General Manager of the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature, Mariam Al-Jaajaa, participated as a speaker on behalf of the People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS). She spoke during a side webinar entitled "Recovery or Transformation? Addressing challenges to peoples' rights, climate justice, and sustainable development" at the invitation of several organizations in the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), which is based in New York City (July 9, 2021).
Al-Jajaa introduced the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature and the People's Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS) and spoke about what is known as a circular economy. She explained that it is a system that does not leave behind any waste in the environment and employs it in the production process by reusing it and benefiting from it. She pointed out both the pros and cons of this system.
She explained that a circular economy and many other modern approaches do not produce fair production systems since they promote the concentration of profit in the hands of limited companies. They do not consider human rights and the right of people to control their resources, pointing out that the owners of circular economies focus on the effectiveness of the use of resources and the increase in profit according to the capitalist system.
She discussed the topic of sustainable production and consumption, which is crucial to human rights. She also spoke about the role of global civil society and its efforts in promoting fair production systems. She gave the example of the Million Tree Program of the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature in Palestine as a model for this.