Severn cullis-Suzuki Earth X Youth Speaker's Tour of Japan November 12th, Aso Konbanwa, I've never had a stage like this before! It's a real honor for me to be here tonight. It's amazing to be here in this beautiful valley and to be with you here tonight and in celebration. It's wonderful, and really reminds me of my own home in Canada. My name is Severn Suzuki and I'm traveling with my friend and partner Jeff Topham and we've traveled all the way from Canada to be with you here tonight. We are traveling around Japan in solidarity with the Sloth Club and the YES! Organizing committee. Thank you all for coming, here tonight. Why are you here tonight? Maybe you're here because you are dealing with problems of development. Maybe you are here because you feel the outside pressure of the cities of Japan that are all around you. Maybe you are here because you are worried about your children's environment. Maybe you are worried about the pollution that we're just talking about tonight. Why am I here tonight? I'm somebody who's very much concerned with the natural world. I'm concerned because I think I'm finding that it is getting harder and harder to find nature and wilderness and farmlands like you have here in Aso. I think that I must attribute my interest in nature partly to the fact that I am half Japanese. In fact, my grandmother came from Kumamoto prefecture and her parents and my grandfather's parents immigrated to Canada. Though both of my grandparents were born in Canada and grew up speaking English and never had been to Japan, during the Second World War, the Canadian government imprisoned them because of their Japanese genes. My grandmother, and my father, and his sisters were moved to a tiny little abandoned town in the mountains and that's where my father and his family lived for three years when he was just a young boy. And so, this is where my father spent his boyhood in the forests and in the mountains and he learned to love the lakes and the rivers where he would fish. So this time in his life was very important − he learned about injustice, he learned to always struggle against injustice and prejudice, but also the time in the mountains taught him about Nature. And so my father has shared with me his same values and all my life I grew up camping and traveling and visiting the countryside and learning how to fish and learning about the life and death cycles of nature and learning why it's important. So, my Japanese heritage has very much affected who I've become, I think. And I was very excited to have the opportunity to come back to Japan to the place where my ancestors were from, and that's so influenced my life. I know that there is a history of reverence for nature in Japan. But strangely enough, I've also heard that most Japanese people live in cities! This is true in Canada as well. Most Canadians also live in cities. I have learned that you here in Aso are very unique. So I am glad to experience some nature on your islands of Japan, but it saddens me to know that most Japanese don't experience nature at all. You are very unusual Japanese. Everyone thinks Canada is a place of clean air and water, and boundless wilderness. But today, 16,000 people die every year because of air pollution. Many of my friends when I was growing up, had asthma. And in my hometown of beautiful Vancouver, we had to stop fishing in front of my house because the flounders that we were catching were full of cancerous tumors. Where I live now, the whole West Coast of British Columbia in Canada depends on the great salmon runs of the Pacific. Our economy and the livelihood of villages throughout the entire province, depend on these fish. But we are over fishing so heavily that the salmon are not coming back. And the whole province is suffering. You and I share this ocean, the Pacific Ocean. I know that fish provides almost half of the protein for Japanese people. We all share this problem. So, ON THIS ISSUE, it's clear how we are all connected, we all depend on each other, we are affected by each other. And how is it right for any ONE nation, or any ONE group of people, to abuse a resource that affects us all? You who live in a community here in Aso know that everybody affects the community. Every individual affects the rest of the group. And it seems that most industrialize nations are ignoring the fact that we are part of a global community. Many big environmental problems are very scary to think about. These are huge issues that face our species. It's very difficult to realize that we all affect these global issues whether we are aware or not. But this awareness doesn't have to be a negative in your life. In fact, this is the whole point of being part of the change − there is an alternative to getting depressed or simply ignoring the facts, global facts. By becoming part of a positive change, we can change this awareness into an empowering experience. It is an amazing thing to feel that you can make a contribution to the world. And this has been my experience. Learning about social and environmental problems and trying to be part of the positive change, has led to some of the most amazing experiences in my life. And it's led to me being here speaking to you tonight. <MUSIC BRAEK> If aliens were to come here from outer space, they would surely recognize a dominant species that was rapidly using up all their resources. These humans are eating up their own resources as fast as they can. But human beings have been here for thousands of years. How come this is happening all of a sudden? Not too long ago, we all lived closer to the land, we all worked with the land and we could listen to the cycles of life and death, we would listen to the animals, we would listen to the wind, we would listen to the rain. And we knew how to work the land so that it would sustain us for generations. And you here, who work with the land, here in Aso, you know this very well. You don't even think about it, you just know it. But somehow, as technology and production have grown, most people have removed ourselves from the dirt and from the rain, and from the indicators, from the science, from the guides that teach us how to treat our land and our ecosystems. And today, the effects of our short sightedness are obvious. People are forgetting that our environment keeps us alive. For some of you living in Aso, this is so obvious. It is obvious! There is nothing that we eat or drink that it wasn't once alive. Without nature we wouldn't be here. But many people, who live only surrounded by concrete and glass, are forgetting this! As this new century begins, my generation is becoming more and more disconnected from the Earth. We buy our drinking water in bottles. We eat genetically modified organisms. We drive the biggest cars ever. I think it's a very scary thing to think that we might be the last generation to have a strong relationship with nature as it always has been. Young people are increasingly staying inside from the outdoors. Kids don't play in the backyard so much. Many kids don't even have a backyard! It seems that the society thinks that we can live without nature. And at the same time. I know that depression and hopelessness are growing characteristics of my generation. Is there a connection? What you have here, living here in Aso-Kuju park, sharing in community and farming sustainably together, is so much more than most people living in a city will ever experience. Even standing here tonight, I feel being with you here something very strong. Separation from nature and from community is part of why humans are living so unsustainably, part of why we are just gobbling up our resources without thinking of the future. I think this is one of the factors for depression and even suicide. Something is wrong with our values. We have to start re-thinking our values. We have to start deciding what is really important to us. What do we want for OUR future? Imagine if you didn't have the environment that surrounds Aso. Or you didn't have the community. It's almost impossible to imagine, no? But many people don't have this. Indigenous people say, "In the land there is dignity." People have existed on their connection to the land. You here know this. We mustn't forget this. Since going to the Rio Earth Summit ten years ago, I have been to many meetings, I have gone to many conferences, and my conclusion after ten years of going to these conferences is that the change is NOT going to happen from our political leaders. WE have to know our environment; WE have to know about our environment, we have to learn about our environment, and recognize how WE affect our environment, and then decide that WE must treat it with respect. Now, how can we BE PART OF THIS SHIFT, THIS CHANGE? Two simple things that I am telling people on this tour of Japan is: One; get outside into nature. Two; learn where your food comes from. I tell them that we have to learn from nature. Get outside! GO for a walk in the park! Go camping! Come to a place like this! Or, at very least, plant a seed on your windowsill! It is so important that we maintain a sense of what Nature is. Otherwise, how can we know that it's important? Then I say that FOOD is where your environment becomes part of you! This is one place to start connecting to your environment! Ask where your food comes from. How was it grown? Where was it grown? Because, people who are disconnected, most people who live in the cities, don't think about these things, they don't even realize that we are food comes from the earth. But these are the two things that you here in Aso already do! You live closer to the land. You grow your own food! The Japanese and Canadian people in cities could learn from you here. And so, I really hope that you here appreciate what it is that you have. Here's one of the last places where Japanese people can live close to the land. I would like to see Japanese children from the cities come out here to your farms and get their hands in the dirt. In the face of challenges, there is dignity in the land. There is support in the community. Be proud of your heritage, and your community. There is pride in living off the land, pride in the connection with EAETH. Because it is something that most people in Japan and even most people in Canada simply don't have. So, thank you very much tonight. It's been an honor for me to be here.

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