For the Clean World!

Let me start by acknowledging the good work done by Ecuador, who has taken the protection of biodiversity and wealth of species to the constitutional level and has set out the development concept Buen Vivir. Buen Vivir is a multilayered concept with two main starting points. On the one hand, it includes critical reactions to the classical Western development theory; on the other hand, it is based on an ideology that derives from the customs of the native peoples, which values survival in harmony with the nature higher than progress. 

In Europe, social trends are based on the concept of sustainable development, whose definition comes from the Brundtland Committee, led by former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, which developed the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, approved by the UN in 1987. Sustainable development means „development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." 

In principle, Buen Vivir as well as the sustainable development concept attempt to solve the same issue of how people could live well today and tomorrow, and not at the price of damaging the natural environment.

An example, if I may. Some years ago we had quite a problem in Estonia with illegal dump sites that had grown up in natural areas over the years; these could be found all over Estonia. People had carelessly dumped all sorts of rubbish to forests and road ditches. Estonia was not clean and this caused suffering to the people as well as to the nature.

In October 2007 an active group of Estonians and third sector representatives came together with the objective of doing something with the illegal dump sites all over the country. Their brainchild was the campaign Let’s Do It! In just a few months time, in May 2008, over 50,000 people – 3% of the whole population – including members of the parliament and the Government gathered together and cleaned up the whole country in one day. Even the President of the Republic lent a hand. Over 10,000 tons of rubbish was collected from forests and road sides.

Since the work was carried out by volunteers with no obligation or organisation, this had a very positive effect on the people. After 2008, people no longer discard rubbish in forests or road ditches, to ensure a much higher quality of living environment. People realised that rubbish thrown in the wrong place had to be cleaned up by themselves. This is our home, our community, our country, and nobody else will come in to clean it. The quality of our living environment depends on how we behave.

I have no doubt that people find it better to live in Estonia after the cleanup event. The clean natural environment that we achieved can be enjoyed every day and given in heritance to our children, and most importantly – it took place at the initiative and with voluntary work of the people themselves.

Given the wider interest in community based joint volunteer work, the Let’s Do It! campaign evolved into the World Cleanup campaign.

Now the Let’s Do It! movement unites active people in 96 countries who share the dream of a Clean World without waste. In recent years these people have cleaned up over 100,000 tons of waste in their neighborhoods.

Is your country on board? Check it out and be part of the real change: www.letsdoitworld.org. By the way – Ecuador is on board.

To get back to the beginning – does striving towards a cleaner world mean progress or wellbeing? Does it fit into the Buen Vivir concept? I think it does. We should all strive towards a better life that undeniably involves a clean living environment. We all find it distasteful to live among rubbish; untreated refuse harms nature and destroys biodiversity.

When Alexander Stubb, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia’s neighbouring country Finland, presented the Finnish Mission report in November 2012, he called on schoolchildren to do something together, even with the quietest ones in the class.

In order to constantly improve our lives, we must do things together; everyone must do their part through volunteering and civil initiative to improve our living environment and to protect the nature.

Let’s start a change in our community and Let’s Do It!

Let’s Do It and thus change the whole world!

For the Clean World!