Social justice advocate Stephen Lewis visited The Blue Mountains for the opening night of the Go Green at Blue environmental forum as the keynote speaker.
Lewis, founder of the Stephen Lewis Foundation - a charity known for supporting community-based programs fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa - began his speech with stories from his many trips to South Africa where he visits orphans, women and grandmothers affected by AIDS.
He said he always asks them what he can do for them and they always ask for the same thing - food.
"The environment can't be separated from other issues," he said. "100 million more people have been thrown below the poverty line in the past months because of the rising cost of food."
He added that the destabilization of societies is increasing as water conflicts become prevalent, and that leads to inhumane behavior. Droughts and famines only add more pain to communities torn apart by the AIDS virus.
"It's important to green ourselves, but as vital as all that is ... it just isn't enough," he said, encouraging the crowd to become advocates themselves.
"There are certain struggles worth throwing oneself into," he said. "There's no value in embracing futility ... you just have to grit your teeth and keep on fighting because you know that eventually the pendulum swings."
The dinner served at the Blue Mountain Convention Centre Friday night was a special 100-mile diet with all the ingredients purchased and grown locally.
The forum lasted Friday through Sunday with workshops on topics such as the water stream, greening homes, agriculture and culinary moves ahead, greenway land use and youth. The Community Foundation Grey Bruce presented the forum.
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