Arriving in Rio for Rio +20

This morning at 5.30am (approximately 9.30am UK time), I arrived in Rio de Janeiro for the Rio +20 Earth Summit. After killing some time at the airport until it was a bit more of a respectable time to turn up on someone’s doorstep, I made my way into the centre of the city to meet the couple who own the apartment where I’ll be staying.

Within 10 minutes of arriving at the hostel where I was meeting the couple, I’d bumped into a lively group of people having breakfast who I found out are also here for the summit.

We did a quick go round of names and nationalities, and I found out I’d been lucky enough to bump into a network of people from different countries who work on indigenous rights and conservation issues. The group included people from Iran, India, Italy, Chile and Bolivia- all of whom are working on different local indigenous and conservation projects. As I was explaining what WDM does, they got excited at the mention of food sovereignty and invited me to the session they’re running tomorrow morning that happens to be on food sovereignty.

Before leaving London I printed out the current list of registered activities for the People’s Summit: there are over 50 pages of events being run by different groups and organisations! I think it’s going to be a challenge to decide on what to get involved with, with so many exciting groups and issues being discussed. I figure the food sovereignty workshop will be a good place to start, especially as the activist from Bolivia said that he’d like to show me some photos and give me some more information about the projects he’s involved with – as well as him being interested in finding out more about WDM’s campaigns.

The People’s summit is being held from 15-23 June and the official Rio +20 conference runs from 20-22 June. Having met an inspiring group of people within my first hour in the city, I’m really excited about who I might meet and things that will be happening when the People’s Summit’s actually begun.

On my last day in the office I ran around collecting props and equipment that I thought might be useful for the People's Summit. My rucksack included:

1. A large pile of WDM's 'green economy' briefings we produced ahead of Rio +20
2. Placards with Rio +20 subvertised logos
3. A Trojan horse making kit
4. Four bankers bowler hats and a suit (you never know when dressing up like a banker might be useful...)
5. WDM's twitter account.* Or at least the equipment needed for me to tweet regularly and post updates.

*If you continue to be baffled or boggled by twitter, have a look through our handy guide for using the web for campaigning for a whirlwind tour of social media.

 Bexhill and Hastings WDM hand over a Trojan horse to Greg Barker MP.