JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Thabo Ntisana has been responsible for the destruction of thousands of acres of vegetation across South Africa. Armed with chain saws, machetes and herbicides, his legions of workers have chopped down eucalyptus trees, tugged water hyacinths out of ponds and poisoned castor oil plants.
When more than 100 world leaders gather this week in Johannesburg for the largest-ever international meeting to save the planet, Ntisana wants to teach their countries to do the same.
Ntisana works for an innovative program to rid South Africa of invasive, water-guzzling foreign plants that siphon off an estimated 7 percent of the country's limited water supply, destroy rivers, reduce farmland and lead to the extinction of indigenous plants and animals. The government program employs more than 20,000 people nationwide, combating poverty in a country where one-third of the population is out of work.
"We are making a difference in people's lives, and in the bigger picture we are making a difference to the environment," says Ntisana, a regional director of the Working for Water program.
Simply put, that is the theme of the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development, a 10-day conference that seeks to save the planet from environmental destruction and lift billions of people out of hopeless poverty.
It's a tall order. Even before the meeting begins, there are plenty of doubts whether, in a week and a half, world leaders can agree on such ambitious goals as halving world poverty by 2015, reducing car emissions and combating AIDS.
Organizers say they expect more than 40,000 people to come to Johannesburg for the summit, the largest international event the country has been host to since the end of apartheid in 1994. Visitors include British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Col. Muammar el Kadafi of Libya, as well as 101 other world leaders, thousands of delegates, thousands more environmental activists from across the globe, a fair share of rowdy protesters and a gaggle of journalists.
Noticeably absent will be President Bush, who has chosen to skip the summit, drawing criticism from environmental groups and summit leaders that the United States lacks the commitment to tackle these global problems.
Even without the leader of the world's richest nation, the summit will go on, organizers say. And if the outcome of the event is unknown, one thing is certain: People will talk. Delegates will debate ideas as lofty as saving the fish in the sea and as tedious as the placement of a comma or semicolon in an agreement. There will be discussions on organic farming, threats to coral reefs and the 1.2 billion people who live on less than a dollar a day.
Dubbed "Rio+10" or "Earth Summit II," the conference will build on the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, a groundbreaking meeting that forged agreements to protect the atmosphere, preserve endangered species and respect biodiversity.
As much as the meeting awakened the world to the ailing state of the Earth, however, it has done little to change the destructive habits of the world.
An environmental report released this month by the United Nations traces some disturbing trends:
At present, 40 percent of the world's population faces water shortages. Global sea levels are rising, evidence of the impact of global warming.
Many plant and animal species are at risk of extinction, including half of the large primates.
2.4 percent of the world's forests were destroyed during the 1990s.
Every year, more than 3 million people die from the effects of air pollution.
Organizers of the Johannesburg summit want world leaders to reverse those trends by committing to action plans.
"The Rio summit was focused very much on trying to change the way people talk about development. In Johannesburg, the focus will be trying to change the way people act," Nitin Desai, secretary-general of the summit, said during one of several news conferences yesterday in Johannesberg.
"This really is an historic opportunity and one that must be seized by the government leaders," Christopher Flavin, president of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute, said during one of the news conferences.
But getting the world to agree to timetables, target dates and solid goals will be difficult.
There has never been an environmental conference so complicated and far-reaching as this one. The conference theme is "sustainable development" - development that can meet the needs of people now and in future generations. The 71-page discussion document that delegates will haggle over starting today focuses on five main areas: water and sanitation, energy, agricultural productivity, biodiversity and human health.
Delegates have failed to hammer out their differences on these issues during four meetings in recent months. They remain divided over specific targets, farm subsidies and aid to poor countries.
Some critics grumble that the stalemate will continue during this summit. Some fear it will deteriorate into an international talkshop and nothing more.
But that might not be such a disaster, some analysts say.
"What really produces action is getting folks to talk about these issues to come up with solutions and new ways of thinking," said David G. Victor, director of the Program on Energy and Sustainable Development at Stanford University.
And finding those solutions can take time.
"These issues are so broad. They are really difficult to solve. They involve the restructuring of the whole world," he said.
Much of the tension during the summit, analysts say, will stem from the gap between rich and poor nations, with the rich consuming the lion's share of the natural resources and producing the bulk of the world's pollution in a way that endangers the future for all nations.
"The divide between the rich and poor has been growing both at the global level and in many cases at a national level, putting into play very destructive forces in terms of ecological decline and also the cohesiveness of global society," Flavin said.
No nation better illustrates those economic tensions than the host country of South Africa. Within sight of the glittering summit venue in the upscale suburb of Sandton is Alexandra, a sprawling, dusty black township of tin shacks, joblessness and despair.
The United States and the European Union have also been at odds with the developing world over trade barriers and aid. Poor nations want wealthy nations to open up their markets by reducing farm subsidies and to increase development aid and forgive debt to help pull their people out of poverty.
But the United States and Europe don't want to sign on to any changes that would affect their economies or disrupt trade policies. The West is also reluctant to be generous with aid unless there are guarantees that the countries that receive it practice good governance.
Summit leaders hoped Bush would attend the meeting to discuss those issues. Bush chose to stay home, busy with Iraq, the war on terrorism and the economy. In Bush's place, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will lead the U.S. delegation. Powell will be present for the final two days of the summit before making stops in Angola and Gabon.
Bush's absence was noted yesterday as presummit talks got under way. Jan Pronk, U.N. special envoy to the summit, said during one of the news conferences that Bush's absence "is a bad sign. I regret it. We have done a lot to push to invite him."
Conservative groups in the United States, however, have praised Bush's decision to stay home.
"Even more than the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, the Johannesburg Summit will provide a global media stage for many of the most irresponsible and destructive elements involved in critical international economic and environmental issues," Fred L. Smith Jr., president of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington, wrote in a letter to Bush signed by 30 other conservative activists.
As summit organizers prepared yesterday for the first day of talks, they refused to acknowledge defeat.
On the summit's final day, promised Desai, "we will be able to say how many people will directly benefit from our actions."