Rev Paul:

THE Inter-Religious Organisation (IRO) intends to put the issue of sexual predators at the top of its agenda, according to IRO president Rev Cyril Paul at the organisation’s annual general meeting (AGM) last Wednesday at the Bahai Centre on Petra Street, Woodbrook.

Paul said the IRO, “condemned all sexual attacks” especially on children and young people and described the issue as one that is “complex and complicated” and needs to be carefully studied.

He said the IRO plans to organise workshops and seminars with experts on the issue. Paul also identified the Ministry of National Security’s recent 555 anti-crime initiative as another topic high on the IRO’s agenda.

He said the ministry requested the IRO’s endorsement for the initiative and he planned to meet with National Security Minister Martin Joseph for further discussions in the near future.

In her feature address at the AGM, Cropper Foundation president Senator Angela Cropper said, “To commit a crime against the natural world is a sin; for humans to cause species to become extinct and to destroy the biological diversity of God’s creation — these are sins.”

The theme of the AGM was “Development and the Environment.”

Cropper cited findings on the status of natural systems and their services, drawn from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, as she observed that half of the world’s forests and one-third of the world’s mangroves have disappeared, 75 percent of the world’s fisheries are being overused with 90 percent of large predator fish being fished out, 20 percent of coral reefs are dead and another 20 percent dying, in addition to the constant increase in chemicals in our food, bodies, air, land, rivers and oceans.

She noted that mankind has affected the ozone layer with potentially debilitating consequences for human health and for other living species without realising it, and has caused major disruptions in the normal workings of the world’s climate system with ignorant actions.

Cropper said in the last 50 years “we have doubled the amount of freshwater we use,” causing a compelling concern of “water scarcity” in the future.

Cropper described these environmental problems as “signs of the times” and noted it would not be an “exaggeration” to say that “we have a crisis in our hands.” “A crisis in God’s creation, at the hands of God’s children,” she said.

Cropper, a member of the Leadership Council of the Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, updated the IRO on the move of several faith-based communities worldwide in relation to the environment.

She highlighted a series of conferences on “Religions of the World and Ecology” from 1996 to 1998, which examined the relevant traditions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, Daoism, Confucianism, Shinto and indigenous religions of the United States.