Saving Our Children: Security and Partnerships for Sustainability (Smiling Futures)

[Remarks and Statements were made in a former capacity.]

Saving Our Children, Our Humanity, and Our Planet (One World)

We should all strive to be goodwill ambassadors and stewards of our children’s futures.

As many distinguished international scholars and security luminaries have amplified in recent months, “the world is a mess.”

We need to work together and actively take responsibility for creating societies that better protect our children, our humanity, and our environment and vital ecosystems and habitats. In short, we must save mankind from today's dangers, from further mass destruction of peace and order, and safeguard against our own maladies and misfortunes and the hijacked agenda of radicalized jihadists and violent criminals who are bent on leading us to our own grave extinction on earth.

A World Unbalanced: Addressing Global Risks, Threats, and Shocks

As I underscored in my recent keynote address at an OECD Regional Dialogue on Risk Management and Combating Illicit Trade in Veracruz, Mexico a few days ago:

Our world is becoming more dangerous than ever, and threats know no boundaries.

In the past few years alone, we have witnessed a host of catastrophic disasters and threats that imperil our humanity and planet alike.

Across a wide spectrum of global risks, we have seen the devastating effects that earthquakes, typhoons, flooding, pandemics such as Ebola, cyber attacks, terrorism, and transnational crime and corruption can have on communities seeking to integrate more fully into the global economy and build more dynamic markets.

Across black markets around the world, a web of thugs and criminals is corroding and corrupting our institutions and penetrating key sectors.

Of equal concern is how illicit trade helps criminal and terrorist organizations finance and expand their own operations, creating an upward spiral of insecurity and instability across the globe.

From places such as Iraq and other hot spots internationally, we are witnessing brutal and barbaric violence, mass atrocities, and mass destruction of peace and order that are testing our humanity.

On other fronts, from the taking away of innocent human life to the slaughtering of endangered species and destruction of rainforests, bad actors and networks are helping to make this world a more dangerous and unstable place.

The human condition is being defiled – from the wanton murders and indifference to human suffering by ISIS and other terrorist groups and drug cartels, to the trafficking of our women and children around the world who are enslaved, sexually abused, tortured, and in some cases, murdered.

Harming our environment also harms humanity.

Endangered wildlife such as rhinos, elephants, tigers, and orangutans are being slaughtered to feed an insatiable demand for these iconic animals.

Excessive exploitation of our national resources, over-harvesting of environmentally-sensitive products such as fisheries and forests, or consumption of endangered wildlife or wildlife products have detrimental consequences to our health, safety, and livelihoods that can impact the long-term potential of eco-revenues and eco-systems.

Environmental security issues have indeed become one of the largest security challenges facing all of us including the harms of rapid development, deforestation, and climate change, coupled with devastating impacts that natural disasters and pandemics will have on the human condition globally.

Moreover, given that we are a global community, consuming the equivalent of one-and-one half times our planet’s existing natural resources – and by 2050 we may be consuming three times more -- at this rate of consumption, our ecological footprint is detrimental and unsustainable.

We have reached a point where we have no choice but to work together.

It is only through partnerships and collective action that we will achieve environmentally sustainable growth and increase societal resilience to global risks, threats, and shocks such as natural disasters, environmental degradation, pandemics such as Ebola, transnational crime, terrorism, corruption and bribery, and illicit trade.

We must harness our own peoples’ knowledge, courage, creativity, and passion by shaping a global environment where they can work side-by-side with governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society to address these issues.

Through innovative public-private partnerships, the private sector and business leaders too must work closely with governments to open up new possibilities by leveraging visionary investments and collective expertise, innovative technologies, resources, and leadership to change the world.

Saving the planet is good business practice too. We must work together to save endangered yet vital ecosystems and habitats that ensure the sustainability of our communities, markets, and biodiversity.

Webs of Criminality and Corruption Fueling Insecurity and Instability

We also must shine the light on radicalism and hate and those who want to further destroy our world and obliterate whole communities, and not work with others to build the foundations of hope for a brighter tomorrow and sustainable futures.

By working together to address global threats and fight terrorism, crime, corruption and illicit trade, we can help people to meet their potential and realize their aspirations for a brighter future: a secured and safe world that fosters a better education, better healthcare, and better access to housing, food and water, and other subsistence needs. In doing so, we counter today’s converging cycle of terror, crime, greed, hate and violence that is spilling over across borders in too many parts of the world.

If we do not work together, we will collectively destroy our chances at creating a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren. We will have failed to seize the opportunities to improve the state of the world and provide an enduring leadership to help people achieve a better world.

Building Resiliency and Public-Private Partnerships for Global Sustainability

We must act now to protect our:

rainforests that are being cut down by bad actors and threat networks for their illicit enterprises or illegal operations of timber (illegal logging), charcoal, or plundering of extractive resources and precious metals and minerals;

rhinos, elephants, gorillas, orangutans, tigers and other endangered wildlife that are being slaughtered to extinction to meet an insatiable demand for their horns, ivory, and other animal parts and products;

fresh water, clean air, and food sources that are being polluted with deadly chemicals and hazardous materials; oceans that are over-fished, and pollutants that are endangering marine life and our national environment and ecosystems;

world and cultural heritage sites that are being destroyed and defaced, their art, cultural property, and antiquities pillaged and looted and sold in black markets;

children - where more and more are being physically abused, recruited as soldiers at a young age, or trafficked and sold as slaves or in the sex trade;

and our humanity where hatred reigns, and brutal and unspeakable violence, atrocities and other barbaric acts of terror are leading to destruction of societies, stunting of sustainable development efforts, leading to the unnecessary suffering of people, and dehumanizing our souls in too many parts of the world where evil reigns over good and children perish along with their dreams and days of innocence.

The Future Belongs to those that build hope and opportunity and not to evil and fanatical Networks of Terror and Criminality that only want to divide us, corrupt our morality, desecrate humanity, and destroy our collective World Cultural and Natural Heritage.

Security and Partnerships for Sustainability are the Heart for Development and Peace

Together, we can work to preserve and protect our planet, our world heritage, our natural environment, our natural wonders, and our most valuable resource on earth -- our children and precious human capital.

We need to end today's spirals of violent conflict and overcome the cesspools of corruption, criminality and terror, and invest the dividends of peace towards more harmonious communities of compassion, understanding, equality, decency and respect for human life and for our humanity.

The future is ours to build together through openness, understanding, and more inclusive voices of hope across rule-of-law based and free societies, frontier markets of integrity and innovation, and entrepreneurial partnerships and philanthropic networks committed to human rights, social impact investments that spur positive and social economic change, advancing the social good for mankind, and the spirit of humanitarianism towards a world community of oneness.

As we stand at the crossroads of insecurity and peace, I am hopeful that when communities unite and act together, we can inspire optimism to shape a better world for our children today and their sustainable futures tomorrow, and help bring our humanity and planet back into balance.

Our journey together is a path of diplomacy and peace to make the world a better place and that inspires and transforms communities to act responsibly to navigate our shared challenges with shared solutions, through concerted and collective energies, and by harnessing a network of networks and innovative partnerships, so that all of our children’s have enduring (and smiling), sustainable futures.

Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations.

We the Peoples of the United Nations Determined:

• to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
• to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
• to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
• to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

David M. Luna is a globally-recognized strategic leader. A disruptive innovator for social good, he is a visionary, thought leader, and a leading voice internationally on the full spectrum application of convergence strategies and net-centric approaches across today's global threat landscapes and markets. Mr. Luna, CEO & President, Luna Global Networks & Convergence Strategies LLC, is the Chair (Departing) of the OECD Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade. He is the former Senior Director for National Security and Diplomacy, Anti-Crime Programs, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL) Affairs, U.S. Department of State. He actively partners with inter-governmental, international organizations, and civil society groups on combating transnational threats and security risks. Follow Luna Global Networks & Convergence Strategies LLC at: https://lunaglobalnetworks.com/ .

Luna Global Networks & Convergence Strategies LLC shares a commitment to social responsibility and ethical governance approaches across diverse communities that have a positive, lasting impact in the world by doing business with the highest level of integrity, promoting sustainable development strategies that benefit our global community, protect our people and planet, and for all future generations. 

(photos: from publicly available sources and searches on open Internet)

[Remarks were made in a former capacity.]

Parts excerpted from David M. Luna Keynote Address, OECD Dialogue on Risk Management and Illicit Markets, Veracruz, Mexico, October 8, 2014:

“Saving Our Children, Our Humanity, and Our Planet: Security and Partnerships for Sustainability and Shutting Down Black Markets and Webs of Criminality and Corruption (Link)”

https://www.state.gov/j/inl/rls/rm/2014/232731.htm