Sustainable Development

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RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT V.P.JAIN Abstract The ecological crisis, we face today, is a natural corollary to the accumulative entrepreneurial motivation of man, arrogating to himself a place of dominance to exploit nature for his pleasure. Modern technology only comes handy in expediting and facilitating such a process, amply supported by new cultural values. The modernization syndrome, characterized by exuberant life style and wasteful consumption for selffulfillment and happiness, threatens the ecological balance. Nature is to be understood in its totality as an organic whole in which man is but one component, and cannot violate forever, its laws with impunity. The United Nations conference on environment and development at Rio in 1992, exhorted the world to abandon those practices that are self destructive in favor of sustainable development. Sustainable development is much more than environmental protection. It is a wider concept of economic growth, which ensures fairness and opportunities for dignified life for all, without further destroying recklessly the word's finite resources. INTRODUCTION Man's interaction with his natural environment involves him in using the earth to satisfy his needs and desires. This interaction leads to extraction, processing and consumption of natural resources which man requires in order to live (subsistence) and to prosper (economic development). Although, man's aim in using the natural environment has been to improve his lot, in many cases he has ruined the earth's physical and biological systems. Even though, man is subject to certain natural controls, he acts as the dominant force in his endeavor to appropriate nature for his various pursuits. The urge to dominate and to subjugate nature has also created, in the process, a highly polarized world of appalling contrasts.

RESOURCES AND DEVELOPMENT Since, wants vary from time to time and from society to society, economic development may be perceived differently by different people. But no matter how one visualizes economic development, its pace is determined by a society's ability to command physical resources (land, minerals, water, etc) and its human potential (population, skill, human wisdom, enterpreneuership, etc). However, countries are not totally dependent on their endowment of resources for development. Many nations without their own resources have prospered while most with resources have not. The Netherlands and modern Japan, for example, have remarkable successes to their credit through conquests and trade, even though they are poorly endowed with resources. On the other hand Britain's formidable economic position in the 18th century was essentially due to its natural supply of iron and coal. Its access to large markets, its commercial strength and enterpreneuership fortified the natural resource advantage and made it a big industrial power. In contrast, most of the countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, even though gifted with natural resources in abundance, have failed to utilize them for the good of their own people.

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THE POLARIZED WORLD Today, we live in a world of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’, It is common to speak of a North\South divide into the developed world (i.e., U.S., Europe,) and the underdeveloped world (i.e., Asia, Africa, Latin America.). Widespread unemployment, poverty and exclusion exist, paradoxically enough, in a world that continues to grow wealthier all the time. For the rich it is a world of consumer's paradise of immediate gratification, of hot images and cool gadgets. On the other hand, one fifth of the world's population i.e., over one billion people exist in conditions of absolute poverty and are unable to feed, clothe and house themselves properly. ( see diagram 1)

Source : UNDP Report 1998 Diagram 1 These various constituents of the divided world into the haves and have-nots differ greatly in their access to the resources of the Earth. The developed countries with less than one quarter of the world population consume 80% of the world's resources. For example, the per capita consumption of food, energy and material resources in the developed world in 16 times compared to its counterpart in the underdeveloped world. The affluent life style that most in rich countries and many in poor countries enjoy,

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consume an inordinate share of the world's natural resources. The rich form just 23% of the population, occupy 5o% of the land area, account for 60% of the energy consumed and earn 85% of the world's income. An average American consumes over two tons of steel every five years in the form of cars, and eats 112k.g of meat and consumes 7822 kg of oil equivalent in the form of energy every year. The corresponding figures for an average Indian is 5o kg of steel, 2kg of meat and 231 kg of oil. The per capita consumption of food, energy and material resources in the developed world is 16 times compared to its counterpart in underdeveloped countries. What is alarming is that the gap between the rich and poor is only widening as part of the modernization process. The share of the poorest 20 per- cent of the world population in global income is estimated to be a miserable 1.1 per-cent, down from 1.4 per-cent in 1991 and 2.3 per-cent in 1960.The ratio of the top 20 per-cent and that of the poorest 20 per-cent rose from 30 to 1 in 1960 to 60 to 1 in 1991 and to all high of 78 to 1 in 1994. But, the contrast does not manifest merely in the form of North\South divide. These inequalities are even more pronounced within nations. The developed world also has its slums known as ‘ghettos’. In the midst of astounding affluence in America, for example, a substantial number of Americans (13.5 % of the U.S. population) remain poor. Similarly, hundreds and thousands of people in the underdeveloped world enjoy affluent life styles and indulge in the luxury of sophisticated goods. While obesity clinics mushroom in metropolitan cities in India, for example, to slice off the extra fat layer of the nouveau rich, one third of the people struggle hard, for the better part of the day, to procure enough food for bare survival. Consumption and production patterns impact the planet's ecosystems. When humanity's ecological resource demands exceed what nature can continually supply, we move into what is termed ‘ecological overshoot’, liquidating the planet's ecological resources. The overshoot is measured by ‘Ecological footprint’, a metaphor used by ecologists to explore the sustainability of individuals and nations lifestyles and consumption patterns. It depicts the amount of ‘land equivalent’ a human population would hypothetically need to provide the resources required to support itself and to absorb its wastes, given prevailing technology. Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA) also raises several important social equity concerns. If Earth’s productive resources in terms of land were to be shared out equally, everyone would have 1.8 hectares or 4.5 acres. But the division of the resources among the nations is highly skewed (as shown above), USA’s ecological footprint being 12 hectares (typical of developed countries), which is in sharp contrast to the share of India’s ecological footprint, being around 1 hectare (typical of underdeveloped countries). The exuberant lifestyle of the Rich, comprising only twenty percent of the World population, widespread poverty notwithstanding, global Footprint accounts over the last forty years indicate a twenty-five year growth trend beyond the amount of renewable bio-capacity. In short, humanity's Ecological Footprint appears to have breached ecological limits and is thus unsustainable. The problem has been further compounded by market-led globalization and liberalization which was adopted as a development policy world-wide at the instance of the World Bank and the I.M.F. in the early nineties. More people live in poverty today than five years ago: The policy of globalization and liberalization, powered by free flow of capital and information technology revolution, has further widened inequalities within and between nations. Many Economists believe that liberalization which was meant to be

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a crisis management exercise should not have been adopted as a long term policy of development. The disastrous consequences are there for everybody to see. The central problem of the globalising economy is its unequal sharing of benefits: distribution of income, employment opportunities and excess to social services such as health and education. ECOLOGICAL DISASTER Thanks to science and technology, more and more people are consuming a more amazing array of goods today, than at any other time in history. It is a dream world coming true, where chemists and bio-engineers fiddle with genes, where the life style of the rich and the prosperous, as epitome of success in a consumerist society, are beamed by satellites to every part of the globe, where multinationals flourish by picking up beauty queens from the fashion industry as role models to endorse and market their products. The newly acquired production potentialities have generated enormous wealth. But, of course, one is not sure whether these have generated the kind of wealth which makes people happy. The modern economy with all its glamour masks a disfigured planet. The exuberant life style and wasteful consumption meets it nemesis in the ecological disaster that threatens all life on earth. It has scarred the land and stained the seas, eroding the very foundation of nature, which threatens to destroy humanity's only means of survival. The unprecedented growth in production and consumption of material wealth is leading to environmental stress through impacts that are both global and local. These impacts can be classified in to four forms, although they interlock; physical changes (deforestation, soil degradation, building cities, mining etc); chemical changes (pollution), direct biological changes(overkill of bio-diversity) and social pathologies(displacement of people, stress, crime, violence etc). PHYSICAL CHANGES Deforestation. Millions of poor people depend on forests for their need of energy, fodder of animals and food. The world’s forests, which also bind soil and prevent erosion, regulate water supplies and help govern the climate, are shrinking. At the beginning of the century, 50% of the ancient forests were intact. It was a world of oceans and masses teeming with a wide variety of lives. Aborigines inhabited vast expanses of wild lands who knew how to tap the land for food, medicine and sustenance. The children of the 21st century will inherit a word to find that previous generations have squandered and defiled their natural wealth, foreclosing many options. Every year land starved peasants press deeper and deeper into rain forests in tropical regions like Brazil, for instance, clearing patches of earth by torching the trees. In Indonesia, last year a serious environmental crises erupted because of the same practice to find land for commercial crops. Between 1980 and 1990, an estimated 8% of the total world tropical forest was cut, burnt or otherwise destroyed. As a region loses its forests, it loses its ability to trap and absorb water, and so runoff denuded woodland deepens the natural process of soil erosion. As is fashionable now, farmers harvest crops year after year (intensive farming) exposing the soil to wind and water. This results in wearing away 24 billion tons of topsoil every year, roughly equal to the topsoil on the Australian wheat lands. When dry areas are worn down by the wind, by intensive farming or by the hooves of too many grazing animals, the region may eventually become a sterile desert, a

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fate that has befallen 30% of the world's drylands. Three quarters of the drylands in Africa and North America are in some stage of desertification. One disastrous consequence of the practice has been the pressure on woodlands, especially the tropical forests that are the reservoirs of most of the earth's animal and plant species. In the past decade tropical forest area has shrunk from 4.7 to 4.2 billion acres (1.9 to 1.7 billion hectares). According to an estimate as much as 17 million hectares of tropical rain forest, an area about the size of Japan, are destroyed every year. One of the causes for deforestation is commercial logging. Demand for industrial timber is expected to go up from around 1.6 billion cubic meters a year in 1995 to 1.9 billion cubic meters in 2010 driven by rising standards. Soil degradation and desertification. Since 1945 nearly 2 billion hectares of productive land has been degraded. This amounts to losing one sixth of the world’s fertile area undermining the earth’s capacity to support human life. Indeed the earth's 6 billion people are already running out of land. According to Washington's world watch institute the average amount of grain land per person has dropped in 30 years from over 0.2 hectares to a little more than 0.1 hectare. Much of the arable land is losing its arability because of urbanization, chemical pollution, and desertification and overuse of water. Eighty percent of the damage has taken place in underdeveloped countries. In China, for instance, 1.1 million hectares of grain land was lost annually from 1990 to 1994 as it was converted to industrial sites and put to other uses. The current policy of creating SEZs in India by acquiring fertile agricultural to be handed over to multinationals for setting up factories under the guise of promoting industrialisation, in spite of country wide protests. The policy will only compound the plight of the farmers, thousands of whom, bereft of any means of livelihood, have taken their own lives since the beginning of the current century. China, the world's largest grain producer in the past, has already emerged as the second ranking grain importer, trailing only Japan. The present import figure of 16 million tons is expected to reach a whopping 210 million and 370m tons, annually by 2030. According to world watch institute the world has lost 200m hectares (500m acres) of tree growing area. since 1972, an area about one-third the size of continental U.S. At the same time the world farmers have lost about 500m tons of topsoil, an amount equal to the tillable soil coverage of India and France combined. Farmers, the world over have boosted their yields and fought against desertification by resorting to heavy doses of inorganic fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation water, but with disastrous consequences. Agricultural chemicals gradually poison the soil; and irrigation also deposits a harmful residue, when the water evaporates, it leaves behind various salts- the salinization process which renders the land useless for cultivation. According to World Bank report 1993, some degree of salinization affects 28% of the U.S' irrigated land, 23% of China and 11% of India. Marine life depletion. Land, rivers, even whole seas have been converted into sewers and industrial dumps. More than half of the world's people live within 100 k.m. of a seashore and the oceans are already a mess, littered with plastic and chemicals, threatening all marine life. Some of the visible reasons are the garbage dumps, the oil spills, and the sewage discharge which flow from this humanity into the sea. But the actual threats, accounting for 70 to 80 percent of all marine pollution, are the sediments and contaminants that flow into the seas like topsoil, fertilizers, pesticides, and industrial wastes. As a consequence, many of the worlds fish species are already starting to die. The

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rich countries have already, depleted their stock of fish. They now import large quantities from developing countries that catch more fish than they can do. In 1995 fish exports from developing countries were worth $23 billion. If the trend in over-fishing continues it could hurt the poor countries, as their people rely more heavily on fish for their protein requirement than the rich in the north. Water stress. Clean water is our most precious resource in terms of both quantity and quality. There is a serious threat to the availability of water as depletion all over the world is becoming irreversible as a result of groundwater over-pumping and acquifer depletion. Since 1950, demand for water and its consequent withdrawal has nearly tripled. It has gone up from 1365 cubic kilometers a year to 3760 in 1995.At the same time the availability of water has declined from about 16800 cubic meters per capita per year in 1950 to 7300 in 1995. According to human development report, 20 countries with 132 million people suffer from water scarcity with less than 1000 cubic meters per capita per year, the minimum required for human health. If the present trend continues 25 more countries would be added to the list of the deprived category by the year 2050. The drought in India in the year 2002, covering 12 states is a grim reminder of the gross misuse of precious water resource for intensive cultivation and abandonment of cheap water harvesting techniques. Rural electricity is highly subsidized or free, which prompts over-pumping of groundwater. Worse, subsidies have distorted crop patterns, encouraging farmers to grow water guzzling crops like rice and sugarcane even in the water scarce areas of U.P. Haryana and Maharashtra. It is not so much the absolute availability of water but its skewed distribution which creates the crisis. Industries in Saurashtra region, for instance, draw 30 crore liters of water a day even during the current draught. During draught, drinking water wells are the first to go dry, hitting the poor the most. As the water tables keep going down, shallow tubewells also run dry depriving the small farmers as well. Ultimately, only the affluent farmers who own the deepest tubewells, continue to have access to the scarce groundwater. In Saurashtra, excessive drawing up of groundwater for irrigation exhausted the reserves leading to the infiltration of seawater, ruining the aquifers permanently. Similarly, the canal system is collapsing all over the country because of ridiculously low water rates. Most of the canal water is usurped by the big farmers at the canal head, invariably, for water guzzling crops, leaving virtually nothing for millions of marginal farmers at the tail end of the canal.

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India’s water availability per-head of 1947 cubic meters, for example, is enormous in comparison to Israel’s water availability per head of 184 cubic meters. Yet Israel is a huge agricultural success because of their rules, regulations and pricing systems which ensures optimum and fair utilization of every drop of water. In contrast, half the population in India does not have access even to potable water. Much of India’s rainwater, for instance, now runs off to the sea instead of being collected to keep the water tables intact. According to well known environmentalist Anil Agarwal, “water harvesting formed the backbone of ancient India’s famed economic prosperity, agriculture and human settlement.” All over India, people had developed extraordinary systems for storing rainwater to meet the exigencies of the dry period. It is an irony that these time tested traditional methods of water harvesting like ponds, tanks and wells in villages, which provided water for irrigation and recharged the wells for clean drinking water have been abandoned in favour of centralized projects like big dams disrupting the entire hydrological system. At the same time, the quality of water has considerably deteriorated which is even more frightening. Most of the water bodies as ponds, lakes, rivers, oceans have become polluted due to industrial growth, urbanization and other uncontrolled human activities. Most of the rivers, the world over, are taken to be the easiest source to receive a heavy flux of sewage, domestic waste, industrial effluents and agricultural residues. CHEMICAL CHANGES Global warming and Ozone layer depletion.. The two great dangers threatening the balance of gases in the atmosphere that sustain life on earth are global warming and the thinning of the ozone layer. Most scientists agree that all the smoke and fumes and exhaust that human activities generate will eventually alter the earth's climate. Those changes could be modest or they could lead to what is termed as the greenhouse effect or global warning. The threat comes from carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced mainly in the industrial world by the burning of fossil fuels. It is estimated that the total world wide manufacturing output increased from about $2500 billion in 1975 to about $4000 billion in 1990 and the trend continues unabated. This relentless industrial growth places a heavy demand on world's non-renewable resources particularly fossil fuels and minerals. The developed world generates nearly 10 times as much carbon dioxide from energy use as their counterpart in the developing countries. (see diagram 2) The US, tops the list, with the former Soviet union next. While the average American is responsible for between 4 and 5 tons of carbon per year, the average Indian or Chinese share is 0.4 and 0.6 respectively. However, under-developed countries who are trying to imitate the western model of growth and their life style,(which is environmentally disastrous) are only compounding the problem. It is estimated that if per capita emission of greenhouse gases in China and India, for example, were to increase (as the trend indicates) to reach the present level in France, then the emission worldwide would jump nearly 70%.

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Source : UNDP Report Diagram 2 CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons) have been and still are widely used for refrigeration. Despite the 1987 Montreal Protocol which calls for a phase out of CFC's and other ozone depleting chemicals by the year 2006, the assault on the stratosphere continues unabated. The developing countries were also promised $6250 million by rich nations for the phase out but so far only 60% of the funding has materialized. Delegates to the 1992 Earth summit called upon the rich nations to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to 1990 level by adopting energy efficiency measures. It is estimated that it will be only by the middle of the next century that efforts initiated now can restore the 1970 level. But the schedule could be thrown off balance by international smugglers who managed to bring in 20,000 tons of contraband CFC's into U.S. alone, in one year, for repairing or recharging old appliances. In order to avert the impending danger, an agreement was made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) known as the Kyoto Protocol. Named after the Japanese city where it was concluded in 1997, the Kyoto Protocol is an international agreement to address global warming and delay climate change. Countries that ratify this protocol commit to reduce their emissions of carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases, or engage in emissions trading if they maintain or increase emissions of these gases. The Kyoto Protocol is an historic milestone: It is the first, and only, binding international agreement that sets targets to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change.. The Kyoto Protocol now covers more than 55% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emission. Different countries have different targets to achieve. The industrialised countries will reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2% compared to the year 1990.( this target would be tantamount to a 29% cut in the emissions levels that would be expected by 2010 without the Protocol). The Protocol sets targets for the greenhouse gas emissions of developed countries for the period 2008 to 2012 (the first commitment period). National targets range from 8% reductions for the European Union and some others to 7% for the US, 6% for Japan, 0% for Russia, and permit increases of 8% for Australia and 10% for Iceland.

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As of December 2006, a total of 169 countries and other governmental entities have ratified the agreement. Notable exceptions include the United States and Australia, the two biggest polluters in the World today. The United States, although a signatory to the protocol, has neither ratified nor withdrawn from the protocol. The signature alone is only symbolic, as the protocol is non-binding over the United States unless ratified. The United States is, as of 2005, the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Other countries, like India and China, which have ratified the protocol, are not required to reduce carbon emissions under the present agreement despite their relatively large populations. Acid rain. In many parts of the World, the architectural treasures like Taj Mahal are eroding, soils and lakes are becoming abnormally acidic, endangering flora and fauna, aquatic life, crops and human heath. Scientists attribute much of the damage to acid rain: rain or snow carrying dissolved acids. Acid rain, which until recently, was an hazard to central Europe only, is now spreading to underdeveloped countries also. It appears that it is an imminent threat in India too. Industrial areas with pH values(water acidity) close to critical levels have been recorded in Delhi, Nagpur, Pune, Bombay and Calcutta. There is a strong link between acidity of rain and industrial growth. Burning fossil fuels results in the production of noxious gases which are emitted, mainly from coal based power stations and heavy industrial plants. According to an estimate, total emission of SO2 from fossil fuels, in India, increased from 1.38 million tons in 1966 to 3.20 million tons by 1980. The analysis of NEERI air quality data (1967-87) shows a decline in so2 concentration in many cities such as Jaipur, Kanpur, Hydrabad, Chennai. But Delhi has registered a significant increase in SO2 emission after 1980, largely because of uncontrolled industrial and urban growth. Many environmental scientists believe that dry deposits in the form of tiny particles, called suspended particulate matter (SPM), are as destructive as tainted rain or snow. These deposits stem from the activities of human beings: primarily by vehicle exhaust, coal burning, smoke from factories and dust stirred up by speeding vehicles. These particles easily find their way into people's lungs, leading to serious bronchial of lung diseases, many times becoming fatal. During the 1990’s the level of SPM has remained consistently high and much above the permissible limits in all cities in India. Contrary to the general belief, the air indoors is often as bad as the 'toxic soup' one breathes outside. According to a study by CSIR , the SPM in most Delhi homes are more than hundred per cent above the safe levels, due to intense concentration of vehicle exhaust, dust and cooking in the confines of concrete homes. BIO-DIVERSITY LOSS Humans, as the dominant species, have been responsible for major habitat changes leading to a loss of genetic and species diversity. Tens of thousands of plant and animal species that shared the planet with us in 1972 have become extinct It is estimated that by the year 2020, 10 percent to 20 percent of the earth's 10 million species of plants and animals will be wiped out, thank to mans endeavor to conquer nature. What is not appreciated is that, once a species becomes extinct, it is lost forever. Recent experimental studies regarding ecosystem support have amply highlighted the fact that we have so foolishly ignored: the more species living in an ecosystem the higher its productivity and the greater its ability to withstand drought and other kinds of environmental stress. Each

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species is a masterpiece of evolution, offering a vast source of useful scientific knowledge because, it is so well adapted to the system in which it thrives. Moreover, there is a great potential for scrutinizing a multitude of species and organisms for their medicinal value, which is lost when we eradicate them mindlessly. It is naive to rank one species above another, to declare one plant or animal more precious, less replaceable than the others in the community. It is thinking of this kind which has made human interest paramount and put us into our present predicament. According to a famous biologist Lyal Watson, "Every loss of diversity represents a loss of organic vigour and a corresponding reduction in the possibilities of interaction and cooperation. And the loss is progressive. As diversity fades, so do chances for change and eventually the system breaks down altogether." The protests at the W.T.O. meeting in Seattle amply demonstrates that policy makers all over the World are obsessed with commercial interests at the cost of social, cultural and environmental issues. The commercial exploitation of biodiversity to support the profligate life style of the industrialized world, and the affluent elite in underdeveloped nations, in total defiance of the natural laws, is a sure recipe for ecological desaster. The message is clear: whether it is crocodile reserves in Colombia or international whaling or commercial logging, forces of big business, which defeats all effort to save animals and plants, have to be contained SOCIAL PATHOLOGIES Since the beginning of civilization, cities have risen to greatness only to collapse under their own weight due to epidemics, ecological calamities and social disorder. Scarcity of renewable resources may precipitate civil strife. Environmental problems of shortage of water, forests, fertile lands and the like are very often the cause of violent conflicts especially in under-developed countries. The generation of wealth, the maximization of agricultural and industrial output, is intrinsically environmentally degrading.

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Source : UNDP Report 1998 The deterioration of the physical environment has been accompanied by a corresponding decline in health and well being of the people. Whereas malnutrition and infectious diseases are the giant killers in underdeveloped countries, the industrialized countries are beset by social pathologies which have been appropriately termed as the diseases of modern civilization. According to Karl Marx, every technological change brings, in its wake, a cultural change as well. There is an all round increase in stress related disorders of which the principal killers are heart diseases, cancer and stroke. The social fabric of society seems to be fracturing, leading to the emergence of a sick society. Psychological depression, schizophrenia, violent crimes, accidents, suicides, drug abuse is on the rise as is evident from the table above.

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The exploding appetite for consumption and wasteful pattern of resource use in India, for instance, have together conspired to create a process of the state sponsored subsidized flows of resources to a narrow elite comprising organised industry, services and the big landlords in the villages. The state bears a large fraction of the costs of water power, raw material, fertilizers, petroleum, etc. supplied to these segments of the society to the detriment of the large majority of the marginalised poor. This gives rise to social conflicts as the benefits and burdens of social and economic development are not equally shared, and different groups exercise competing claims on a dwindling resource base. The deterioration of the physical environment has been accompanied by a corresponding decline in health and well being of the people. Whereas malnutrition and infectious diseases are the giant killers in underdeveloped countries, the technological change brings, in its wake, a cultural change as well. There is an all round increase in stress related disorders of which the principal killers are heart diseases, cancer and stroke. The social fabric of society seems to be fracturing, leading to the emergence of a sick society. Psychological depression, schizophrenia, violent crimes, accidents, suicides, drug abuse is on the rise as is evident from the table above. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT The United Nations conference on environment and development (Earth Summit) at Rio de Janeiro in 1992 exhorted the world to abandon those practices that are self destructive in favor of sustainable development (Agenda 21). Ten years after the first ‘Earth Summit’ in Rio. (It was therefore also informally nicknamed "Rio+10".) the World Summit on Sustainable Development, WSSD or Earth Summit 2002 took place in Johannesburg, South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September 2002. It was convened to discuss sustainable development by the United Nations. WSSD gathered a number of leaders from business and non-governmental organizations who reaffirmed their commitment to the Rio declaration. It was emphasised that poverty eradication, changing consumption and production patterns and protecting and managing the natural resource base for economic and social development are overarching objectives of and essential prerequisites of sustainable development. According to world commission on environment and development sustainability refers to "meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." It must be appreciated that the future growth and overall quality of life are critically dependent on the preservation of the natural environment. The reckless destruction of that endowment in the pursuit of shortterm materialistic gains penalizes both present and future generations. The first discernible change in attitudes towards environment was reflected in the Earth Summit held in Stockholm in 1972. Serious concern was expressed at the rate at which exhaustible resources were being depleted. The impetus to the debate was provided by the famous study 'Limits to Growth'; undertaken by a team of scientists from MIT in America headed by Donnela Meadows. The Club of Rome, a gathering of wealthy businessmen and politicians, funded the project. Several computer simulation models incorporating resource depletion, growing pollution and industrial output pointed to an impending environmental catastrophe. There was a serious question mark over

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whether traditional economic policies designed to raise real income could be continued, given the limits to growth. However, the predictions of ecological doom have turned out to be wrong. Actually, the known reserves of 'finite' resources have grown since the publication of the report of the Club of Rome. In 1980s and early 1990s the focus shifted to the quality of the environment: how growth could be achieved without jeopardizing the environment. The focal point of the debate shifted from resource depletion to pollution. Good environmental policies would help growth; and economic growth, if sensibly managed, would help the environment. The shift occurred essentially due to the failure to persuade the rich nations not to get richer by further cornering and over-exploiting precious resources. The earlier models of economic growth were capital oriented and stressed investment in machines and infrastructure to achieve desired levels of incomes. In this process technological progress played a crucial role. The thrust was on technologies, which aimed at source reduction. They must avoid damage and save on the amount of energy and materials per unit of production (conservation). Conservation and technology became the technical means to secure sustainable development. The persistent poverty in most of the third world, and in sizable pockets of the affluent nations seemed to refute these models. Since the economy and environmental problems are so closely linked, the causes of such environmental degradations lie in the functioning of an economy, and more so in the economic distortions that are part of the state policy. The green revolution, the application of high technology to agriculture - increased food output manifold but made it vulnerable to pests, diseases and climate variations; technology and capital matter, but so do free inputs of nature. Thus the 1980s showed that it was wise to appreciate growth that is environmentally sensitive and distinguished these limits from absolute limits to economic growth (meadows). Sustainable development was broadened to mean a process in which natural resource base was not allowed to deteriorate. The emphasis was placed on environmental quality and natural inputs in the process of development. Today, natural habitats are recognized as valuable resources. Tropical forests protect watersheds, and regulate climate. They also house valuable species. Wetlands purify water, protect inland area from storm surges, and provide a major source of bio-diversity. As such the causes of environmental degradation lie in the working of the economies, and so does the solution. As such natural environment acts as the life support system: major biological, geological and chemical cycles regulate the conditions in which we all live. The ozone layer depletion and the greenhouse effect, as global evils internationalized the environmental issue. The whole world is much at risk even though the threat has been created by the industrial nations. With the publication of U.N.D.P. reports the concept of sustainable development has acquired a new meaning. It underlines the role of environment and its inputs, for enhancing the quality of life. Sustainable development is much more than environmental protection. It is a wider concept of economic growth, which ensures fairness, and opportunities for dignified life for all, without further destroying recklessly, the word's finite resources. According to Mehbub-al-Haq, principal author of the much celebrated U.N.D.P. annual reports, "sustainable development is a process in which economic, fiscal,

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trade, energy, agricultural, industrial and all other policies are designed to bring about development that is economically, socially and ecologically sustainable." The preservation of the global environment raises serious issues about the growth and distribution of global income and wealth. Developing countries are, obviously, not satisfied with their present lot and cannot be expected to sustain their poverty in the name of environmental protection. On the other hand the affluent countries cannot be allowed, forever, 85% of the world's resources to maintain their present profligate consumption pattern. There is no easy and clear link between present and future needs. Sustaining the physical environment is not an end in itself. What we need to sustain is human life and environmental debate must have a human perspective. Human development and sustainability are essential components of the same ethic of universalism of life chances. The concept of sustainable development should, then, emphasize not only the future but also the present. The world conservation strategy 1980, emphasized the need for conservation of nature and natural resources, and that development to meet human needs was an essential context for conservation. Commitment to sustainability implies a value judgement. Actions that enhance sustainability are right. Actions that degrade the earth, impoverish nature (overuse of resources), create inequity are undesirable, in both a practical sense and an ethical sense. Emphasizing this aspect Mahatma Gandhi said: "how can we be nonviolent to nature, unless the ethics of non-violence becomes central to the ethos of human culture." He, the visionary, could see the eternal truth: "Earth has enough resources to satisfy everybody's needs but not their greed." This approach calls for major changes in how people live and how communities operate. It demands cutting back on over consumption of material resources and energy use. It also means generating waste within the confines of the ecosystem. This change will have a bearing on the whole culture of consumerism and the economic system that impels it. It also means that underdeveloped countries need to raise the quality of life by creating opportunities for development. It may also demand a reversal of the development paradigm and the abandonment of the belief that underdeveloped countries have to make themselves as much like the West as possible. The earlier models of economic growth based on the idea of rush for growth appear unsuitable for the developing world where poverty is the central issue. According to U.N.D.P. report 1994, "development patterns that perpetuate today's inequities are neither sustainable nor worth sustaining." The poor are not preoccupied with the impending catastrophe of global warming or depletion of the ozone layer. Their concern is rooted in polluted water and degraded land - that put their lives and livelyhood at risk. Redistributing resources in favour of the poor (from rich nations to poor nations and from the rich to the poor within nations) would mean enhancing human capital. Investment in health and education would increase productivity and the ability to generate higher incomes -now and in the future. Sustainability should not be interpreted to mean (implied in the concern for conservation by the exponent of 'limits to growth' theories) the perpetuation of the present level and inequitable pattern of development for future generations as well. The new paradigm defines sustainable development to mean 'sustainable human' development which puts people at the centre. The conceptual framework of sustainable human development values life for itself. It does not value life

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merely because people are instrumental in the production of material goods. Nor does it value one person’s life more than another’s. The essence of sustainable human development is that everyone should have equal access to development activities, now and in future. Sustainability is, thus, a matter of distributional equity of sharing development opportunities between present and future generations. Human development report 1998 sums up the situation succinctly: “The world has more than enough resources to accelerate progress in human development for all and to eradicate the worst forms of poverty from the planet. Advancing human development is not an exorbitant undertaking. For example, it has been estimated that the total additional yearly investment required to achieve universal access to basic social services would be roughly $40 billion, 0.1% of world income, barely more than a rounding error. That covers the bill for basic education, health, nutrition, reproductive health, family planning and safe drinking water and sanitation for all.”