MANY HEAVENS, ONE EARTH : FAITH COMMITMENTS FOR A LIVING PLANET

Faith leaders from around the world have met at Windsor at an event hosted by HRH The Prince Philip and attended by the Secretary General of the United Nations, His Excellency Mr Ban Ki-moon.

The Long Term Faith Commitments to Protect the Living Planet launched at Windsor are perhaps the most powerful visible signs of the faiths taking up the challenge of protecting the natural environment. This is worth celebrating.

Faith leaders from around the world met at Windsor Castle at an event hosted by HRH The Prince Philip and attended by the Secretary General of the United Nations, His Excellency Mr Ban Ki-moon. One of the many delegates was our own Archbishop Seraphim Kykkotis, (Christian: Archbishop of Johannesburg and Pretoria of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa)

To date there have been 31 long-term commitments by the faiths to protect the living planet. They were launched on November 3rd at Windsor Castle's ARC-UNDP Celebration. Read the summaries of the plans in our special event booklet here. The plans can be found in the second half of the book. In the first half is a guide to how to write your own Long Term Action Plan.

The Windsor Celebration is the launch of the ARC-UNDP inspired Faith Commitments for the Environment programme, in which faiths are assisted in creating long term plans that will protect the planet for generations. This programme was initially titled the Seven Year Plan Programme, to acknowledge the time that would be needed ARC has worked with different faith traditions to create a framework, through which they look at seven key areas where they might have extraordinary outreach in protecting the natural environment. These include: their assets, their educational outreach, their spiritual wisdom and insights into tackling crisis, their traditions of simple living, their advocacy, their networks and partnerships, and perhaps most important, their understanding of celebration.

More general details about the programme can be found on the ARC website www.arcworld.org where the full plans will be downloadable from mid November.