Year
2024
International Environment Forum 28th General Assembly
5 October 2024
The 28th General Assembly of the International Environment Forum was held over the Internet on the Zoom platform on 5 October 2024.
The meeting was held twice to accommodate members and associates from different time zones.
Participants at the first meeting: IEF members Arthur Dahl (Switzerland), Ron Mitchell (Australia), Todd Chirko (China), Monica Maghami (United Kingdom), Wendi Momen (United Kingdom), and Michael Semple (Switzerland), and guest Ferdows Mitchell (Australia).
Participants at the second meeting: IEF members Khela Baskett (USA), Diana Cartwright (Canada), Carol Curtis (USA), Arthur Dahl (Switzerland), Mark Griffin (USA), Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen (Netherlands), Laurent Mesbah (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Rebecca Teclemariam-Mesbah (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Christine Muller (USA), J. Thomas Pawlowski (USA), Victoria Thoresen (Norway), and IEF associate Erasmus Vinkhuyzen (Netherlands), and guest Carlotta Garcia (USA)
Altogether, there were 19 participants from 8 countries with IEF President Arthur Dahl attending and chairing both meetings.
1. Opening of the General Assembly by the IEF President
The IEF President, Arthur Dahl, opened the General Assembly and welcomed the participants to the IEF 28th General Assembly.
2. Introduction of members present
All members introduced themselves.
3. Approval of the agenda
The agenda was approved as presented.
4. Results of the election of the Governing Board
Members voted by email on 23 September to 3 October. This year, the IEF had three tellers: Michael Richards, Carmel Momen, and Diana Cartwright.
Carmel Momen presented the tellers’ report at the first session, and Diana Cartwright at the second. The tellers’ report was approved by IEF members at both meetings.
25 ballots were cast, and 2 ballots were spoiled unfortunately, as not all names were IEF members. 54 people received 1 or more votes.
The Governing Board for the coming year consists of Arthur Dahl (Switzerland), Christine Muller (USA), Sylvia Karlsson-Vinkhuyzen (Netherlands), Wendi Momen (UK), Victoria Thoresen (Norway), HalldĂłr Thorgeirsson (Iceland), and Laurent Mesbah (Bosnia and Herzegovina), the same as last year.
5. Presentation of the Annual Report
IEF President Arthur Dahl presented the main points of the IEF Annual Report 2023-2024 with slides, and the Report was approved by the members in both meetings. The full Annual Report was already shared with all the members and is available here, and the slides can be accessed here.
6. Consultation
Here is a brief summary of the consultation in the two meetings. We thank Monica Maghami for hosting the Zoom and for taking notes of the first meeting.
First meeting
Reflection on annual conference from 14-28th September aimed to focus on how to translate key outcomes into reality:
• There are more Baha’is arising in their professions, coming to those spaces and reaching higher aims of public discourse.
• There have been youth in the IEF, contributing on the local level and sharing their common paths.
How can IEF generate more interactions?
• through more LinkedIn posts, with interactive paragraphs asking questions to be answered by the public/audience
• As the National Spiritual Assembly of the USA pointed to the IEF as a resource in its letter to the community encouraging participation in Faith Climate Action Week, the suggestion was that the same letter is sent to Wendi Momen, to be sent to the NSA of the UK, in case they would like to produce a similar letter.
• International spaces can be expanded: SotF was very powerful, however IEF did not have budget or accreditation to attend it. The Biodiversity Convention is the only convention forum that accepts IEF and is open to values including Indigenous worldviews. IEF is considered part of the Science and Technology Major Group from the UN.
A few requests were made for the IEF Board’s consideration:
• that IEF supports by co-sponsoring both events:
- Beijing +30, booked on October 19-22 in 2024 (support is required as soon as possible, Monica Maghami is attending it) and
- CSW69 in March 2025 (Wendi Momen is attending it).
• To involve more membership participation, Working Groups could be formed with themes such as:
- youth,
- technology, and
- women and girls.
• Open further involvement for those members that wish to collaborate in these shared spaces:
- MEGA
- Nature Positive Forum
- G20 Interfaith Forum
• A podcast can be created to renew learning and integrate the younger audience. Monica Maghami has volunteered to look into this. Wendi Momen has suggested that Monica consults with Rob Weinberg due to his experience in the matter. The idea would be to build upon the existing knowledge from the IEF board members, and other protagonists worldwide, due to their experience in the theme of environment and its interconnectedness with the intellectual and spiritual dimensions.
Second meeting
Victoria Thoresen opened the consultation by emphasizing the importance of strengthening youth participation in the IEF. Khela Baskett shared how deeply impressed she was by the quality and the enthusiasm the young people showed during the first event of the IEF conference which was a conversation with youth. Rebecca Teclemariam-Mesbah also commented about the depth of the session and the hopeful attitudes conveyed by the youth.
Khela Baskett suggested strengthening IEF’s mentorship program for youth and to have more youth-oriented webinars. Christine Muller pointed to the importance of keeping the youth involved by personally inviting them to future events and by giving them further opportunities as active participants in conversations. Erasmus Vinkhuyzen shared that young people tend to watch short videos and are more on Instagram and less on Facebook. The idea of a social media task force was also raised. Carol Curtis emphasized the importance of including the environment in children’s classes, junior youth programs and Ruhi classes, be it with additional materials or in conversations and activities. We should reach out to animators to share with them ideas about environmental service projects.
There was a suggestion to create an IEF YouTube Channel which pointed to the need to make the IEF YouTube Channel more visible to the members so that they can use it and share the many videos that are already available.
Diana Cartwright shared her concern about the difficulty of bringing new members on the IEF Board because we don’t personally know most IEF members. She suggested exploring ways to improve the system. Khela Baskett responded that her motivation for the webinars was to bring members together and that she designs the format of the webinars in a way that promotes social engagement. She encouraged everyone to attend the webinars. Khela also mentioned that this and last year she organized an event for the IEF conference that enabled and encouraged participation by all attendees. This year provided the opportunity for a multi-generational conversation. Thomas Pawlowski suggested using another term than webinar for interactive events.
In this context, Arthur Dahl talked about possibly having an in-person IEF conference again so that members can get to know each other on a more personal level. Thomas Pawlowski informed that the next ABS conference will take place in Calgary, Canada, and that this may be an option to consider. A response in the chat agreed with the suggestion as long as IEF activities would not take place at the same time as ABS sessions.
Carol Curtis informed about the availability of very informative and educational videos produced by the United Nations in connection with the Summit of the Future. She was then invited to write about such resources for the IEF newsletter.
Carol also pointed out that the concepts underlying Huqúqu’lláh - what are our needs and our desires - are relevant to everyone on the planet and help us understand each individual’s impact and responsibility.
Addressing the problem that many people don’t know about the Summit of the Future, the Pact for the Future, and even the Sustainable Development Goals, Victoria Thoresen said that, in a conversation about these UN efforts and goals, we need to emphasize that these are not “new things” but part of a long and ongoing process.
Thomas Pawlowski shared the idea of asking webinar speakers to create a 2-3 min. video about their topic for those who don’t want to attend a longer webinar and also to enable the wider dissemination of their ideas.
After 90 minutes of lively conversation, Arthur Dahl closed the meeting by thanking all participants.