Speech by 12-year-old Severn Suzuki at the UN Conference in 1992

In June 1992, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, 12-year-old Severn Suzuki, founder of the children's environmental movement ECO, gave a 6-minute speech that caused confusion many adults present. The young girl spoke about the problems of ecology that concern her, the vector of human development, about greed, violence and cruelty that adults show. She called on the world to come to their senses and embark on the path of helping the poor, on the path of love to preserve nature:

All this is happening before our eyes, and we continue to act as if we have plenty of time and all the solutions are already in place. I'm just a child and I don't have all these solutions, but I want you to realize that you don't have them either!
You don't know how to patch holes in the ozone layer.
You do not know how to return salmon to a dead stream.
You do not know how to resurrect already extinct animals.
And you cannot bring back the forests that once grew where the desert is now.
If you don't know how to fix it, please stop destroying it!

It is easy to see that for 23 years the situation has not only not changed, but has worsened significantly.

Severn continued her path as an ecologist, environmentalist and animal activist. Now she teaches at the university and gives presentations, urging people to pay attention to the imminent disaster.