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EDITORIAL: One man,
one nation, one world
It¡¦s time once again to get out the brooms, rakes, dustpans, rubber gloves,
hipwaders and trash bags and hit the streets, beaches, parks, hiking trails and
train stations ¡X today is the 10th annual ¡§Clean Up the World¡¨ day in Taiwan and
the 19th worldwide.
Held annually on the third weekend in September, the campaign was the brainchild
of Australian yachtsman Ian Kiernan, who was so appalled by the amount of trash
he saw littering the oceans on a round-the-world voyage in 1987 that he founded
a ¡§Clean Up Australia¡¨ program after returning home.
With the help of friends, he organized a ¡§Clean Up Sydney Harbour Day¡¨ in 1989
that attracted 40,000 people. The next year they took the idea national and
about 300,000 volunteers showed up to help clean and fix up towns, cities and
rivers across Australia. In 1993, the event went global under the auspices of
the UN Environment Programme, and the ¡§Clean Up the World¡¨ Web site estimates
that more than 35 million people now participate each year in more than 130
nations. It has become one of the biggest community-based environmental
campaigns on the planet, even though its headquarters remain in Sydney.
Taiwan¡¦s participation has come through the efforts of the Good Neighbor
Foundation, an NGO established in September 1999 with funding from President
Chain Store Co. The company continues to play a prominent role, with its
7-Eleven stores nationwide serving as registration points for ¡§Clean Up the
World¡¨ activities. And that is in part what is so great about the ¡§Clean Up the
World¡¨ activities ¡X they bring together individuals, community groups and
schools, as well as private businesses and governments, to work toward improving
the local environment.
The Good Neighbor Foundation has set its sights this weekend on cleaning up 18
major train stations, as well as local parks, mountain sites and other
recreational areas such as beaches. Foundation officials are hoping more than
30,000 people will turn out for today¡¦s efforts, building on the 300,000 who
have worked over the past decade.
It¡¦s important to remember that no matter where you live or how long you have
lived there, you can help save the environment. ¡§Clean Up the World¡¨ stresses
thinking globally, while acting locally, and many expatriates and travelers the
world over have pitched in to help wherever they might be.
In Taiwan, the Australian Commerce and Industry Office got a jumpstart on this
year¡¦s efforts by returning for another year to the Guandu Nature Park yesterday
to help park volunteers clean algae out of one of the park¡¦s freshwater ponds,
while the Taipei European School and the European Chamber of Commerce Taipei
have teamed up with the Society of Wilderness for a beach clean-up next Saturday
morning at the Linshanbi Recreation Area in New Taipei City (·s¥_¥«).
As those groups demonstrate, there is no need to be calendar-centric about
clean-up efforts. They can be done anytime, anywhere, and indeed many of the
activities supported by the annual global weekend are local projects, such as
tree planting, recycling efforts, energy and water conservation and others
conducted throughout the year.
The theme of this year¡¦s global clean-up is ¡§Our Place. Our Planet. Our
Responsibility,¡¨ shining a spotlight on people as agents of change.
Pondering the amount of pollution sullying this planet and the effort needed to
clean it up and repair the damage can sometimes make it look like Hercules got
off easily just having to clean out the Augean stables. However, you don¡¦t have
to be a superhero or even a Greek one to help out.
Every single person can make a contribution to cleaning up cities, forests,
rivers and oceans, and help make the world a healthier place for every living
thing. Just look at what one committed Australian, Ian Kiernan, has achieved.
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