The BBC Reith Lectures 2000

Respect for the Earth

The Contributors

In a change to tradition, the 2000 BBC Lectures had one theme - sustainable development - but were delivered by five different thinkers, each eminent in a different field. At the end of the run, the Prince of Wales presented his own views on the topic in a round table discussion with all five lecturers.

Chris Patten is now Commissioner for External Relations for the European Union. He was UK Minister for Overseas Development, and the last Governor of Hong Kong. When he was Secretary of State for the Environment he was responsible for the UK's first White Paper on sustainable development, Our Common Inheritance (1990). He is the author of East and West (Macmillan, 1998)

Dr Tom Lovejoy is Chief Biodiversity Advisor for the World Bank and Counsellor at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington. He specialises in the environmental biology of the tropics and Latin America. He co-edited Global Warming And Biological Diversity (Yale University Press, 1992). Championing biodiversity in all areas, he was also a founder of the American public television series, Nature.

Sir John Browne is Chief Executive Officer of BP Amoco, which is Britain's largest company and the third largest oil corporation in the world. He read Physics at St John's College, Cambridge, and graduated from Stanford Business School. Sir John is a non-executive director of some other companies, including SmithKline Beecham and Intel.

Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland is Director General of the World Health Organisation. She started her career as a doctor, specialising in child-care and public health. She was Minister of the Environment and Prime Minister of Norway. In her report to the World Commission on Environment and Development (which led to the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992) she baldly stated that if we do not change our ways, we risk our own extinction. She has done much to increase global ecological awareness.

Dr Vandana Shiva is Founder Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology in New Delhi. She trained as a physicist and advises a number of governments on global issues. She is an active leading member of many NGOs; the author of Biopiracy (1997); and founder of Navdanya, an Indian national movement to promote the diversity and use native seeds.

The Prince of Wales has been airing his concerns about environmental matters for many years (long before ecological awareness became mainstream). He actively supports sustainable development in his speeches; in his support for various 'green' organisations; and in his own commitment to organic farming at Highgrove