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| ZERO EMISSIONS RESEARCH INITIATIVE (ZERI) |
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Sustainable Development in The South Pacific
Indeed, long before Alexander the Great, and contemporary with Buddha, the Greek philosopher and mathematician, Pythagoras, wrote: "Learn to be silent; let your quiet mind listen, and absorb!' With that, we appeal to you, our readers, to be still and to engage your inner virtues of humility, silence, and curiosity towards deep thinking on the innumerable unsuspected possibilities and opportunities that nature offers to mankind, as this publication will reveal. We are making this appeal since, as the scriptures say the knowledge that we have "shall vanish away; for we know in part" (1 Corinthians 13:8-9). And this has its roots in the education and training delivery modalities that have prevailed all along, which favoured too much fragmentation of knowledge, and its encapsulation into water-tight study disciplines. But under the Integrated Biosystems (IBS) paradigm, which falls within the broad umbrella of the Zero Emissions Research Initiative (ZERI) that was born at the United Nations University (UNU) in Tokyo, special efforts are increasingly being made to conceive knowledge as a continuum. The new thrust is to foster multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research agenda by our national, regional, and global scientists and technologists, when attempting to seek solutions to the many common problems facing humanity. Indeed, as shown in this publication, the Resource Persons, the Workshop participants, and representatives from the donor community comprise specialists from a diverse range of disciplines, working together as a team. That is The Way Forward to sustainable socio economic development. Having been exposed to the IBS/ZERI systems, we have come to realise that this new vision calls for a whole web of intertwined fields of expertise, which, if pooled together in a coordinated manner, will bring about increased efficiency towards total productivity of the various categories of raw materials we are blessed with on our planet Earth. We believe that our readers will find the various ideas contained in this book beneficial. This is particularly so for those who have ears willing to hear, eyes keen to see, and an open, receptive mind. On the latter, we wish to drive home the wise words by Sogyal Rinpoche, who said: "Mind is like a candle flame: unstable, flickering, constantly changing, fanned by the violent winds of our thoughts and emotions. The flame will only burn steadily when we can calm the air around it; so we can only begin to glimpse and rest in the nature of mind when we have stilled the turbulence of our thoughts and emotions." With a still mind, the reader will discover, through this publication, that nature has answers to virtually all problems confronting humanity. By understanding how nature works, we can have dominion over all the biota in our biosphere. That, indeed, was God's intention right from genesis (Genesis 1:26-30). In this book, the reader will be exposed to new ideas on how we, the Homo sapiens sapiens, could direct bacteria, algae, earthworms, mushrooms, fish, and other biota, to generate food, value-added industrial products, potent medicinal substances, and renewable energy for mankind, while also cleaning up the environment. Indeed, we believe that the ideas contained in these Proceedings, when taken seriously, will play a significant role towards alleviating poverty amongst the less fortunate disadvantaged communities in the world. Keto E. Mshigeni and Gunter Pauli |
The scriptures tell us to be still (Psalms 46:10) and to listen. According to Chuang Tzu, "To a mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders." It was within this same framework of thinking that Anne Lindberg stated: "Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone." The artist must be alone to create his images; the writer must be alone to work out his thoughts; the musician must be alone to compose; and the saint must be alone to pray.