Hakuna Matata or the indifference towards environmental degradation | Emiliano Iturriaga | TEDxTecdeMtyCCM

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Emiliano's work as a volunteer has led him places where he has seen the problems affecting the different areas. The idea that development has always been at odds with sustainability, that we constantly have to choose between profit and fair trade or that political popularity cannot go hand in hand with social responsibility. Despite his age, Emiliano shows us the solution to living in a world where we can enjoy sustainable development in three steps: forget Hakuna Matata, accept we have a problem and lastly, start to act and implement public policies that do not threaten the identity of certain regions or offer the only solution of a consumerist model which has proved ineffective.

So we were walking
through the rain-forest

in a humid, suffocating heat,

and ticks the size of marbles
were climbing up my socks.

We were looking for
the remains of an elephant

that had been
illegally hunted for its ivory

and some hours after, we were trekking

through one of the last remaining
tropical rain-forests in Kenya.

En route, I saw the cash crops

encroaching on the ecosystem,

I saw soldiers taking women away
who were smuggling firewood

to make charcoal and sell it
in the city of Mombasa,

and I saw illegal loggers being arrested

next to fallen trees,
hundreds of years old.

One of the loggers
looked at my worried face

and said, "Hakuna Matata".

Yes, like The Lion King,

a phrase in Swahili
that means something like,

don't worry, it'll be fine.

But I was worried

for the future of this rain-forest
and all the others

and for the people that depend on them

Three years ago,

I found a way to travel around
for long periods of time

without needing many resources:

being a volunteer - working
in exchange for lodging and food

and traveling light, with my backpack.

The year before last, I returned
from a caravan in East Africa

where I stayed for almost 5 months,
traveling around and living

in dozens of little villages,

with the widest variety of realities,

contexts and stories you could imagine

and that's how I lived
for almost 2 months

with a family in a tiny village
on the Kenyan coast

where everything we ate
came from the garden

and all of the waste
went back into the crops

because it was organic

and the houses were made
of mud and straw,

local materials.

I also experienced
the complete contrast

in a village in the foothills
of the Mount Kenya volcano

where its entire forest

had been reduced to a little plot
of natural resources

and still it is given over

to giant tea plantations.

And this is because
a little over half a century ago

missionaries arrived with this plant

and convinced the locals

that God was not in their forest
but was in heaven.

And in fact, when I was in that area,

people were selling all their tea

to only one processing plant,
who paid them a pittance

which they used to buy processed,
imported, low-quality food

which was not only damaging their health

but was also polluting
and contaminating their land.

It was like there you could
also hear that "Hakuna Matata",

coming from the processing plants
and the food stores.

During these stays,
I realised something obvious.

There are two types of communities.

There are those which are isolated

that have no road, phones or television.

Those which live like they have done
for generations

those which are self-sufficient,
independent

and are governed
by their own cultural rules and laws.

On the other hand, there are those
which are becoming globalized.

Those which already have roads,
they receive imported goods

they have electricity.

So, they have to pay fees,

pay taxes, buy their food.

They are forced to generate money

and so in some way, are dependent.

I tried to find a middle ground
between these two extremes

but in every case

it seemed that development
was completely at odds

with sustainability.

So when I went back to Mexico,

where I had left thinking
that I would return

with all of the answers
to humanity's problems -

yes, at the age of 19 - I realised

that I'd gone
to the other side of the world

just to understand the context and history

of my own country better.

And here is an area
that I'm passionate about

and that particularly worries me.

The Lacandon jungle.

It forms only 0.4% of our territory

and it's in a corner of Chiapas.

However, it produces a third
of our country's water.

And it's home to 1 out of 5
species in Mexico.

This is a photo
of the Lacandon jungle in 1984.

The red areas were originally jungle

and at that time were pastureland
or cultivation areas.

This is what they're like today.

Over 3/4 of this jungle

has been lost since the 80's.

The current rate of deforestation

is 2000 hectares a year.

So, on average,
around 5 football pitches a day.

There are 3 main reasons for this.

One, the increase in livestock
and cash crops

such as oil palm, which also

leaves hardly anything for local shops.

Two, over-exploitation
of natural resources.

And three, unplanned colonization

and irregular settlements.

At the beginning of this year

after trying for months,
I was finally granted access

to a community of Tzeltal people
who live in the jungle.

When I arrived, I found a group
of houses made from wood,

all with their vegetable patches
in the back patio,

laid out around an impeccable green field

where children
were running around and playing,

wearing their traditional,
colorful clothing.

So after being there a few days

I walked through the jungle
to communal land called Esperanza.

Here, things were different.

Despite being only 4km away,

I arrived at a dirt track.

The people were wearing jeans and T-shirts

with Justin Bieber's face on them.

The shop had soft drinks, crisps,

sliced bread.

There was rubbish in roads,
they were dirty,

the streams had a layer of foam.

In the afternoon, people would

meet up near the shop
to watch soap operas and commercials

which also seemed to tell them
that message of "Hakuna Matata",

keep following this path
and everything will be fine.

There was that same contrast
that had been so evident in Africa,

it's also right here, in Mexico.

I see two patterns that all the villages

have in common
in unsustainable development.

Firstly, a misconception
of what progress actually is.

And secondly, a phenomenon
which some have called

"The Broken Mirror".

Development programs from
the government or other organizations

are often based on
the Western concept of well-being.

They are imposing on these communities

an unsustainable way of life
in the long term,

designed during the industrial revolution

when the world thought
that we had infinite resources

and that to progress you have to consume.

Both in parts of Africa
and parts of Mexico,

political discourse shouts things like,

"We'll build them roads
so they'll be more connected."

"We'll give them concrete and sheeting
so they can build proper houses."

"We'll subsidize the livestock
so they have more money."

It's a speech

which rejects
collective traditional wisdom

and ignores the value of the ecosystem.

On many occasions,

the aim of a speech is to get
immediate supporters

without worrying about
the long-term consequences

of its proposals.

I'd like to explain the second pattern

with a metaphor from Kenyan
Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai.

This broken mirror she talks about

refers to the distorted image

that many cultures have of themselves

when seeing their reflection
in the mirror of Western society.

The media, or sometimes
people themselves

glorify our lifestyle

and reflect them as poor,
primitive, ignorant.

And they take that image as their reality

becoming dependent
and developing an inferiority complex

which makes them extremely vulnerable.

Their lives now follow a path which
makes them long to have cars,

to eat hamburgers,
to live in big, concrete buildings.

What's more,

this is a significant decision.

If a lot of us live like that

they should also be free to choose.

The problem is that
in the vast majority of cases,

they don't have the necessary information
to evaluate these issues.

And on many occasions

they don't even have the chance
to decide which path

they will follow as a community.

Imagine a village which
has just been incorporated

into distribution networks and suddenly
trucks arrive, full of soft drinks

all the walls covered with adverts
and the TV repeating things like,

"This soft drink is happiness"

"This pick-up truck is status, respect".

Who really believes
that there is true freedom in that?

Meanwhile, the trend
in many cities and societies

which have already gone through that,
is focused on local products,

organic food,

and alternative methods of transport,

and they have regained
that sense of community.

Rural development programs

are going in completely
the opposite direction.

They are going towards that point

that we so desperately want to escape.

And who is warning them?

The contrast between
isolated and integrated communities

poses a problem.

To maintain sustainability,

isolated communities
need to stay as they are,

as if they were museum pieces.

Or for them to develop,

is it inevitable
that they'll stop being sustainable?

I don't think so.

Development brings advantages

those related to technology, medicine,

free communication,

but it should be applied
with public policies

and projects which do not impose
a consumerist model

which not only threatens their identity

but, as demonstrated time and time again,

is ineffective.

So as urban people,

what should we do?

Well, firstly

identify this voice which tells us,
"Hakuna Matata" over and over again

and accept that we have a problem

as a society - a big problem.

Then, stop thinking as if we were living

in a fishbowl and take responsibility.

Accept that the environmental problems

in Africa or the Lacandon jungle

are our problems too.

And finally, act.

No, I'm not going to invite you

to the jungle to tie ourselves to trees,

though it's not such a bad idea.

But no, I'm talking about
a different type of action.

I'm talking about breaking this idea

that development

is incompatible with sustainability

and making decisions
in accordance with it.

It doesn't matter if we are or will be

politicians, business people, economists,

designers, architects, engineers...

There are - or will be - moments
when we have to decide

between more profit or fair trade,

political popularity or responsibility,

growth or sustainability.

And I'm telling you
that we should pick both,

we should take the best of both worlds:

higher profits thanks to fair trade,

popularity derived

from true social responsibility

and development which is sustainable

in the long term.

Thank you.

(Applause)