A CONVERSATION WITH DAVID SUZUKI.

David Suzuki is a highly acclaimed environmentalist, geneticist and broadcaster. He is the host of the long-running CBC TV series The Nature of Things and the founder and chair of the David Suzuki Foundation, an organisation dedicated to addressing worldwide environmental issues.

Based in Vancouver, Canada, David is a regular and enthusiastic visitor to Australia, and was here recently to promote his latest book, Naked Ape to Superspecies (written with Holly Dressel). In Sydney he met with Lynette Thorstensen, a former head of Greenpeace Australia and director of Greenpeace International's Climate Change Campaign based in Amsterdam. Lynette is now a full-time mother and volunteers her services to various green groups, including ACE Here is a slice of their conversation.

LT Naked Ape to Super Species is another profound and passionate indictment of the threats to our planet. Much of your material I guess I was familiar with, but your information on the biotechnology industries and genetically modified organisms had me more alarmed than I have been in my 20 years of environmental activism -- with the possible exception of nuclear annihilation. The story of the engineered bacterium `klebsiella planticula' -- which, if it weren't for the common sense of a graduate student, could have ended all plant life on the American continent -- was news to me. Had you heard of this before you wrote the book?

DS Isn't that amazing. It's outrageous. I had never heard of it and I'm sure there are many stories like that we just aren't hearing about. The latest one I know is of a farmer in Canada who planted three strips of canola that had been engineered to be resistant to three different pesticides, and two years later they found that the weeds on the periphery were triply resistant to all three pesticides. It's exactly what the environment movement and scientists had been saying beforehand -- that once you transfer a gene, it's not going to stay confined to the crop. There's certainly enough evidence to say it's far too early to let these things out into the field. They should be still confined to the lab.

The problem is there's just so much pressure from the biotechnology companies. There's been huge amounts or venture capital invested in this and those investors want to see a return on their investment.

LT You express in the book a concern about the state of the environment movement, and cite a number of legitimate and highly problematic reasons for this: the efforts of public relations companies to confuse the reality of environmental problems and discredit the leaders of community protest, the perception of the public that government and even to some extent industry has environment problems in hand, and a very blunt view that many of us are simply too lazy to act.

At the same time, you set enormous store by the power of grass roots community action and NGOs. But if you take, for example, the intransigence of our federal government on green issues as a measure of progress then community protest doesn't seem to be having much impact right now. What do you make of this?

DS Well, I've come here as high as a kite. We had a fellow from a major international polling company, who has been working in 20 countries and for various clients getting information which he then shared with us, as he's a big fan our foundation. What he said is that the environment for the last ten years has been off the richter scale, but in the last year-and-a-half it's suddenly begun to come back. Their polling indicates that in two more years we'll see environment at the top of the global agenda again. He calls it the `third wave'. The first green wave was Rachel Carson, the second green wave was the lead up to Rio [1992 Earth Summit], and he says this third wave is being driven now by the concern of parents for their children's health, and it will come through air, water and food.

So, I feel we just have to hang in there. A lot of campaigners are burning out. All the criteria indicate we're getting nowhere. If you've seen the Worldwatch Institute report State of the World 2000, it's all there, a steady decline. Within our foundation, for three years now, at a million dollars a year -- and that's a lot of money for us -- we've been working on climate change. And yet all the climate indicators just keep going down hill.

But this guy from the polling company just lifted our spirits. He said you've got to hang in there and you've got to be ready for this wave.

LT I think there's an area of fundamental discussion in your book that must be confronted in a very rigorous way by environmentalists and corporations alike. You make a very clear and well documented case against corporations as ever being realistic players in the protection of the environment, because of the inherent self interest of capital and the need to always drive for more profits.

But I can't help thinking that profound, swift, generational and cultural change within corporations themselves has to be possible, or we simply won't have the resources we need and we'll run out of time ... Is there a way environmental protection can become synonymous with company self interest or don't you think it's possible?

DS No, I don't. I've talked to Anita Roddick [founder of The Body Shop] and the guys who set up Ben and Jerry's Ice-cream and so on, and they are great people, but even they admit they have to continue to grow to stay in business. They're not sustainable by definition. As long as environment remains externalised to the accounting of the corporate world we have a problem.

I think confrontation is the way to go. The corporate world was staggered by the power of the protests that shut down the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle. The general public barely knew of the existence, let alone the power, of the WTO a few months ago. Now there is profound interest in challenging the notion that global economic transactions by multinational corporations must be completely unregulated so their capital can `flow freely'.

The mechanics with which we could gain control of the situation are, even now, not beyond our grasp. What is needed are real regulations and controls at the global level. For example, if a multinational company was found to be profiting through tax evasion or dumping wastes, the company should be fined to such a degree that continuing to behave like a buccaneer would cost it more than it could make.

Many of the corporate heads of the world and those in charge of the WTO hate the glare of scrutiny. They just want to slither away. We must keep their activities exposed.

Having said that, I am very impressed with the work of companies such as The Natural Step who seek to genuinely reform the thinking and industrial practices of large corporations. It's just that I'm very pessimistic that there are very many Ray Andersons out there.

[Ray Anderson is the CEO of Interface, a carpet-square company that has declared its intent to be the US's first genuinely sustainable industry. They now only use recycled squares that would have otherwise been destined for landfills, and have nearly succeeded in eliminating their waste stream, including the stacks and waste pipes.]

LT I'm concerned at the very high rate of turnover in the leadership of the Australian environment movement, for example almost no leader during the last six years in the ACF and Greenpeace has lasted for much more than two years.

I agree with the points made in the book that as a form of spiritual fulfillment community service can be extraordinarily fulfilling, exhilarating even, but how do we look after our elders to keep them giving us their wisdom, rather than moving on burnt out as many seem to?

DS We have to practice sustainable activism. I have a friend who has worked in the green movement in Canada for many years. He was recently transferring names and addresses from his old address book to computer, and he told me the shocking thing was that quite a number of his former activist friends and colleagues had committed suicide.

Here's an example perhaps of looking after our longstanding activists, especially volunteers. My wife some years ago quit her full-time job teaching to volunteer full-time as the president of my foundation. She was completely thrilled because someone recently nominated her for a special kind of R & R experience at a retreat in Santa Fe that offers two weeks to six months for activists to take time out.

Apparently there is not much of a tradition of philanthropic generosity to the environment in Australia. It's a thing that is amazing in the United States. You have these environmental grant makers, who are funded in the billions of dollars, and the money they give is extraordinary. Our own foundation went from nothing to over $US3 million a year. You have to tap into this wealth somehow.

Finally, we have to really celebrate volunteerism. As a society we've got to recognise that the really significant things that make functioning communities what they are, are the things that don't involve money.

LT Yes, there seem to be so many yuppies in my own age group (I'm nearly forty) searching for fulfillment with their personal trainers, or endless rounds of New Age interventions, but don't give of their own time freely for others or for purely altruistic reasons. I had the interesting experience recently of going to a `Save the Forests' type rally in the Sydney Town Hall, and there were many people in their sixties, and many in their twenties or younger, but almost no-one in my age group. And I know many of us have young families and tough economic demands that require long hours of work, but I found myself wondering `where the hell are the decision makers?'.

DS That's really interesting. Well, the baby boomers are ready now to retire before 65 and start pouring their money and efforts into things they believe in. They were affected by that whole flower-child time and some of the research we've seen suggests that we'll see a massive amount of money come from them as they retire.

The generation `X'ers, a little bit younger than you, are basically into self-indulgence and e-greed. But the generation `Y'ers, the kids of the boomers, are very, very idealistic, they're hitting university and they're ready to come on line. And I see that; my daughter's involved with a group called STARC (Student Alliance to Reform Corporations) and it's swept through over 150 campuses now. Their enthusiasm reminds me of the Vietnam time. These are really idealistic kids who are going to make a difference.

But they still need role models. You know, you've just got to look to that gang that are taking early retirement and see whether there's a way of recruiting them.