Page Aim
This International Initiatives page sets SustainabilityLINKS' work against the international context of S&P concerns and policy making.
Page Contents
Why You Need SustainabilityLINKS
Is ‘Sustainable Development’ Unsustainable?
Early Initiatives
Stockholm Conference 1972
Progress for a Small Planet
Brundtland Report
Earth Summit 1992
Agenda 21
Agenda 21: Chapter 27
Rio Declaration
Earth Charter
NGO Alternative Treaties
ES2 1997
WSSD 2002
Hopes
Johannesburg Declaration
Key Outcomes
Plan of Implementation
Climate Change
Kyoto Protocol
IPCC Assessment Reports
Other Key Documents
Major International Agreements
Livestock's Long Shadow
Strengthening The Role Of NGOs: Partners for Sustainable Development
Sustainability Policy Implementation: a Global Perspective
Page Updates
This page currently requires a more comprehensive assessment of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
Why You Need SustainabilityLINKS
SustainabilityLINKS' work is based upon the United Nations' Agenda
21 initiative. Agenda 21 provided a turning point. Before
1992 the unsustainability of our lifestyle was an issue restricted
to campaigners and academics - our concerns' legitimacy was restricted
to that conferred by obscure scientific papers. By acknowledging
our global unsustainability world leaders gave sustainability a
mainstream credibility – and no amount of subsequent backtracking
or denial could ever reverse this.
Agenda 21 urged that global unsustainability should be addressed
through local democratic participation.
The only credible response to Agenda 21 would have been robust
remedial action, but in Britain LA21 was soon commandeered by local
Community Strategies and LSPs which have used the vocabulary of
concern – to focus on regeneration (ie construction) and public
service delivery programmes.
Over the past 25 years the links between global unsustainability,
grassroots participation and all those involved in these, have been
progressively severed rather than strengthened. Organisations
working on sustainability concerns are routinely excluded from effective
involvement in Sustainable Community Strategy, LSP and local government's
modernisation and locality working processes.
The LINKS website aims to empower the third sector in local decision-making.
SCS and LSP processess, like other Government initiatives
to engage the third sector more in public service delivery, have
been criticised as an attempt to transfer public services to the
market sector. Modernisation's critics have claimed that voluntary
and community organisations' caring agendas are being reshaped to
create self-funded businesses to provide the market sector with
lowly paid ancillary work through trickle-up regeneration schemes.
The same critics have claimed that in having to be increasingly
self resourcing the third sector is both becoming less autonomous
in its decision making - and having to do ever more with ever less.
Although many national VCOs working on S&P concerns have
very large memberships, few have the resources to support a nationwide
network of local branches. In the absence of these - and as
it's vitally important that such organisations' perspective
is represented at locality level - SustainabilityLINKS' eclectic
approach needs to become more widely adopted.
While UN Summits and documents highlight the great importance
of Education for Sustainability, there is derisory acknowledgement
of this in statutory provision.
As the international credit crunch has shown - national party
politics is running along behind a corporate-led agenda of economic
globalisation. This has increased both wealth and equal opportunities
divisions and harmed communities. Communities are now able
to stake a claim on some of the decision taking and policy making
processes that have been working against them.
Is ‘Sustainable Development’ Unsustainable?
Perhaps we should all by now be thinking not about our local ‘sustainable development’, a term whose meaning becomes increasingly diminished with usage, but about our global ‘unsustainability’, a more unequivocal and urgent concept.
For decades our communities, environment and economy have been becoming increasingly unsustainable.
Unlike those based on principles of conservation, our own society’s consumption-driven lifestyle contains the seeds of its own undoing. Beyond this, the same lifestyle is causing irreversible destruction to the Earth’s environment – to those natural systems upon which all life depends – and to the economy, which is playing a significant part in the systemic breakdown, while set on its own self-destruction. Exponential growth is impossible in a world of finite resources. So too is a system of doing business that's built on nothing more substantial than the servicing of capital through the crude dynamic of profit and debt creation. The economic prosperity that has for so long been society’s number one priority has been built using smoke and mirrors.
It was the United Nations Agenda 21 that highlighted the need for our global community to address this endemic unsustainability through the most democratic means possible – a grassroots participation in education, hands-on involvement and decision taking. However, if this way does fail, then the alternative, dangerously authoritarian and self-serving course, would no doubt prove as brutal as the effects of the collapse they seek to stem.
The full text of the 1992 UN Agenda 21 agreement can be accessed at the Agenda 21 website.
Early Initiatives
The Stockholm Conference, 1972
Only One Earth – the Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet was a report by Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos, commissioned for the UN's 1972 Conference on the Human Environment. The aim of the report – which subsequently became a best selling book – is to provide a conceptual framework for conference participants.
Progress for a Small Planet, 1979
By Barbara Ward, and with a foreword by the Executive Director of UNEP, Progress for a Small Planet is perhaps the first publication addressing the question of how people and societies can change to live less unsustainably.
Our Common Future / The Brundtland Report, 1987
The World Commission on Environment and Development was asked by the UN General Assembly to formulate ‘a global agenda for change’. It is from this report that the most quoted definition of sustainable development comes, ie “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Chapter 2 examined sustainable development’s two key elements – the needs of the world’s poor and the long-term importance of living within environmental limits.
Gro Harlem Brundtland was WCED chair and PM of Norway.
The Earth Summit, 1992
1 – 15 June 1992
In addition to Agenda 21, the Rio Earth Summit (or UN Conference on Environment and Development) agreed the Framework Climate Change Convention, the Biodiversity Convention, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and a statement of principles on the sustainable management of forests.
Under the UNCED Climate Change Convention, national governments should have developed inventories of greenhouse gas emissions, protected gas sinks and reservoirs, and stabilised those emissions causing global warming at 1990 levels. The UNCED Biodiversity Convention required national governments to develop biodiversity strategies and protect endangered species. The Summit established mechanisms to finance future environment and development work.
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) was also established during 1992 as the strategic body in the UN system for identifying and instigating action on key sustainability issues.
For many individuals and organisations involved in various environmental and poverty issues, the Rio Earth Summit was the culmination of decades’ work.
Agenda 21
The United Nations’ Agenda 21 was a main outcome of the Rio Earth Summit. The text is divided into four main sections:
Social and economic issues.
Resources.
Strengthening civil society for the challenges ahead.
Implementation.
See Agenda 21: Chapter 27 below for some extracts now relevant to participation in the production of Sustainable Community Strategies and other locality working.
The links between Agenda 21 and today’s Sustainable Community Strategies and Local Strategic Partnerships are clear.
Related Websites
http://habitat.igc.org/agenda21/ Agenda 21, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Convention on Biological Diversity, Statement of Principles on Forests
http://www.iisd.org/rio+5/agenda/default.htm Plain language version of Agenda 21 and Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. Also of the other 1992 Earth Summit documents – Convention on Biological Diversity, Statement of Principles on Forests and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Agenda 21: Chapter 27
These are extracts from Chapter 27 of the UN’s Agenda 21, which was signed by 178 of the world’s leaders. Chapter 27 is entitled Strengthening The Role Of Non-Governmental Organizations: Partners For Sustainable Development.
Paragraph 27.2
“One of the major challenges facing the world community as it seeks to replace unsustainable development patterns with environmentally sound and sustainable development is the need to activate a sense of common purpose on behalf of all sectors of society. The chances of forging such a sense of purpose will depend on the willingness of all sectors to participate in genuine social partnership and dialogue, while recognizing the independent roles, responsibilities and special capacities of each.”
Paragraph 27.5
“Society, governments and international bodies should develop mechanisms to allow non-governmental organisations to play their partnership role responsibly and effectively in the process of environmentally sound and sustainable development.”
Paragraph 27.6
“With a view to strengthening the role of non-governmental organizations as social partners, the United Nations system and governments should initiate a process, in consultation with non-governmental organizations, to review formal procedures and mechanisms for the involvement of these organisations at all levels from policy-making and decision-making to implementation.”
Paragraph 27.8
“Governments and international bodies should promote and allow the participation of non-governmental organizations in the conception, establishment and evaluation of official mechanisms and formal procedures designed to review the implementation of Agenda 21 at all levels.”
Paragraph 27.10
“Governments should take measures to:
Establish or enhance an existing dialogue with non-governmental
organisations and their self-organised networks representing various
sectors, which could serve to: (i) consider the rights and responsibilities
of these organisations; (ii) efficiently channel integrated non-governmental
inputs to the governmental policy development process; and (iii)
facilitate non-governmental coordination in implementing national
policies at the programme level;
Encourage and enable partnership and dialogue between local non-governmental
organisations and local authorities in activities aimed at sustainable
development;
Involve non-governmental organisations in national mechanisms
or procedures established to carry out Agenda 21, making the best
use of their particular capacities, especially in the fields of
education, poverty alleviation and environmental protection and
rehabilitation.”
Paragraph 27.13
“Governments will need to promulgate or strengthen, subject to country-specific conditions, any legislative measures necessary to enable the establishment by non-governmental organisations of consultative groups, and to ensure the right of non-governmental organisations to protect the public interest through legal action.”
The Rio Declaration
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agreed.htm
http://www.iisd.org/rio+5/agenda/default.htm
http://hei.unige.ch/-clapham/hrdoc/docs/riodeclaration.htm
http://www.dryerlint.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Eve/RioDeclaration
The United Nations’ Rio Declaration on Environment and Development was published on 16 June 1992, following the Earth Summit. It comprises 27 Principles outlining the need for action and the ways countries should proceed in their efforts to address global unsustainability.
“Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level. At the national level each individual shall have appropriate access to information concerning the environment… and the opportunity to participate in decision making processes.”
Principle 10, Rio Declaration.
The Earth Charter
The Earth Charter Commission document sets out an international code of values for a sustainable future. The principles are defined as respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, social and economic justice and democracy, non-violence and peace.
In 1987 the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development called for a charter that would establish fundamental principles for sustainable development. When the charter was left unfinished at the subsequent Rio Earth Summit, Summit secretary general Maurice Strong – together with Mikhail Gorbachev – took it forward by establishing the Earth Charter Commission, with steering committees in Africa and the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, Europe, North America, Latin America and the Caribbean. The final draft of the Earth Charter was approved in March 2000 and officially launched three months later.
“We stand at a critical moment in Earth’s history, a time when humanity must chose its future...
“…we must decide to live with a sense of universal responsibility, identifying ourselves with the whole earth community as well as our local communities. We are at once citizens of different nations and of one world in which the local and global are linked. Everyone shares responsibility for the present and future will-being of the human family and the larger living world.”
Preamble, The Earth Charter
The Earth Charter website includes advice on how we can use the document as an educational tool, values framework, discussion springboard and ethical blueprint within our communities. Its endorsement indicates a commitment to the spirit and aims of the document and an intention to work for the implementation of its principles.
Has your LSP, Citizens Panel or Third Sector Assembly considered
the Earth Charter yet?
The NGO Alternative Treaties
http://habitat.igc.org/treaties/index.htm
The Alternative Treaties were published from the Earth Summit’s Global Forum at Rio de Janeiro.
As well as the Earth Charter, these Alternative Treaties include the; People’s Earth Declaration, Rio de Janeiro Declaration, Treaty on Environmental Education for Sustainable Societies and Global Responsibility, Code of Conduct for NGOs, Treaty on Alternative Economic Models, Alternative Treaty on Trade and Sustainable Development, Debt Treaty, Treaty on TNCs; Democratic Regulation of the Conduct, Treaty on Consumption and Lifestyle, Poverty Treaty, Food Security Treaty, Alternative Non-Governmental Agreement on Climate Change, Treaty on Energy, Treaty on the Nuclear Problem, Forest Treaty, Pollution of the Marine Environment, Citizen’s Commitments on Biodiversity, Citizens’ Commitments on Biotechnology, Global Women’s Treaty for NGOs Seeking a Just and Healthy Planet, Treaty on Population, Environment and Development, Youth Treaty, Treaty on Militarism, the Environment and Development, Treaty on Urbanisation.
Earth Summit 2, 1997
23 – 27 June 1997
Although the Special Session of the General Assembly to Review and Appraise the Implementation of Agenda 21 (also called ES2 / Rio + 5) was widely criticised at the time and is now largely overlooked, it will be considered at length here because, in grassroots and other practical participation terms this 19th Special Session of the UN was highly significant.
The aim of the New York ES2 was for the UN to consider the implementation of Agenda 21, review the work of the UNCSD and renew commitment to the 1992 agreements.
It was condemned for various reasons – such as its failure to set climate change targets and agree aviation fuel tax proposals, develop SPC strategies, provide forest protection, instigate a north-south transfer of intermediate technologies, explore desertification convention and wider sustainability programme resourcing needs and publish an international commitment recognising urgency.
However, the main problem came from Agenda 21’s failure to address iniquitous global wealth distribution; aid from north to south had fallen by 25% since 1992. Leaders from developing countries were not easily appeased and it was feared that core Agenda 21 agreements would unravel.
More positively, it was at this Summit that leaders from the EU and elsewhere first acknowledged climate change would be a permanent part of the political agenda, although any major discussions were deferred to December’s now infamous Conference Of the Parties meeting in Kyoto.
The formal outcomes of the Summit were the Programme for the Further Implementation of Agenda 21, a Statement of Commitment, comprising six paragraphs of political compromises, and initiatives on oceans, freshwater and energy.
WSSD, 2002
26 August – 4 September 2002
“Sooner or later people will realise that the emperors of materialism and individualism have no clothes on and no planet to rule.”
Dr Carolyn Stephens. Senior Lecturer in Environment and Health Policy. www.lshtm.ac.uk
Two parable-like facts sum up the ethos of the Johannesburg WSSD, which no doubt contributed to newsmedia coverage focusing on the wholly inappropriate conspicuous consumption associated with such international level jamborees:
Neighbouring Soweto and Alexandra are typical South African townships
where people live in desperate poverty. The event itself was
staged in the opulent Sandton complex, whose main open area was
hired by BMW to showcase its wares
While Blair’s British Delegation included representatives from
three British TNCs with negative environmental records (Rio Tinto,
Thames Water and Anglo-American) his own Environment Minister was
excluded – until Friends of the Earth offered to pay his fare.
“Rich countries are conspiring to turn the Earth Summit into the world’s largest trade fair.”
FOE, June – July 2002.
“The glass of development has been snatched by a greedy few who are slurping noisily on their straws while the rest look on anxiously as the contents rapidly disappear.”
Andrew Ross. Editor, eg Journal.
Well before the Summit it had become clear that its sustainability objectives would be overshadowed and undermined by parallel, but conflicting, economic globalisation trends.
The EC had identified four causes of the earlier Rio Summit’s failure in both environmental and developmental terms:
Continuing patterns of unsustainable production and consumption.
Lack of target setting and monitoring.
Poor North South relationships.
Week domestic government in developing countries.
Perhaps these were diplomatic euphemisms for, or perhaps symptoms of, the real cause – the economic globalisation that was bringing the world its free trade agreements, structural adjustment programmes, privatisation of goods and services and cuts in public welfare and expenditure, through the binding international laws of the WTO, IMF and World Bank.
Summit Hopes
Friends of the Earth had identified three Summit priorities:
The enforcement of existing international agreements.
The introduction of a treaty on corporate accountability.
Measures to bring IMF, World Bank and WTO work into a sustainability
framework.
UNED Forum hoped that the Summit would follow up and implement the six Rio conventions and protocols on bio-safety, climate change, desertification, fish stocks, organic pollution and ‘prior informed consent’.
A focus of wider civil society input had also been provided by UNED Forum a year earlier. From 29 August until 28 September 2001 the multi-stakeholder organisation had held international online discussions, enabling it to feed debate summaries through the UNCSD into Summit processes. This exercise had looked at four areas of concern that had come to the fore since Rio:
HIV / AIDS.
Sustainable cities (a majority of the world’s population were
now living in cities).
The further democratic marginalisation of the poor.
Corporate accountability.
“Governments are often no longer in a position to put the required regulations in place without exposing themselves to various retributions…
“No corporation should be allowed to have the strength to force governments in short-term counter-productive cooperation at the expense of longer term sustainability.”
UNCHS. UNED Forum Online Debate for WSSD, 2001.
“There is a need for good governance, transparency and systematic processes of participation and the rehabilitation of the regulatory role of governments.”
Executive Summary. UNED Forum Online Debate for WSSD, 2001.
As anticipated, the corporate world brought its influence to bear on proceedings and outcomes through various means, such as the placing of business representatives in key positions on national delegations, the repeated insistence on self regulation and the promotion of private sector partnerships as positive Summit outcomes. Prior to the WSSD a reorganisation of the UN had seen the closure of its Centre on Transnational Corporations, and the Code of Conduct that the UN had prepared for TNCs abandoned.
Effective climate change action had been taken off the Summit agenda at preparatory meetings, owing to their ‘controversial’ nature, although positive announcements were made by Russia, Canada, Mexico and China. In general sustainability terms Summit achievements were depressing:
There was a failure to agree renewable energy targets with the
US and Australia remaining intransigent on climate change.
A Rio commitment to halt biodiversity loss was weakened to one
slowing the rate of extinctions.
No binding targets were set to restore fish stocks.
Development aid targets were reduced to aspirations.
Water and sanitation pledges were left as non-binding.
“The WSSD is an opportunity wasted, a triumph for greed and self interest, a tragedy for the poor and the environment.”
Oxfam, 2002
The WSSD, “represented a triumph for civil society… highlighting not poverty or environmental degradation so much as the greed and exploitation that creates them.”
Mathew Wooton. Plaid Werdo Cymru / Wales Green Party Delegate.
Human rights issues have traditionally been associated with nation states. Now that over half of the world’s hundred largest economies are corporations, the growing number of communities believing it’s time to reassess by whom human rights are being denied, were well represented at the Summit.
Johannesburg Declaration
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agreed.htm
www.johannesburgsummit.org/html/basic_info /agenda21.html
www.joburg.org.2a/clean_city/johannesburgdeclaration
www.dryerlint.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Eve/JohannesburgDeclaration
The United Nations‘ Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development was published by the UN from the World Summit on Sustainable Development on 4 September 2002. Its four pages are divided into 37 statements which outline WSSD concerns and commitment to actively address global unsustainability.
“At the beginning of this Summit the children of the world spoke to us in a simple but clear voice that the future belongs to them, and accordingly challenged us al to ensure that through our actions they will inherit a world free of the indignity and indecency occasioned by poverty, environmental degradation and patterns of unsustainable development.”
Statement 3, Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development
“…we solemnly pledge to the peoples of the world and the generations who will surely inherit this earth, that we are determined to ensure our collective hope for sustainable development is realised.”
Statement 37, Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development.
Johannesburg Key Outcomes
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agreed.htm
Following the UNs’ Key Outcomes document outlined the Summit initiatives and implementation framework.
“The views of civil society were given prominence at the Summit in recognition of the key role of civil society in implementing the outcomes and in promoting partnership initiatives.”
Bullet 7 Key Outcomes of the Summit, Johannesburg WSSD, 2002
Key Outcomes cover commitments on poverty eradication, water and sanitation, SPC, energy, chemicals, natural resources, corporate responsibility, agriculture, biodiversity and ecosystem management and health. There were also provisions made for the particular needs of small islands and Africa.
Johannesburg Plan of Implementation
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agreed.htm
The United Nations published the WSSD Plan of Implementation in September 2002. 54 pages long it reaffirms commitment to the Principles of the Rio Declaration and full implementation of Agenda 21.
The text covers a wide range of sustainability concerns, ranging from resource depletion and globalisation to desertification and sustainable tourism, as well as commenting on different regional perspectives. It urges that within the transparency and broad public participation framework of Agenda 21 there should be a strengthening of partnerships between governmental and non-governmental actors, and of institutional arrangements on programmes of action.
Climate Change
IPPC Climate Change Assessment Reports
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was set up in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme and World Metrological Organisation. The IPCC is the most authoritative body monitoring climate change.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was published by the UN on 11 December 1997. The document’s 28 Articles span 23 pages and require its signatories to reduce their countries’ greenhouse gas emissions.
“The successful implementation of greenhouse gas mitigation options needs to overcome many technical, economic, political, cultural, social, behavioural and / or institutional barriers which prevent the full exploitation of the technological, economic and social opportunities of these mitigation options… In the industrialised countries, future opportunities lie primarily in removing social and behavioural barriers.”
Paragraph 17, IPCC Third Assessment Report, 2001.
Since then the IPCC undertakes ongoing research on climate change. Its Third Assessment Report was approved at the WG III session at Accra, Ghana in 2001. The Fourth Assessment Report was published in 2007.
IPPC Working Group I addresses the scientific aspects of climate change, WGII the socio-economic and national implications and WGIII how we can mitigate the impacts. The Synthesis Report brings these together.
The Fourth Assessment Report’s Summary for Policy Makers outlines the need for a comprehensive response to climate change – its recommendations do not simply relate to government, but recognise the need for a universal action. It stresses the urgent need is for people to make mitigating behavioural changes through means such as social re-education, institutional and other collective rules.
“These innovations frequently meet with resistance, which may be addressed by encouraging greater public participation in decision-making processes. This can help contribute to new approaches to sustainability and equity.”
Paragraph 10, IPCC Third Assessment Report, 2001.
Other Key Documents
Major International Agreements
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agreed.htm
Those Major International Agreements relevant to S&P work are gathered together on the website hosted by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Division for Sustainable Development.
Documents accessible on the UNDESA site include:
The Millennium Declaration.
The Monterrey Consensus.
Documents from Earth Summit 2.
The Declaration of the UN Conference on the Human Environment
(1972).
The Programme Of Action of the International Conference on Population
and Development (1994).
The Report of the World Summit for Social Development (1995).
The site serves to illustrate the extent to which national governments are failing to enable communities to take the very necessary, internationally agreed, actions.
Livestock's Long Shadow
www.virtualcentre.org.en/library/key-pub/longshad/ao701e/AO701EOO.pdf
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation report ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow’ says that the “livestock sector has such deep and wide ranging impacts that it should rank as one of the leading focuses for environmental policy” and that its “impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency”.
Livestock’s Long Shadow assesses the significant impacts of the livestock industry on the environment – from biodiversity, water and air pollution and deforestation to overgrazing, desertification and land degradation and climate change. It was intended to examine the links, raise their profile and encourage technical and political remedies.
The multi-stakeholder report was co-ordinated by the UN’s FAO against a background of rising global demand for animal origin foods (production is forecast to double by 2050) and consequent pressure on natural resources. It was based on previous work undertaken by LEAD, which brought together R&D on livestock and the environment.
The most recent LEAD assessment had differed from its earlier work in shifting from a livestock perspective to one considering livestock’s contribution to environmental changes. It was anticipated that this would enable decision making to embrace those issues necessary to effectively address the true nature of the identified environmental problems. Livestock’s Long Shadow says that although the international demand for animal produce is growing and the industry is competing for scarce natural resources, it is “economically not a major global player”.
“The livestock sector emerges as one of he top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.”
Executive Summary, Livestock’s Long Shadow. UN FAO, 2007.
There are various concerns discussed, ranging from globalisation, land-use changes, increased transportation, loss of eco-systems, carbon and nitrogen emissions.
Animal origin food production is responsible for 18% of total
greenhouse gas emissions. Livestock are responsible for emissions
with a “far higher potential to warm the atmosphere”. Methane
has 23 times the GWP of CO2 and nitrous oxide 296 times.
In discussing land degradation a significant factor is the extent
of the livestock industry’s high demand for land; it exceeds that
of any other user.
A diet including foods of animal origin also places a large demand
upon water supplies – while “64% of the world’s population (are)
expected to live in water stressed basins by 2050” livestock is
a major cause of increasing water usage and is “probably the largest
sectoral source of water pollution”.
Asserting that “the livestock sector may well be the leading
player in the reduction of biodiversity” the FAO report refers to
the IUCN Red List which shows, “most of the world’s threatened species
are suffering habitat loss where livestock are a factor”. An
unprecedented rate of species loss is running up to 500 times higher
than fossil records.
However, the FAO report also identifies those communities of interest responsible for making the necessary policy and practice changes as extending beyond the livestock industry and agriculture, showing how they range from private to public, inter-governmental to non-governmental, corporate to individual, global to local.
One of the most crucial cross-cutting remedies is the introduction of real costings, natural resources are routinely regarded as inexpensive or free or subject to perverse subsidies, which actually serve to encourage environmental damage.
Strengthening The Role Of NGOs:
Partners for Sustainable Development
www.unep.org/Documents/Default.asp?DocumentID=52&ArticleID=75&1=en United Nations Environment Programme guidance.
Sustainability Policy Implementation: a Global Perspective
International Council for Local Environment Initiatives, 2002
Perhaps because LA21 concerned localities it is widely seen as a late 1990s’ British initiative to help communities address environmental problems. In truth Local Agenda 21 programmes have been undertaken all around the world, and are still proceeding apace elsewhere.
By 2002 a UN survey showed that 6,416 local authorities from 113 countries were involved in LA21; and it is this comprehensive survey (submitted by ICLEI to the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs to inform the WSSD in 2002) that has been used in the compilation of these paragraphs.
Internationally LA21 has been seen to be most successful in affecting issues concerning water supplies, education and public awareness, waste reduction, community empowerment, sanitation and energy conservation. In the developed world it has also been associated with city beautification, while in the developing world it has addressed concerns such as poverty alleviation and capacity building.
Within LA21 there has been scope for the national prioritisation of different issues. For example, Turkey’s LA21 has focused on strengthening sustainability input into local decision making, while Peru’s has highlighted the need for local government and civil society partnerships to address those environmental problems facing vulnerable people.
“A participatory, multi-stakeholder process to achieve the goals of Agenda 21 at the local level through the preparation of a long-term strategic plan that addresses priority local sustainable development concerns”
Definition of LA21 set out in Second LA21 Survey, 2002. ICLEI.
The ICLEI survey required more than a commitment to LA21 if local area initiatives were to be considered eligible for inclusion – there also had to be evidence of community involvement and perhaps even of an emerging strategy. The necessary multi-sectoral approach had to indicate the involvement of communities, churches, professional associations and unions, voluntary groups, and social and environmental justice organisations.
The 2002 survey showed that an increasing number of LA21 initiatives had been developed since the initial 1997 survey, with the research receiving the greatest number of responses from the Asia-Pacific region. A note of the first and last named countries in the alphabetical listings of different region’s LA21 respondents would serve to suggest the spread of support – Australia to Vietnam, Benin to Zambia, Albania to Yugoslavia, Iran to Yemen.
The lead for developing LA21 had come from local government in 73% of the study responses, with the rest led by NGOs (19%), communities (17%), individuals (11%) and national government (10%). The greatest community input into LA21 decision taking was found in the developing world.
The main obstacles to formulating and implementing LA21 strategies encountered by localities are insufficient funding and a lack of central government support, though the various supplementary reasons were found to differ depending on the national GDP where the programmes are based.
“Our new knowledge of our planetary inter-dependence demands… ‘Is this not a precious home for all of us? Is it not worth our love? Does it not deserve all of the inventiveness and courage and generosity to preserve it from degradation and destruction?’”
Barbara Ward and Rene Dubos. UN Conference on the Human Environment, 1972.
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