Tonya Moya

"Everything starts in the mind," says Tonya Moya, an environmental campaigner. For her, this is not just a slogan, but a philosophy.

"By raising awareness, perspectives can change and 'new' values take form," she said in an interview at the GEYC. "No matter what, I will continue to work on the lines of getting people involved, inspired and creative."

The International Green Cross

Tonya Moya was at the Lund meeting as Coordinator for the environmental NGO Green Cross. "We combine inner values with environmental work," she says of the organization, founded by former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in 1993. For her, one can only make real changes happen by first changing people's inner values.

Leading an Empowerment Workshop at the convention, she had the students and teachers from all over the world standing in a circle and doing a "wave" amid laughter and shouts. After that we held each others hands in silence to feel the community among us. I really felt that with all that joy and energy we had from doing the wave, we could make a difference back in our own countries.

"My message there was that every person can make a change and if there is a will there is a way," says Tonya. "You can only change yourself, and by doing that you affect the collective consciousness of mankind."

With her long brown hair and very special earrings she looks like an Indian, but with green eyes. An American originally from New Mexico, she lives in Sweden where she has taken a degree in journalism.

Tonya is also keen to spread her vision of the Earth Charter as a universal code of conduct to guide people and nations towards a sustainable future. Based on "new thinking" -- actually the same basic principles on which ancient civilizations were founded -- the Charter consists of guidelines for living in balance with the Earth, she says.

The Green Cross, active in 21 countries and based in Geneva, wants these principles "accepted within the United Nations General Assembly by the year 2002 as the Rights of the Earth", according to the organisation's homepage. "The way to achieve this goal is through regional seminars, national hearings, and an interactive drafting effort."

Tonya also campaigns hard to help indigenous peoples such as American Indians and the Sami people of Sweden maintain their traditions. "It is of the utmost importance to maintain one's own language and cultural heritage," she says. "It is through cultural diversity that we, humanity, can together find solutions to our problems and empower one another."