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Caring
for the Earth - A Strategy for Sustainable Living
Copyright
1991 International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural
Resources/ United Nations Environment Programme/WWF- World Wide
Fund For Nature. Reproduction
of this publication for educational and other non- commercial
purposes is authorized without prior permission from the copyright
holders. Reproduction for resale or other commercial purposes
is prohibited without the prior written permission of the copyright
holders. Any redistribution of this work, in whole or in part,
must contain this copyright notice.
Caring
for the Earth - A Strategy for Sustainable Living
Published
in partnership by IUCN-The World Conservation Union UNEP-United
Nations Environment Programme WWF-World Wide Fund For Nature Gland,
Switzerland, October 1991
page i Sponsors
CIDA
- Canadian International Development Agency Canadian Wildlife
Federation DANIDA
- Danish International Development Assistance
FINNIDA
- Finnish International Development Agency International Centre
for Ocean Development Ministere de l'Environnement du Quebec,
Ministry
of Environment of Quebec The
Johnson Foundation Inc. Ministero
degli Affari Esteri, Direzione Generale per la Cooperazione allo
Sviluppo, Italy Netherlands
Minister for Development Cooperation NORAD
- Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs,Norway
SIDA
- Swedish International Development Authority
Collaborators
Asian
Development Bank FAO-Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
IIED-International
Institute for Environment and Development ILO-International
Labour Office ICHM-Istituto
Superiore di Sanita OAS-Secretariat:
Organization of American States United Nations Centre for Human
Settlements - Habitat UNDP-United
Nations Development Programme UNESCO-United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNFPA-United
Nations Population Fund The
World Bank WHO-World
Health Organization WMO-World
Meteorological Organization WRI-World
Resources Institute Second
World Conservation Strategy Project Project
Director: David A. Munro Senior
Consultant and Writer: Robert Prescott-Allen
Production:
Peter Hulm and Nikki Meith Secretary:
Margrith Kemp Cover
and graphics: Kurt Brunner/Art Center College of Design (Europe)
Final
text edited by David A. Munro and Martin W. Holdgate
English
ISBN 2-8317-0074-4; French ISBN 2-8317-0075-2;
Spanish
ISBN 2-8317-0076-0; Earthscan edition 1-85383-126-3
Citation:
IUCN/UNEP/WWF. (1991). Caring
for the Earth. A Strategy for Sustainable Living.
Gland,
Switzerland. CHAPTERS
5 - 8 5.
Keeping within the Earth's carrying capacity
Human
impact on the Earth depends both on the number of people and on
how much energy and other resources each person uses or wastes.
The maximum impact that the planet or any particular ecosystem
can sustain is its carrying capacity. Carrying capacity for people
can be expanded by technology, but usually at the cost of reducing
biological diversity or ecological services. In any case, it is
not infinitely expandable. It is limited ultimately by the system's
capacity to renew itself or safely to absorb wastes.
Sustainability
will be impossible unless human population and resource demand
level off within the carrying capacity of the Earth. If we apply
to our lives the rules we seek to apply when managing other species,
we should try to leave a substantial safety margin between our
total impact and our estimate of what the planetary environment
can withstand. This is the more essential because while we know
that the ultimate limits exist we are uncertain at exactly what
point we may reach them. It is important to remember that we are
seeking not just survival but a sustainable improvement in the
quality of life of several billion people.
The
actions needed to keep within the Earth's carrying capacity will
vary greatly from nation to nation - and even among communities
within nations - because of the wide variations in population
size, population growth rates, human needs, resource consumption
patterns, and the availability of resources. Five major features
of today's human situation must be taken into account when development
strategies are planned: -
A minority of people, mostly but not all in upper-income countries,
enjoy a high standard of living, consume a disproportionate share
of available energy, food, water, minerals and other resources,
and suffer from the diseases of affluence (mostly linked to excessive
consumption). -
That minority may accept a reduction in its resource consumption
through gains in efficiency, and a stabilization of its standard
of living, but it is unrealistic to expect people willingly to
reduce that standard. -
The majority of people today, mostly but not all living in lower-
income countries, have a standard of living ranging from the miserable
to the barely tolerable, use far less than their arithmetical
share of the Earth's resources, and in many cases suffer from
the diseases of poverty (linked to malnutrition and compounded
by inadequate health care). -
The poor are locked into poverty largely because the rich control
the world's markets, resource flows, prices, and finance. But
they are aware of one another. Modern communications and tourism
bring the luxury of the rich before the eyes of the poor, and
the latter no longer accept these disparities with patience or
as a part of some natural historical order.
-
Population growth rates are highest where poverty is most intense.
Lack of health care, education and social infrastructure, and
of facilities to allow those who want to limit their fertility
to do so, are among the factors conspiring with tradition to keep
birth rates high in the countries least able to give each new
citizen the prospect of a life of dignity. Box 8 gives some facts
and figures that illustrate these disparities.
The
situation is clearly unstable and inequitable. Gross disparities
in resource consumption and rates of population growth have to
be overcome. Otherwise we can expect some communities to become
defensively isolationist and others to slide into insecurity and
conflict. A
concerted effort is needed to reduce energy and resource consumption
by upper-income countries. Between 1970 and 1986, several high
consumption countries significantly reduced their per capita energy
consumption: USA (down by 12%); Luxembourg (down by 33%); UK (down
by 10%) and Denmark (down by 15%). But most of the other big consumers
increased it. Trends
that favour more widespread and rapid reductions include the increasing
productivity of modern economies in terms of energy and materials
(OECD countries as a whole significantly reduced energy consumption
per unit of GNP) (see Fig. 2); the development of technologies
that produce and use energy and materials more efficiently, including
recycling; and public demand for products with lower environmental
impacts. World
population doubled from 2.5 to 5 billion people between 1950 and
1987. The growth rate is declining but the population will continue
to increase rapidly because of the population structure of countries
with high total fertility rates. The United Nations' medium projection
is for world population to grow by a billion people per decade,
reaching 6.4 billion by the year
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Evolution
of energy intensity in different countries
After
decades of steadily declining energy intensity (energy consumption
per unit of GNP) in the industrialized world, where the economic
infrastructures are moving toward services, the less- developed
countries (LDCs) are now faced with rising demands presented by
the use of energy-intensive materials in the course of their own
development After
Ecodecision 1: 1, 1991 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
2000,
8.5 billion by 2025, 10 billion by 2050, and an ultimate size
of between 11 and 12 billion. This
assumes that fertility rates will fall to 3.3 births per woman
by the year 2000. However, family planning programmes in the 1980s
failed to keep pace with the demand for fertility control in lower-
income countries. Regular contraceptive use must grow from 51%
to 59% of couples in lower-income countries by 2000, requiring
a doubling of annual expenditures on family planning - from $4.5
billion to $9 billion - by that year. If fertility rates decline
more slowly, the population could be even bigger than the UN's
medium projection, unless environmental degradation leads to a
substantial increase in death rates. By
contrast, a successful effort to achieve the UN's low projection
could enable the world population to stabilize at an ultimate
size of around 10 billion. The task is enormous but feasible:
in the past 20 years, Suriname has halved and China, Cuba, Singapore,
and Thailand have more than halved, their total fertility rates
(and another 15 countries cut their TFRs by 40-48%).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Box
8. Some facts and figures about human population and resource
consumption Commercial
energy consumption per person is a useful measure of environmental
impact. This is because it is energy that enables people to take
renewable and nonrenewable resources from ecosystems, to transform
them into products and consume them, and eventually to return
them to ecosystems as waste. The more polluting the energy source,
the bigger the impact.
The
42 countries with high and medium-high levels of energy consumption
per person contain a quarter of the world's population but account
for four-fifths of its use of commercial energy (see Annex 5).
The
128 countries with low and medium-low levels of energy consumption
per person contain three-quarters of the world's population but
account for only a fifth of commercial energy consumption.
On
average, someone in a "high consumption" country consumes 18 times
the commercial energy used by a person in a "low consumption"
country, and causes much more pollution: a North American causes
the emission of twice as much carbon dioxide as a South American,
and ten times as much as someone living in South Asia or East
Asia (excluding Japan).
A
citizen of the lower-income countries consumes on average 2,380
calories per day, mostly from plants. A citizen of the upper-
income countries consumes 3,380 calories, a considerable amount
from meat. Most
high-income countries have near-stable populations. But their
resource consumption continues to rise.
Most
of the low-consumption countries have high and medium- high total
fertility rates, and their populations are expanding fast. Most
already have great difficulty meeting their needs for food, water,
health care, sanitation, housing, jobs, energy, and productive
land. Rapid population growth adds to these difficulties and undermines
prospects for sustainable development, because governments must
draw on scarce financial reserves or add to their foreign debt
to meet basic needs. This in turn often prompts them to increase
demands on their shrinking stocks of timber, fish, petroleum,
or other resources. For
each 1% of population growth, at least 3% of GNP is needed as
"demographic investment" to expand the stock of buildings and
machines for the new workers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stabilizing
human populations and putting resource consumption on a more equitable
and sustainable footing are the greatest challenges of our time,
and they touch human sensitivity deeply. All of us - but particularly
those who live in upper-income countries - need to alter our life-styles
now, for the sake of a decent standard of living for our contemporaries
and a dignified future for our descendants.
Priority
actions To
stay within the Earth's carrying capacity - and well enough clear
of its limits to allow real improvement in human quality of life
(as emphasized in Chapter 3), communities throughout the world
will need to:
- manage their environmental resources sustainably (as described
in Chapter 4); -
address the issues of population growth and resource consumption
in an integrated way; -
reduce excessive consumption and waste; -
provide better information, health care and family planning services.
A
combined approach to resource and population issues
Actions
to reduce resource consumption in the high-income countries, make
more resources available to citizens in the lower- income countries,
and to stabilize populations everywhere, have to be taken together.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
5.1. Increase awareness about the need to stabilize resource consumption
and population. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Governments,
educational bodies and non-governmental groups in all countries
should support and undertake formal and informal education to
make people aware that: -
the carrying capacity of the Earth is not unlimited;
-
excessive and wasteful use of resources, particularly in upper-
income countries, is a major threat to the Earth's carrying capacity;.
-
people in high-consumption countries can eliminate wasteful consumption
without reducing their quality of life, and often with financial
savings (for example, through energy conservation);.
-
consumption patterns, family health and size, and social welfare
are closely interrelated;. -
population stabilization is essential, and men and women must
accept their shared responsibility for achieving it;.
-
enhanced, but sustainable, production of agricultural and other
renewable resources is essential to meet the inevitable rise in
human needs. The campaigns and programmes will be more effective
if guided by the ethic for living sustainably (see Chapter 2)
and by the results of research on cultural attitudes to these
issues. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
5.2. Integrate resource consumption and population issues in national
development policies and planning. -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Governments
should adopt explicit policies to limit resource consumption and
population, and build these into national development planning.
High-income and high-consumption countries should give priority
to curbing wasteful overconsumption and pollution. Countries with
high rates of population growth should give priority to achieving
stability. The policies and plans should: -
monitor trends in resource consumption and population and assess
their implications for sustainability; -
set goals for reducing consumption of energy (see Chapter 10)
and other resources to a sustainable level (high-consumption countries);
-
set goals for higher, but sustainable, agricultural production
(low- consumption countries) (see Action 13.1);
-
set goals for the stabilization of population at a sustainable
level; -
integrate resource consumption and demographic goals with other
social and economic objectives (see Action 17.7 and Annex 8);
-
encourage the private sector and non-governmental groups to carry
out programmes that support family planning and reduced resource
consumption; -
involve the public fully in the establishment of policies and
goals and the taking of action.
Action
to reduce excessive consumption and waste of resources
If
resources are to be conserved while quality of life is improved,
three main kinds of action must be taken in an interlinked way.
First, new and more efficient technologies must be developed.
Second, national economic and regulatory policies must vigorously
promote the switch to a less wasteful society. Third, individuals
must be informed about how they can gain from changes in their
own activities and consumption patterns.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
5.3. Develop, test and adopt resource-efficient methods and technologies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Governments
in high-income countries should use economic instruments and regulations
to encourage industries and public utilities to adopt resource-efficient
technologies and methods. Governments and development aid agencies
in those countries should support the transfer of such technologies
to lower-income countries. Actions that should be considered include:
-
establishing awards for environmentally sound processes and products.
In the United Kingdom a Better Environmental Awards for Industry
(BEAFI) scheme has been in operation for some years, as a partnership
between government, industry and a national non- governmental
organization which runs the scheme. Such arrangements can be linked
directly to "green consumer" movements, and to the development
of national standards for products and processes (Actions 5.5,
10.4 and 11.2); -
providing capital aid and technical assistance to lower-income
countries, including training in designing energy-efficient systems
for use in homes, offices, agriculture and industry. The aim would
be the speedy replacement of present energy-wasting practices
in energy production and transmission and in industry; these practices
impose an unnecessary burden on the countries concerned (see Action
9.7); -
providing more efficient domestic stoves and other devices and
more energy to improve household light, cooling and refrigeration
in lower-income countries. These would replace the present wasteful
and inefficient wood-burning stoves (which add to the work of
those who gather fuelwood or the economic burden if an urban household
has to buy charcoal). The
scope for gain in these sectors is very large. It has been estimated
that the energy needs of lower-income countries for a combination
of domestic and industrial uses could be met with an increase
of only 20% in per capita energy use if efficient methods were
used, whereas without them the increase would have to be 100%
or more. If China were to achieve the energy efficiency of an
average high-income country, it could double its GNP without building
any more power stations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
5.4. Tax energy and other resources in high consumption countries.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Governments
in high-consumption countries should: -
first remove any subsidies and other factors that distort resource
prices, except for subsidies that have been introduced to promote
sustainability; -
then, if necessary, introduce taxes so that the prices of resources
match their real costs to society. Higher prices should induce
more efficient technology and patterns of consumption, even though
energy price increases do not always reduce demand.
Governments
in other countries, while seeking the same goal, should introduce
such measures more gradually and specifically, applying them first
to industrial sectors and urban areas where energy consumption
is high and wasteful. Each
government will obviously need to work out for itself how such
changes can be brought about without increasing poverty. It is
not difficult to do this while keeping the overall tax burden
unchanged, for example by reducing income tax - particularly on
lower incomes. Electricity and fuel credits could be given to
pensioners. Making resources cost relatively more, and labour
less, might also help employment. This
approach would get round the present political objection that
resource taxes (including a carbon tax) are additional to existing
taxes and so are politically unacceptable. Here it is proposed
that energy and other resource taxes wholly or partly replace
existing taxes. Energy and resource taxes are consistent with
the principle of "the user pays" - the more you consume, the more
you pay. Well-designed
taxes on energy should encourage more efficient technologies and
a switch to energy sources that emit less carbon dioxide and other
pollutants. The cleanest source of energy should be taxed only
enough to achieve efficiency, while other sources are taxed at
progressively higher rates to deter pollution. Taxes on fossil
fuels would, for this reason, be high for coal, moderate for oil,
and low for natural gas (see Actions 10.1 and 10.2).
Taxes
on raw materials could be set similarly to encourage more efficient
technologies, more use of renewable resources, and more durable
products. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
5.5. Encourage "green consumer" movements.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Consumers
in upper-income countries can use their buying power to strengthen
the market for goods that do the least possible harm to the environment.
They can switch from one brand to another; or they can stop buying
a particular product. As a "green" consumer, the individual can
do something positive, however serious the problem, and whatever
the government of the day is doing. The cumulative effect of "green"
actions by millions of consumers can significantly change patterns
of resource consumption. If
they are to do this, consumers need reliable information. At present,
lack of standards and of reliable labelling hampers informed choice.
Governments should work with consumer groups, environmental groups
and industry to develop national standards and a "green consumer"
label for products. Developing
such a scheme is not without difficulties. Decisions about environmental
acceptability are matters of judgement. We often do not know all
the environmental effects of the products we use. And there may
be difficult choices. For example, is cotton clothing better than
polyester because synthetic fibres use up nonrenewable resources?
Or is polyester better because cotton growers use a lot of pesticides
and fertilizers? Despite such problems, the government of Germany
has set up a national scheme to identify and promote environment-friendly
products, and this is now being broadened to cover the whole European
Community. Individuals
should help move the market forward by: -
becoming informed consumers of products and services;
-
asking for environmentally friendly products;
-
telling manufacturers and retailers the reasons for choosing certain
products or brands and avoiding others; -
informing others about the issues: writing to local and national
media, to utilities, and to legislators; -
joining campaigning and lobbying organizations;
-
encouraging family, friends, neighbours, and co-workers to do
the same. Action
to stabilize population Many
factors act together to determine family size. They include access
to (and information on) family planning services for both women
and men; family income and security; maternal and child health
care; women's status in society; education for women and men;
and religious and cultural factors, including the attitudes of
men. The factors reinforce each other. Population stability can
be achieved only if action is taken on them all.
People
limit family size when it makes sense to them socially and economically
- that is, when women's education and role in society improve,
when men are prepared to accept changes in the roles of women
and men, when families can survive without relying on the income
from children, and when maternal and child mortality drop.
The
status of women needs to be improved (see Chapter 3, Box 6). Women
who have completed primary school have fewer children than those
with no schooling, and families become smaller as the education
level of mothers rises. In Brazil, "uneducated" women have an
average of 6.5 children each, whereas those with secondary education
have only 2.5. And in Liberia, women who have been to secondary
school are ten times more likely to be using family planning services
than those who have never been to school at all. In four Latin
American countries, education was found to be responsible for
between 40% and 60% of the decline in fertility registered over
the past decade.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
5.6. Improve maternal and child health care.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Dramatic
results can come from inexpensive health services that provide:
-
prenatal and postnatal care at the local level, especially giving
food supplements to undernourished pregnant and lactating women,
and promoting breast feeding; -
education to women, men and children on the importance of simple
hygiene such as sanitary treatment of food and drinking water,
washing hands before meals, and safe disposal of excreta;
-
family planning services (see Action 5.7).
Health
support to poor households in rural and marginal communities should
be improved. It is necessary to: -
create facilities in villages and urban neighbourhoods using paramedical
personnel, with referral to, and supervision from, district or
subdistrict medical centres; -
expand outreach to the household, using workers recruited from
the local community; -
work with and through such local organizations as mothers' clubs;
-
integrate services at the local level and decentralize many aspects
of programme management. Both
health and population stabilization will benefit from measures
that encourage traditional methods of child spacing. More births
are averted in sub-Saharan Africa by ovulation suppression during
breast feeding than by the use of modern methods of contraception.
Although bottle feeding may be necessary when mothers work away
from home, the use of milk formula under unhygienic conditions
by families who neither need nor can afford it kills babies and
increases fertility. Governments
and employers should make breast feeding easier for working mothers.
This can be done by providing creches at work, making working
times flexible so that mothers can give feeds, and encouraging
work at home. Commercial pressures to promote unnecessary bottle
feeding are unethical and should be condemned. The International
Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes should be enforced.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
5.7. Double family planning services. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
In
1990 some 381 million couples (51%) in lower-income countries
used a family planning method. To achieve fertility rates consistent
with the UN medium population projection of 6.4 billion by the
year 2000, an additional 186 million couples (a total of 567 million
or 59%) must be using contraception by the end of the century.
Despite
traditional opposition and the fact that for some a large family
is seen as a living pension and a source of prestige, family planning
is widely desired. Health and demographic surveys conducted in
a large number of lower-income countries show that 50-80% of married
women wish to space or limit their childbearing.
Keeping
within the Earth's carrying capacity This need is not being met.
In Africa less than a quarter of women not wanting any more births
are practising contraception; in Asia the figure is 43%, and in
Latin America 57%. Perhaps a quarter of all pregnancies in lower-income
countries end in abortion, often because contraception is not
available. If all women who said they wanted no more children
were able to stop childbearing, the number of births would be
reduced by 27% in Africa, 33% in Asia, and 35% in Latin America.
Maternal mortality could be halved. It has been estimated that
family planning alone would save the lives of 200,000 women and
5 million children by helping couples to space their children
and avoid high-risk pregnancies. Governments
and international aid agencies should increase their support to
family planning services. Currently, $4.5 billion per year are
spent on family planning services in the lower income countries,
$3.5 billion coming from the countries themselves and $0.7 billion
from OECD countries. Many services cannot expand because their
supply of contraceptives is not assured. Some actually run out
of contraceptives. The OECD contribution represents only 1.3%
of development assistance by OECD countries. The total should
be increased to $9 billion per year by 2000, with $4.5 billion
coming from development assistance. These are not impossible sums.
Much of the cost is current rather than capital and may be financed
largely in local currency; and the money saved by lower expenditure
on maternal and child health can be greater than the initial costs
of family planning. Another benefit of more investment in family
planning is better educational opportunities for children.
Wherever
realistic family planning facilities have been made available,
fertility has declined. Experience from 83 countries shows that
a 15% increase in contraceptive availability decreases fertility
by nearly one child per woman. Birth rates have fallen two to
seven times faster in lower-income countries with effective family
planning programmes than they did in Europe and North America
during a similar transition from high to low fertility.
Governments,
local administrations and development aid agencies should ensure
that family planning is a part of all rural and urban development
programmes and is funded as a part of their budgets. People should
be advised about the alternative methods available (traditional
or natural; barrier; hormonal and surgical) and helped in their
choice. Contraceptive pills should not be distributed without
professional supervision. At present only 15% of people in lower
income countries use natural and barrier methods, as against 50%
in upper-income countries, yet these are the methods that do not
need a medical input. Surgical and hormonal methods have been
promoted disproportionately in countries with poor health services,
and this needs to change. Effective and safe birth control can
be achieved only if it is linked to improvement in the provision
of health services to poor people (see Action 3.3).
page
51 6.
Changing personal attitudes and practices
There
are many reasons why people live unsustainably. Poverty can force
them to do things that will help them to survive for the present,
even though they know that they are creating problems for the
future. Changing economic factors can make it difficult for people
to improve their circumstances, and their efforts to escape from
poverty can actually make their impact on the environment worse.
In many lower-income countries the first priority is therefore
to increase per capita income and build the infrastructure - the
health care, social services, housing and other support - that
will give people more secure livelihoods. These issues are discussed
in Chapter 3. More affluent groups and countries live unsustainably
because of ignorance, lack of concern, or incentives to wasteful
consumption. For them particularly, the need is to change attitudes
and practices, not only so that communities use resources more
sustainably but also to bring about alterations in international
economic, trade and aid policies. People
in different countries need to be persuaded and helped to change
their life-styles in different ways. But despite these differences,
there is a widespread need to prepare people for changes that
are likely to conflict with the values they have grown up with.
Education will be important in bringing these changes about.
There
is a base to build on. Various opinion polls suggest that concern
about environmental deterioration is widespread in all countries.
Many people are voicing demands to protect nature and show responsibility
for future generations. However, other surveys show that people
quickly tire of messages of doom, and that the links between individual
lifestyles, the alleviation of poverty, the use of resources and
world economic and trading patterns are not widely understood.
Many people simply do not see how changing their behaviour would
help others. Even
those who accept the need to live differently often fail to follow
their ideals. Not enough people in high-income countries adopt
a driving style that conserves energy, recycle their garbage,
or place "environmental friendliness" above "convenience" when
shopping. Faced with recession or rising unemployment, even environmentally
aware governments are tempted to slacken standards if their application
might reduce the profitability of an existing industry or prevent
a new one from starting up. People
will adopt the ethic for sustainable living (see Chapter 2) when
they are persuaded that it is right and necessary to do so, when
they have sufficient incentives, and when they are enabled to
obtain the required knowledge and skills. Most formal education
does not now give them the knowledge and understanding they need.
With a few notable exceptions, the most powerful influences on
popular attitudes in upper-income countries - advertising and
entertainment - promote over-consumption and waste.
There
are two lessons from this. First, a new approach is essential
to build understanding of human relations with the natural world
into formal education. Second, the power of non formal education
and communication must also be harnessed, through parental influence,
newspapers and magazines, television and radio, advertising and
entertainment and places like zoos and botanical gardens. The
second, non-formal, element is just as important as the first.
Environmental
groups have been successful in creating public concern about issues
such as deforestation, the loss of biological diversity, local
pollution and inappropriate development projects. Humanitarian
groups have helped raise concern about poverty, famine and lack
of development. They should now join in campaigns aimed at wider
social change, based on the acceptance of the ethic for living
sustainably. IUCN and WWF, which together link a significant proportion
of the world's major environmental NGOs, should give a lead.
The
need for universal education has been mentioned in Chapter 3.
Formal education should not only be provided more widely but changed
in content. Children and adults should be schooled in the knowledge
and values that will allow them to live sustainably. This requires
environmental education, linked to social education. The former
helps people to understand the natural world, and to live in harmony
with it. The latter imparts an understanding of human behaviour
and an appreciation of cultural diversity. To date, this blend
of environmental and social education has not been widely applied.
It needs to be - at all levels
Priority
actions Transforming
people's attitudes and practices requires a concerted public information
campaign, encouraged by governments and led by the non-governmental
movement. Formal environmental education for children and adults
needs to be extended and more support should be given to training
for sustainable development. The success of all these actions
will depend on how far it has been possible to improve people's
quality of life in the ways advocated in Chapter 3.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
6.1. Ensure that national strategies for sustainability include
action to motivate, educate and equip individuals to lead sustainable
lives. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Plans
for action should be joint initiatives of governments, citizens'
groups, educational institutions, the media, and businesses. UNESCO
and UNEP can extend useful support in preparing such plans. The
goals of action plans should be to explain why a sustainable society
is essential and to provide all citizens with the values, knowledge,
skills and incentives to help them achieve and flourish in it.
The plans should promote both the principles of sustainability
and the actions that flow from them. They should be implemented
through both the educational system and public campaigns (see
Box 9). Any
action plan needs to be guided by knowledge of what is needed
and how well the needs are being met. Systematic surveys should
find out how well the principles of sustainability are understood,
what people are willing to do (and pay for), and how satisfied
they are with the progress being made. Periodic reviews of the
influence of school curricula, advertising campaigns, widely followed
television and radio programmes, and other expressions of popular
culture would also be useful. Every
society is likely to have special symbols, stories, sacred places,
and other cultural features that can support the world ethic for
living sustainably as well as its own cultural needs. These should
be identified, so that educational programmes can be tailored
to the culture and environment of the society that they serve.
Children
may be taught one thing in school, and influenced to do quite
the opposite by what they see and hear outside. Adults also may
take television programmes, popular songs, and the behaviour of
role models to represent the values in which society really believes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Box
9. Elements in a campaign for a sustainable society
Everyone
is a participant in the quest for a sustainable society. There
is no "audience" or campaign "target". Therefore, the campaign
should encourage a two-way flow of information, enabling people
to contribute as well as receive ideas and information.
The
methods used will inevitably vary with country, cultural tradition,
religion and stage of development. But the following "toolbox"
of guidelines and methods covers the spectrum.
-
Involve everyone and encourage their ideas. Use local languages.
-
Use all available media (print, radio, television, film, videotapes,
theatre, street theatre, dance, song, traditional storytelling)
according to audience. Face-to-face and audiovisual means of communication
should be used in areas of low literacy. Traditional methods can
work very well. Poster campaigns and environmental literacy programmes
can give useful backing. -
Relate national and global issues to local situations, using familiar
examples and experiences. -
Get people to interact and discuss their vision for their areas.
Explain how that future may be threatened by current global and
local trends and what the solutions are. -
Give people summaries and syntheses of the facts, in appropriate
form. Encourage development of syntheses for teachers, labour
unions, business groups, government officials and politicians.
Include case studies of what has and has not worked in the past.
-
Make sure people have access to clear, comprehensible information.
Show people how to change their practices. Help them with advice
and practical support to implement schemes they devise for themselves.
Training in techniques and access to credit, land or other resources
may be needed (see Chapter 7). People get frustrated by, and eventually
ignore, proposals that they cannot turn into action.
-
Involve volunteers, especially children, in projects in their
areas, for example to restore degraded land, create " green belts",
and plant trees. -
Use information centres and exhibits, both within local communities
close to home and in places people visit like museums, zoos, botanic
gardens and national parks. These are especially effective because
people choose to go to them and expect to learn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
ensure
that informal education, formal education, and training reinforce
each other, the action plan has to cover them all, unifying the
other actions called for in this chapter. The
media should be enlisted as allies in promoting social change.
They should build up a corps of journalists and editors who are
environmentally educated. Citizens' groups concerned with ecologically
sustainable development should encourage their members to enter
journalism This has been done successfully in New Zealand, and
in Pakistan where a Journalists' Resource Centre has been established
as a source of information about the environment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
6.2. Review the status of environmental education and make it
an integral part of formal education at all levels
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Governments,
through central and local education authorities, should review
the present state of environmental education (including social
education) and should make it a part of all courses at primary
and secondary, and many at tertiary level. This is one of the
major objectives of UNESCO and UNEP's International Environmental
Education Programme (IEEP). Actions already taken in Australia
provide one model of how this might be done. In doing this the
following points should be considered: -
While some special environmental courses will be needed, notably
at tertiary level, it is usually most effective to incorporate
environmental themes in other courses. Teachers can work together
to do this, helped by colleagues with environmental training.
In the longer term, environmental education should be a standard
part of teacher training. Under IEEP, model curricula are being
developed for every region, covering primary, secondary, primary
teacher, and secondary teacher levels. WWF prepares and distributes
teacher's kits and other practical materials.
-
Environmental education is easily included in literacy programmes.
By focussing on the daily lives of families and the resources
they depend on, it can increase the immediate relevance and attractiveness
of education, and so enhance efforts to improve enrollment.
-
Traditional methods of education will remain powerful in many
parts of the world. Formal education should not try to supplant,
but to work with, traditional educators. -
Teaching in schools should be practical as well as theoretical,
and linked to field projects. Audits of the use of energy, paper,
and other resources in school can point to ways of reducing consumption
without harming school activities (and with financial benefits).
The lesson that sustainability pays will be taken home.
-
Teachers trained in the social sciences need to work closely with
environmental educators, using their methods to build social awareness
of the need for sustainability into their courses. Secondary and
tertiary level courses should provide training in the technical
and managerial skills required for people to support themselves
in a sustainable economy. Environmental
education deals with values. Many school systems regard this as
dangerous ground, and many teachers (particularly in the natural
sciences) are not trained to teach values. The "whole school"
approach, in which the school tries to behave consistently with
what is taught, may also be dauntingly novel. Yet no lifestyle
or educational system is value free. It is vital that schools
teach the right skills for sustainable living. It is equally important
that what the school does reinforces what it teaches.
Development
assistance agencies need to give more support to environmental
education. It is the key to sustainability. A country that is
environmentally literate is most likely to make a success of its
development. Where the significance of the environment is not
understood, development will fail. UNESCO,
UNEP and IUCN should establish an international clearing house
for information on environmental education. All countries would
benefit from the exchanges of information and experience which
this would permit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
6.3. Determine the training needs for a sustainable society and
plan to meet them. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Governments,
in partnership with the teaching profession, should evaluate the
new combinations of professional and technical skills a sustainable
society will require. At the professional level, there will be
great need for specialists in ecology, the various sectors of
resource management, environmental economics, and environmental
law. All professionals will need a broad understanding of how
ecosystems and societies work, and of the principles of a sustainable
society. At
the technical level, the main need is for more extension workers
who are trained to understand ecological relationships and can
help resource users to develop better practices. They should have
a broad approach, and be able to give cross-sectoral advice rather
than focus, as many now do, on a single sector, such as agriculture
or fisheries. The
urban poor, and many farmers, fisherfolk, forest workers, artisans
and other land and water users would be helped by opportunities
to learn how to use resources sustainably and profitably. They
should also be encouraged to share knowledge they already have.
They would benefit from advice that combines information about
income development, farming methods, soil and water conservation,
self-help water supply, sustainable production of fuelwood, timber
and forage, sustainable management of wild resources, cottage
industries, sanitation, nutrition, family health, and cheap, environmentally
sound technologies for housing, cooking, heating and other needs.
Training can be provided by course work, extension services and
demonstrations, all of which are most likely to be effective if
they are delivered through a community-based organization.
People
could increasingly train each other. In middle- and low- income
countries, they particularly need to exchange information on conservation
and development projects, planning methods, training workshops,
distribution of training materials, local networks for sustainable
development, and effective communication. These exchanges should
lead to the transfer of technology directly between lower-income
countries ("south-south transfers") (see Action 7.2).
Development
assistance agencies should give high priority to supporting action
plans to meet these needs; and to travel and other means for grassroots
groups to exchange personnel and information.
page
56 7.
Enabling communities to care for their own environments
Care
for the Earth and sustainable living may depend upon the beliefs
and commitment of individuals, but it is through their communities
that most people can best express their commitment. People who
organize themselves to work for sustainability in their own communities
can be a powerful and effective force, whether their community
is rich, poor, urban, suburban or rural. A
sustainable community cares for its own environment and does not
damage those of others. It uses resources frugally and sustainably,
recycles materials, minimizes wastes and disposes of them safely.
It conserves life-support systems and the diversity of local ecosystems.
It meets its own needs so far as it can, but recognizes the need
to work in partnership with other communities.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Community
is used here to mean the people of a local administrative unit,
such as a municipality; of a cultural or ethnic group, such as
a band or tribe; or of a local urban or rural area, such as the
people of a particular neighbourhood or valley.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
People
can do this if they make it a priority, and if they are given
the necessary powers to make full use of their own intelligence
and experience. The process by which communities organize themselves,
strengthen their capabilities for environmental care, and apply
them in ways that also satisfy their social and economic needs
has been termed Primary Environmental Care (PEC).
The
objective is to sustain productive local environments, managing
soil, water and biological diversity for the benefit of local
people. Conservation action, pollution control, rehabilitation
of degraded ecosystems and the improvement of urban environments
are all essential elements in a community plan.
Communities
must be guided in these tasks by the ethic of living sustainably.
They must have secure access to the resources required to meet
their needs, and an equitable share in managing them. Community
environmental action will not work unless all citizens have a
right to participate in decisions that affect them. Education,
training and access to information will be needed. Programmes
of action may require initial outside financial support, but many
should become increasingly self-supporting.
Communities
vary in their ability to care for their environment. Lack of consensus,
organization, knowledge, skills, suitable technologies and practices,
funds or other resources can all undermine their capacity. So
can adverse local, national and international policies, laws,
institutions, and economic conditions. Many community problems
are caused by external factors and cannot be solved by community
action alone; the external factors must be addressed as well.
Problems
also arise because of conflicts within a community. Individual
needs, perspectives and roles differ. There are wide variations
in cohesion, sense of identity, consciousness of problems, and
access to resources. Some communities exclude women and ethnic
or religious minorities from major decisions. In some cases a
lengthy process of community-building may be necessary before
any common environmental action can be undertaken. Every interest
group should be identified and enabled to participate.
Priority
actions Three
overlapping types of action are needed: -
actions that give communities greater control over their own lives,
including secure access to resources and an equitable share in
managing them; the right to participate in decisions; and education
and training;
- actions that enable communities to meet their needs in sustainable
ways; -
actions that enable communities to conserve their environment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
7.1. Provide communities and individuals with secure access to
resources and an equitable share in managing them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Communities
and individuals need secure access to the land and other natural
resources necessary for livelihood. Without this, people will
not be motivated to use resources sustainably.
In
many countries, land tenure reforms are essential. Hunters and
nomadic herders need legally guaranteed access to hunting grounds
(and supporting habitats) and to grazing areas. Farmers, including
shifting cultivators, require clear title to their land. Cases
in the Philippines, Thailand, and India show that sustainable
use is most likely when farmers have the right to occupy or harvest
land for a long enough period to make it rational for them to
manage resources for the long term. In
urban areas, a legal right to house sites is essential. Self-built
and self-managed housing should be supported. Community organizations
of owner-builders generally use resources efficiently and also
generate a diversity of activities and demands for local employment
(see Chapter 12 and Box 20). Allocation
systems that are acceptable to the majority of users are most
likely to be developed if communities manage their own resources.
Shared resources need to be managed with the agreement of all
interested parties. Local communities that depend on a resource
take a longer view of management requirements than outside commercial
interests that come and go. If effective communal property rights
and resource management systems exist they should be recognized
in legislation. If they are declining but are potentially effective,
they should b~ restored, or incorporated in a modified system
(see Action 4.14). Government
agencies should support community resource management, rather
than simply police the use of resources. If local rules are insufficient
to assure sustainability, central governments may need to intervene,
for example to establish cooperative management arrangements.
This may be especially important where a resource is migratory
or shared by different user-groups.
Land management authorities should support property rights in
each community by undertaking surveys to define landholdings,
legalizing land tenure, improving the system of property transfer
and registration, and keeping survey and registry records up to
date. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
7.2. Improve exchange of information, skills, and technologies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Communities
require information in their own languages and idioms, and need
to be involved in the assembly and analysis of environmental data.
The provision of information and advice should be based on a consultation
with the community. Using local knowledge and integrating it with
the results of scientific studies is essential. But this is likely
to occur only when the communities see the research as useful,
and are fully involved in setting priorities and testing the methods
and technologies that research recommends. In addition, more information
about local perceptions, experiences, needs and capacities needs
to go from the local to the national and international levels.
Especially
in lower-income countries, there is great need for exchange of
information and technical assistance among communities. Grass-roots
and national citizens' groups are increasingly providing the links
for this exchange. They need support so that they can extend their
contacts to other lower-income countries. Access to sources of
information, training, research and long-term institutional support
is essential. Training programmes should be designed to improve
local capacities to solve problems using local knowledge and skills
(see Action 6.3). Environmentally
sound technologies are best developed through participatory research
so that they meet the needs perceived by the community, are suited
to local conditions, take proper account of the roles of men and
women, and are efficient, affordable, usable and repairable by
local people (see Action 8.10).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
7.3. Enhance participation in conservation and development.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Local
governments, communities, business and other interest groups should
help set the agenda for human development. They should be full
partners with central governments in decisions on policies, programmes
and projects that directly affect them, their environments and
the resources on which they depend. Where possible, and especially
for projects that do not significantly affect the national interest,
communities and organizations should make the decisions themselves.
Procedures are needed to make sure one community does not override
the interests of another. Undertaking a local strategy for sustainability,
which would take account of the environmental impact of proposed
projects, is a means of doing this (see Action 17.5 and Annex
8). Information about proposed actions, including the results
of environmental impact assessments, must be provided to other
communities with an interest and to national governments.
Full
participation is essential. Communities are invariably more diverse
than their local governments, which may not represent disadvantaged
groups well. Central governments should ensure that all groups
can express and defend their interest. All community members need
to play a role in decisions that affect their livelihoods, and
particularly decisions on the use and management of common resources.
Women must be able to participate in these processes and contribute
their often unrecognized expertise as environmental managers.
Schools, businesses, youth organizations, and community groups
including environmental NGOs, should be involved. The building
of awareness could lead to the emergence of new groups, acting
for interests that were previously unexpressed. Ways to facilitate
community participation are shown in Box 10.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
7.4. Develop more effective local governments.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Local
governments are key units for environmental care. Their responsibilities
vary greatly from country to country, but can include land use
planning, development control, water supply, waste water treatment,
waste disposal, health care, public transport and education. They
collect taxes, and enact laws. They are the units of government
that should be best able to understand the day to day needs of
their citizens, that represent them most directly, and with which
citizens have most contact. They should be enabled to:
-
respond to citizen demands for infrastructure and services; and
ensure there is a legislative and regulatory system that will
protect citizens from exploitation by landlords, entrepreneurs
and employers; -
enforce land use planning and pollution prevention laws, in accordance
with national standards, or with more stringent standards where
local interests so demand; -
ensure safe and efficient water supplies, sewage treatment and
waste disposal; -
regulate transport and local industry, again in accordance with
national standards or higher; -
strengthen sustainable economic activities in the region;
-
invest in and promote environmental improvement.
Action
12.2 gives additional detail on local governments.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Box
10. Community participation Community
participation helps ensure that decisions are sound and all parties
will support them. It is facilitated by: -
conducting consultations where the people are;
-
working with traditional leaders and the full range of community
groups and organizations; -
ensuring that the scope of consultation is appropriate to the
decision being made; -
limiting the number of management and consultative bodies to which
communities have to relate; -
giving communities and other interested parties adequate readily
intelligible information and enough time to consider it contribute
to proposals themselves and respond to invitations to consult;
-
ensuring that consultations are in a culturally acceptable form.
For example indigenous people with a tradition of decision making
by communal discussion should not be expected to respond with
a written submission from one representative. If indigenous consultation
mechanisms exist, they should be used; -
ensuring that the timing of consultations is right. Consultation
must not take place so early that no useful information is available
or so late that all people can do is react or object to detailed
proposals. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
7.5. Care for the local environment in every community.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
All
communities should take action to care for their environment.
They should be encouraged by the governments to debate their environmental
priorities and to develop local strategies (for example, through
workshops involving invited experts). Governments should then
help the communities to convert their strategies into action (see
Action 17.5). In
upper-income communities the aim should be to reduce resource
consumption, waste production and harmful impacts on the environment,
and to restore local habitat and species diversity. It is also
important to form citizens' groups, including green consumer groups,
and for businesses to ensure their activities are sustainable.
Other actions could include the cleanup of degraded urban and
rural environments and the creation of local nature areas. Information
campaigns should stress that everyone's behaviour affects the
environment and that everyone needs to take action to protect
it. Actions
in lower-income communities should focus on communal projects
in agroecology, agroforestry, soil and water conservation, and
restoration of degraded land. They could also involve low-cost
water and sanitation projects and communally-built housing and
infrastructure in villages and neighbourhoods. In many cases,
environmental action programmes should be combined with business
development and help for people, particularly women, to obtain
access to resources and services, including adequate education,
training, primary health care and family planning.
Communities
should initiate and be involved in all stages of environmental
action, from setting objectives and designing activities to doing
the work and evaluating the results. Participation should be as
broad as possible, involving all segments of the community, and
emphasizing that individual actions can make a difference. The
participatory approach aims for fair consideration of all viewpoints
in reaching reasoned and informed decisions. It takes all factors
into account, including people's feelings and values. It draws
on all relevant knowledge and skills, and uses "expert" assistance
with care and sensitivity. Evaluation
should be continual; objectives should be re-examined and (if
necessary) redefined. Plans should be subject to modification
in light of experience. Information should be exchanged among
the participants and, if possible, with others engaged in similar
activities Assessment, monitoring and evaluation are essential,
preferably using participatory methods. Monitoring helps to inform
people of progress, since they sometimes forget how far they have
come. Independent evaluation is useful so that people can develop
a body of experience from which everyone may learn.
The
experiences of individual communities should be evaluated centrally
so that handbook of effective practice can be prepared and distributed.
Machinery set up to monitor and evaluate national and local strategies
for sustainability could be used for this (see Annex 8).
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Box
11. Indigenous Peoples Some
200 million indigenous people (4% of the world's population) live
in environments ranging from polar ice to tropical deserts and
rain forests. The lands where they still live are usually marginal
for sustainable high-energy agriculture or industrial resource
production, but they are distinct cultural communities with land
and other rights based on historical use and occupancy. Their
cultures, economies and identities are inextricably tied to their
traditional lands and resources. The
subsistence component of indigenous economies remains at least
as important as the cash component. Hunting, fishing, trapping,
gathering or herding continue to be major sources of food, raw
materials and income. Moreover, they provide native communities
with a perception of themselves as distinct, confirming continuity
with their past and unity with the natural world. Such activities
reinforce spiritual values, an ethic of sharing, and a commitment
to stewardship of the land, based on a perspective of many generations.
It
is often assumed that indigenous peoples have only two options
for the future: to return to their ancient way of life; or to
abandon subsistence and become assimilated into the dominant society.
They should also have a third option: to modify their subsistence
way of life, combining the old and the new in ways that maintain
and enhance their identity while allowing their society and economy
to evolve. The
main needs are to: -
Recognize the aboriginal rights of indigenous peoples to their
lands and resources, including the rights to harvest the animals
and plants on which their ways of life depend, to obtain water
for their stock, to manage their resources, and to participate
effectively in decisions affecting their lands and resources.
-
Ensure that the timing, pace and manner of development minimizes
harmful environmental, social and cultural impacts on indigenous
peoples; and that indigenous peoples have an equitable share of
the proceeds. -
Ensure that policy makers, development planners, conservation
scientists and managers cooperate with indigenous peoples in a
common approach to resource management and economic development.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Action
7.6. Provide financial and technical support to community environmental
action. ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Governments
and development assistance agencies should enhance the conditions
for, and support, community environmental actions. Other potential
partners of local communities include universities, banks, religious
groups, local and non-local environment and development NGOs and
national and international institutions. Supporters should recognize
that like all paths to sustainability community environmental
action is based on changing attitudes and practices. It may not
require a lot of money but it will almost certainly need a lot
of time. Governments
can help communities obtain financing by guaranteeing low interest
loans for urban and rural community organizations, small businesses
and individuals. Extension of credit should not be totally dependent
upon the availability of collateral. Experience has shown that
small loans provided to poor people for concrete, clearly specified,
business purposes are most often honoured, and useful records
of repayment are thus built up. Another powerful incentive is
the matching of funds raised by the community by national or subnational
government. Economic
and regulatory instruments such as tax concessions, subsidies
and product standards can all encourage environmental improvement.
Communities and governments should jointly design economic incentives
for communities to develop their resources sustainably and ensure
that they earn a reasonable return from them. Governments should
review the effects of taxes, subsidies, external trade and payments,
and government expenditures on local economies and environments.
The
price of products made from, or with the use of, natural resources,
should reflect the full value of those resources. and provide
a reasonable return to communities. Economic incentives can motivate
communities to use their resources sustainably and ensure that
they earn a fair return. The communities should be involved in
the design of the incentives. Central
government tax, trade and expenditure policies can place communities,
particularly in rural areas, at a disadvantage. For example, policies
often favour export agriculture instead of production for local
needs because the former yields revenue. This is particularly
important in countries which need to service external debt. Effects
on local economies and environments should be evaluated before
such policies are decided. All
parties, including management and funding agencies, must learn
as they go along. This means that projects should be managed with
more than usual flexibility, as long as this is consistent with
sustainability. page
63 8.
Providing a national framework for integrating development and
conservation Human
development and environmental conservation must be integrated
if a society is to be sustainable. It is essential to build a
public consensus around an ethic for living sustainably, and to
enable individuals and communities to act, as discussed in Chapters
2, 6 and 7. But it is equally important to ensure an effective
national approach, and for this purpose governments must provide
a national framework (and, in federal countries, provincial or
state frameworks as well) of institutions, economic policies,
national laws and regulations, and an information base.
During
the past two decades, many countries have established administrative
departments and other institutions concerned with the environment.
Over 100 have established special agencies for environmental protection.
However, many of these units have been added to existing bureaucracies,
or set up as sectoral bodies with limited mandates and inadequate
budgets. Environmental policy has generally been reactive, responding
to problems after they have developed and when they are more expensive
to treat than if they had been tackled early on. Links with resource
management agencies are often weak, and environmental policy has
seldom been coordinated with the economic development decisions
that commonly shape the environment. This sectoralism obscures
potential compatibilities among competing interests, and increases
the difficulty of resolving conflicts. Environmental
laws - provided that they are enacted with sufficient regard for
cultural differences and social and economic realities - are important
tools giving effect to policies needed for sustainability. They
protect and encourage the law-abiding, and guide citizens on the
actions they should take. An important function of the law is
the application of sanctions to those who break it. No less important
is its role in defining anti-social behaviour and discouraging
people from acting in anti-social ways. The law sets standards,
often forcing technological advances in the process, and moulds
public and administrative attitudes. Indeed, it strengthens the
hand of environmental administrators by empowering or obliging
them to perform their functions, and providing them with a clear
mandate and authority for their work. The law can also require
changes that vested interests would otherwise resist.
Economic
policy can be an effective instrument for sustaining ecosystems
and natural resources. Policies and regulations that aim to protect
the environment and conserve resources without adequate economic
incentives are fighting an up-hill battle.
Every
economy depends on the environment as a source of life- support
services and raw materials. But neither market nor planned economies
take account of the full value of these goods and services, or
of the costs borne by society if the supply of environmental resources
is reduced or the services are impaired, now or in the future.
Instead, conventional systems of valuation treat the environment
and its functions as limitless or free of charge, so providing
an incentive for people to deplete resources and degrade ecosystems.
New models that incorporate ethical, human and ecological factors
as well as economic considerations are being developed. They are
badly needed as we face the challenges of sustainable human development.
To
take advantage of the efficiency of markets while protecting people
and the Earth from their inadequacies, markets must work within
laws that uphold human rights, protect the disadvantaged and the
interests of future generations, and conserve ecosystems and natural
resources. Here economics and law must work together. The law
sets the rules and standards. The market ensures that society
works within the rules and standards as efficiently as possible.
Policies
and programmes for sustainability must be based on scientific
knowledge of the factors that they will affect, and be affected
by. Because knowledge is incomplete, uncertainty is unavoidable.
Meanwhile, governments and communities have to act on the best
information they have. At the same time research that will improve
understanding of the environment, and reduce uncertainty, must
continue. So must monitoring of changes in the environment, since
this is the most useful direct measure of the effectiveness of
the actions that governments and communities are taking.
Priority
actions Integrating
human development and environmental conservation requires:
-
institutions capable of an integrated, forward-looking, cross-
sectoral approach to making decisions; -
effective policies and comprehensive legal frameworks that safeguard
human rights, the interests of future generations, and the productivity
and diversity of the Earth; -
economic policy and improved technology that increases the benefits
from a given stock of resources and maintains, or even enhances,
natural wealth; -
sound knowledge, based on research and monitoring.
Institutions
for integrated decision making The
environment is the fundamental resource on which human societies
are built. It affects all sectors of social activity, and any
action that alters the environment is likely to have wide repercussions.
The current fragmented and sectoral approach to policy must therefore
be replaced (or buttressed) by new structures that ensure integration.
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