaign. It must target all 193 states, Beck pointed out. (Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, it is understood, doesn't know much about the idea.)
It seems Ban's UN doesn't know much about social media or new style network organizations either. The new Free UN Coalition for Access, formed after the old UN Correspondents Association showed itself willing to spy for the UN and seek to get new media thrown out, has been using the Internet and now Twitter to press for media access.
Now the UN Department of Public Information has threatened to suspend or withdraw Inner City Press' UN accreditation, ostensibly for having a FUNCA sign on the door of its office. (Ironically, it was FUNCA that thanked Beck for his briefing; no UNCA Executive Committee member even came.) It was about this office that a DPI official demanded to speak to Inner City Press in the two minutes between Palau's presentation and the noon briefing.
Inner City Press asked again for answers to questions it has put to DPI, about double standards for UNCA Executive Committee members with solo offices and two UNCA signs, and crackdowns on free speech. DPI is trying to dictate that FUNCA use old organizational forms. But there is no going back. Watch this site.
