Our Country, The Planet by Ramphal Shridath S.;Topping Seymour;

Author:Ramphal, Shridath S.;Topping, Seymour; [Ramphal, Shridath ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 6531168
Publisher: Island Press
Published: 2013-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

There were good reasons for my concern that sustainable development, which received much attention among thoughtful people in industrial countries, was being distorted in two ways in some quarters. First, it was regarded as a precept to be observed essentially by developing countries in pursuing economic development, something that had little to do with the rich world. And secondly, in the context of economic development, some felt environmental protection should be detached from the requirement that the essential needs of the world’s poor should be met—a requirement the commission regarded as an overriding priority. There has also been a tendency in the same quarters to believe that environmental protection can be assured while neglecting certain critical development factors to which we drew attention in the Brundtland Report. These include income redistribution to ensure that countries are not forced to exhaust natural resources for short-term survival; the reduction of vulnerability, mainly again of the poor, to crises such as floods, droughts, and a collapse of agricultural prices; the universal provision of such basic attributes of sustainable living as health, education, water, and clean air; and the protection of the weakest members of society.

As a result, there is genuine concern in developing countries that failure to make the connection between economic and human development on the one hand and environmental protection on the other could encourage industrial countries to adumbrate policies for them that in the name of environment give scant attention to the basic needs of people and the critical importance of economic growth if those needs are to be satisfied. That would be a betrayal of the concept of sustainable development as the Brundtland Commission envisaged and advanced it.

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