Nottingham's Earth Summit

Nottingham's Earth Summit conference took place on Saturday 14th March 1992 at Nottingham University Medical School. It was one of a series of regional events initiated by the United Nations Association in the run-up to the international Earth Summit in June of that year (properly titled the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development).

In fact it was the largest of those events, with about 280 delegates from a wide range of backgrounds: representatives of voluntary organisations, businesses and local government, and interested individuals including many students. Appropriately, the organising group was itself a cross-sectoral partnership.

The keynote speaker was David Bellamy, and the event was chaired by Rt Rev Patrick Harris, Bishop of Southwell. Speakers explained what the Earth Summit was, why it mattered and some of the activities going on to link with it. There was a panel discussion on environment and development issues. Participants split into workshops on Aid; Biodiversity; Common Security (issues like peace and the arms trade); Debt; Forestry; Global Warming; Population; Poverty; and Trade.

A half-day follow-up event, Forward from Rio, on 14th November 1992 looked at what had actually happened at the Earth Summit in Rio. It included speakers who had actually attended. Participants discussed what was good, what was bad and where it left us for moving forward.