AUSTRALIAN
CONSERVATION FOUNDATION WELCOMES IMAGINE THE FUTURE INC
Peter
Garrett, ACF chairperson and lead-singer in the
Australian rock band Midnight Oil, with ITF's founder,
Merrill
Findlay, at the December 1992 ACF Council Meeting,
the first to be held in the ecoversity. Photo by
Ponch Hawkes, for the ACF.
This
article was first published in The Tabloid:
Winter 1993, ITF.
The Australian
Conservation Foundation is proud to have auspiced
Imagine The Future, says Tricia Caswell,
executive director of the Australian Conservation
Foundation.
"Imagine The Future's integrative
approach to thinking about the future expresses the essence
of what I believe the 1990s are about - despite the rhetoric
we still hear from some of our political and industry
leaders," she said.
"What happens when we don't
integrate environmental, economic and social considerations
into planning for the future was brought home to
us last year when our legendary Murray Darling river
system was invaded by blue green algae, and again
when our city beaches were closed to surfers because
of faecal contamination.
"The willingness of many groups to
consider integrated solutions is epitomised, I believe,
by my organisation's recent alliance with the Australian Council of
Trade Unions (ACTU) to look at ways of creating new
employment opportunities that are more environmentally
benign," Tricia explained.
"This is particularly significant
because it was only a few years ago that trade unionists
and environmentalists were at loggerheads. Now we
are working as partners through our joint ACTU/ACF
Green Jobs Unit, to find creative solutions to the
double crisis of unemployment and environmental
degradation.
"Our alliance with Imagine The Future is already similarly
productive. Rema O'Neill, Imagine The Future's green designer,
is collaborating with us, for example, to explore ways
of making our own building more ecologically and socially
benign as part of her focus on the built environment.
And every day ACF staff enjoy Imagine The Future's ecoversity
facilities," Tricia said.
"Indeed, we can hardly imagine
now what we ever did without them!"
Copyright Imagine
The Future Inc 1993
Page
revised April 2004.
