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Environmental sustainable development
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What was one of the primary reasons behind the ecological problems on Easter Island?
In the Pacific Ocean, some 3,500 kilometers off the west coast of South America, lies Easter Island. Once, the island flourished, with a rich cultural and natural life, plenty of birds, and vast forests, filled with some the world's tallest palm trees. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the island met many hard challenges, and the Easter Island civilisation collapsed, their culture and population close to extinction. One of the reasons for this collapse, had to do with the trees. The islanders were cutting down trees, in order to make room for new fields, and to get building material.
For a while it went well, and the society developed. But when the islanders started cutting down trees faster than they could grow back, the problems began. Without the roots of the trees, holding the soil in place, the soil was washed off the island, during heavy rainfalls. With no soil on the ground, the trees couldn't grow back, and nothing else either, for that matter. And without trees, the birds had nowhere to nest, so birds started to become more scarce as well, further disrupting the balance of the ecosystem on the island, and its ability to provide food, shelter, and other ecosystem services to the population.
What happened on Easter island isn't unique. The islanders pushed their development hard, to meet their own needs. That development used up resources from nature... ... faster than it could grow back again, and without returning resources, at the same pace. Such development can only go on for a limited period of time, since it depletes precisely the resources that are needed to keep the development going.
That's not sustainable. The same thing happens, if the development causes pollution, that poisons or destroys, the natural environment... ... faster than nature's own capacity to recover. Does it have to be like this? Is development inherently unsustainable?
Do we have to choose, between development and a healthy environment? Or could we imagine development that is sustainable? ... Where the use of resources,... ... the returning of resources... ... and the natural regrowth of resources, all balance each other.
And where the pollution... ... and nature's ability to absorb, cleanse, and recover, also balance each other. Sustainable farming, uses methods that don't deplete the soil of its nutrients. So that the next year's crop can grow too, and the next, and the next. Sustainable energy, uses fuels only at the pace they are naturally replenished, and in ways that don't leave pollutants in the air for the next generation to deal with.
Sustainable production, only uses materials that can grow back, or can be recycled, and used again, and again. So that our children and grandchildren can keep producing. Sustainable development is something more than conservation of the environment. If we are to say it in a single sentence: Sustainable development is: development that meets the needs of the present, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. We don't need to stop the development, but we have to limit development to what the natural environment can cope with.
Most countries agree that sustainable development is something good, and desirable. But sustainable development also raises some difficult questions about equity and fairness. The countries that are rich today, are those that industrialised early. They have enjoyed immense economic development at the expense of the environment. Is it fair then, that those countries, are now asking low income countries, which are only starting to industrialise now, to limit their development, in order to save the environment?
How are we going to create a more sustainable development, and at the same time a more fair development? No one said that these are easy questions. But they're questions we'll have to solve.