Defining Sustainable Development for Our Common Future: A History of the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission) by Iris Borowy

Author:Iris Borowy [Borowy, Iris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Environmental, International Relations, Public Policy, Political Science, Environmental Policy, Law, Treaties
ISBN: 9780415825504
Google: yADbMgEACAAJ
Goodreads: 17803515
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

9

MOSCOW

In late 1986, pressure to produce a report mounted. After prodding from the IIPC, the WCED promised to supply a copy of their final report no later than 10 March 1987, giving IIPC members sufficient time before their meeting in April.1 It was a tight schedule with considerable revision work left to do. As a particular challenge, the commissioners faced a completely new paper on a topic which had only indirectly been addressed when discussing tropical rainforests in São Paulo.

In the remarkably short time since the meeting in Harare, the commissioners received a draft paper on nature conservation, which focused on disappearing species. The text explained the stakes in dramatic terms: of all forms of environmental degradation only mass extinction of species was irreversible.2 Tropical rainforests were most at risk since immense stretches of forest were being destroyed for plantations, oil exploitations and human settlement. Reducing the Amazon forests to those areas presently defined as parks and reserves would probably spell a loss of 66 per cent of its plant species, 69 per cent of its bird species and similar proportions in the remaining classes of species. Humanity could well be facing the elimination of half of all existing species, overwhelmingly plants and insects of potentially substantial material benefit to humans. In line with the WCED approach of the intertwined character of environment and the economy, the text based its argument on the economic value of species. It provided a list of examples, such as the increased productivity of corn and wheat gained through the infusion of germ plasm of wild forms, valued at over one billion dollars, and the rosy periwinkle, a plant from Madagascar, which was found to contain substances active against several forms of cancer, of potentially immense pharmaceutical value.3 In unmitigated enthusiasm and unperturbed by controversies regarding the patenting rights of biogenetic resources, which would form such a prominent part of the discussion just a few years later, the text hailed the benefits of genetic engineering, which would enable mankind to make full use of the genetic material available globally. Such bio-engineering would replace the Green Revolution with a ‘Gene Revolution’ and might soon enable humans to harvest crops in unheard of places and in unheard of forms, such as a ‘pomato’.4

As with other issues, a meaningful strategy against species extinctions had to address the underlying reasons of pressure on protected areas: the need for land for impoverished subsistence farmers, which, in turn, resulted from the combined effects of population growth, poverty and lack of industrialization, and the demand for cheap consumption products in high-income countries. Consequently, suitable policies would include increasing the price of land concessions within tropical forests and bringing taxes on land up to a more realistic value of its potential productivity in order to discourage landowners from keeping large stretches of underused land, making it available for cultivation by farmers and thereby reducing the pressure on primeval forests. One element, which touched on efforts to reconcile the relative interests of present and

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