Sowing Green seeds in the Asia-Pacific region
By Mike Feinstein
Green Party of California

The breadth and depth of the Global Green movement was on display Feb. 11-13 in Kyoto, Japan, as the Asia-Pacific Green Network (APGN) formally organized into an ongoing network of Greens, from Pakistan to the Pacific, and from Mongolia to the Tasmanian Sea.

Just days before the effective start date of the Kyoto Protocol Treaty on Climate Change, more than 100 Greens gathered from 23 Asian and Pacific nations, along with 300 from Japan, and observers from Europe and the Americas.

This historic meeting united representatives from established Green Parties, as well as Green political groups that are not yet fully fledged political parties but are involved in electoral politics on some level, or plan to be.

The primary aim of Kyoto in 2005 was to formalize the APGN, with its primary functions to facilitate information exchange and networking; cooperate politically towards implementation of the Global Green Charter; and participate in the Global Greens.

The opening ceremony took place at the Kyoto International Community House and featured a spellbinding musical performance by Japanese singer and environmentalist Yae.

Asia-Pacific Green Network meeting attendees gather after the close of the meeting for a group picture in Kyoto's rail station. Photo by Yenwen Peng / Taiwan

Kiyoshi Matsuya, co-spokesperson of the Rainbow and Greens Japan and MP in the Shizuoka Prefecture, delivered the opening address. Since the 2001 Global Greens meeting in Australia, he noted, the world has been disrupted by 9/11, the tsunami-and U.S. unilateralism.

"The challenge for the Asia-Pacific Greens Network," Matsuya suggested, "is to unify the disrupted world and promote further global cooperation. The APGN can contribute to the future of the earth with activities based on peace and sustainability."

Twenty-seven Green parties and organizations from 23 countries were ultimately accepted as provisional APGN members, with a formal membership panel established to help determine ongoing membership later in the year.

The APGN also elected its three representatives to the 12-member Global Green Coordination, which it is entitled to do as one of four Green networks/federations on the globe. The positions were filled using a variant of Australia's Optional Preferential Voting system, with each country casting three votes instead of just one. This was because many Asia-Pacific countries do not have a formal Green Party and were represented in Kyoto by more than one Green movement group. Having three votes allowed each country to divide up their votes internally. Margaret Blakers (Australia), Satoko Watanabe (Japan), and Solomone Fifita (Tonga, working in Samoa) were elected.

In an unplanned but welcome occurrence, the Asia-Pacific Young Greens Network was also launched during the weekend and was recognized immediately by the APGN.

The weekend featured a series of workshops on social justice, democracy and the environment. Delegates passed resolutions on climate change and renewable energy, peace and security, minority rights and participatory democracy, indigenous peoples' rights and culture, and decreasing waste.

They also supported resolutions on freeing kidnapped Colombian Greens' presidential candidate, Ingrid Betancourt and her colleague Clara Rojas; supporting a World Heritage Site for areas of New Caledonia; saving Tasmania's old-growth forests from destruction for paper mills in Japan; and dismantling Chinese missiles aimed at Taiwan.

Japanese Greens held a major summit meeting of their own, deciding to form a formal national Green network called Greens Japan to prepare for starting a national Green party. Currently on the local level, between the two major Japanese Green electoral movements, the Rainbow and Greens Japan has 120 councilors and Kanagawa Network Movement has 34.

Sri Lanka Greens march in support of the Kyoto Protocol treaty at the Asia-Pacific Green Network meeting. Photo by Satoko Watanabe / Japan

The APGN meeting highlighted the growth of the global Green movement. Back in 1989, Green Parties were organized almost exclusively in Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and a few countries in the Americas. Since then, Green parties have spread across the globe, appearing today in approximately 90 countries. In the Asia-Pacific region, Green growth has been most prevalent over the last five to eight years, leading to the founding of the APGN in 2000 and its formalizing in 2005.

As the fourth major Green organization across the planet, the APGN follows the creation of the European Coordination of Green Parties (1984, Liege, Belgium), which became the European Federation of Green Parties (1993, Majvik, Finland) and then the European Green Party (2004, Rome); the Federation of the Green Parties of the Americas (1997, Isla Behla, Brazil); and the African Green Federation (1998, Nairobi). Of the four, only the APGN explicitly provides full membership for both Green political parties and Green political movements that are not yet full political parties.

The APGN meeting was held just before the Feb. 16 effective start date of the Kyoto Protocol, but it was not planned that way. The Kyoto Protocol was first negotiated in 1998, but could not go into effect until at least 62 nations signed it. This only occurred when Russia announced on Nov. 17, 2004 that it would finally sign the landmark environmental treaty, thus starting the automatic 90-day countdown to the effective start date. APGN Organizing Committee Co-Chair Watanabe observed, "This was a positive sign for the Greens and the planet. The Green Goddess is smiling upon us."

Mike Feinstein is advisor to the International Committee of the GP-US.

For full coverage of the APGN conference, visit www.globalgreens.info/history/2005_APGN_Kyoto.html.

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