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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Ecology North's summer student, Nimisha Bastedo, has some strong words for the United Nations after she attended the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from June 20 to 22.

Nimisha Bastedo, from left, Juan Olmedo, activist Vandana Shiva, Maria Alejandra Escalante and Soren Kopke, attended the United Nations Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil. - photo courtesy of Nimisha Bastedo

The second-year human ecology student at the College of the Atlantic in Maine, was part of a student group consisting of 15 students that travelled down to hear political leaders discuss global sustainability policy.

"(The) Rio+20 was an epic failure on the part of our world leaders to put the wellbeing of people and the planet before national and corporate profit," Bastedo said. "Not only did it send us backwards, it also laid down a new welcome mat for transnational corporations to strengthen their reign."

Needless to say – she wasn't impressed.

The Rio+20 Conference welcomed world leaders, non-government organizations and other groups to discuss topics such as reducing poverty, advancing social equity and ensuring environmental protection.

The Yellowknife born and raised student, along with the rest of her student group -- in conjunction with a protest group titled Earth in Brackets -- were so disillusioned at the "backwardness" of the policies being discussed that they staged their own "peaceful protest."

Bastedo, along with the group of students, walked backwards through the conference halls to make their point noticed.

"In the end, we walked out of the conference saying the future we want is not held here," she said.

The experience hasn't fully changed her educational plans, but a sense of humbling reality has opened her eyes to the way the world works.

"It's (global politics) a frustrating field to be in I'm beginning to realize, just because the progress seems so slow," she said.

In terms of her home territory and the socio-economic issues it faces, the conference didn't provide any hopeful outlook as far as environmental protection was concerned, Bastedo said.

"The most frustrating thing to see was the countries from the global North, the most developed

countries really not taking responsibility for being the ones that have done the most polluting and exploitation of the environment, and people in the global south," she said. "Instead (they) just used pretty words like 'green economy' and 'green jobs' to make it look like they are doing a good thing, when really, if you look at what was going on back home, it's not so true."

It wasn't all bad though -- Bastedo revelled in the chance to meet other people from across the globe that shared her common global vision.

"Overall it was a great trip. Even though the conference itself was really disillusioning and depressing, I met a lot of amazing people," she said.

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