Sustainable Development

"Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: • The concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and • The idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs." Sustainable development ties together concern for the carrying capacity of natural systems with the social challenges faced by humanity.  It offers a vision of progress that integrates immediate and longer-term objectives, local and global action, and regards social, economic and environmental issues as inseparable and interdependent components of human progress. The field of sustainable development can be conceptually broken into three constituent parts: environmental protection, economic sustainability, and social justice. Adopting a sustainable development perspective, amounts to looking at current problems through a new lens that broadens vision from a singular focus on only the economic or environmental or social aspects of an issue; to an integrated consideration of all three. The sustainable development lens also focuses attention on the horizons of the future as a way of seeing more desirable approaches to the problems of the present. The result is much better decision making that will lead to substantial savings in money and resources because increasing the boundaries of decision-making reveals opportunities for synergy that went unrecognized. The obstacles to achieving sustainable development in Less Economically Developed Countries: • The priorities of LEDC governments and individuals are often short term e.g. meeting the basic needs of population today. For example, providing shelter, food, fresh running water, education and healthcare. Many LEDCs are experiencing internal conflict/natural disasters and money is spent on the military/disaster relief rather than on these basic needs and longer term sustainable initiatives; • Corruption makes it difficult to priorities long term issues. Many leaders are in office for short periods of time and are changing often; • Lack of funds for sustainable initiatives; • Lack of qualified people to develop and implement alternative technologies due to a poor educational system and the “brain drain”; • Lack of education about finite resources. People do not know or understand the implications of over use of resources; • Many regions in LEDCs are inaccessible due to poor or limited infrastructure. It is, therefore, very difficult to implement a range of sustainable initiatives beyond the urban core; • Some LEDCs have economic sanctions imposed from MEDCs for political reasons that may hinder the exchange of technologies. Methods for achieving sustainable development: a) Poverty Eradication: Poverty and a degraded environment are closely inter-related, especially where people depend for their livelihoods primarily on the natural resource base of their immediate environment. Restoring natural systems and improving natural resource management practices at the grassroots level are central to a strategy to eliminate poverty. The survival needs of the poor force them to continue to degrade an already degraded environment.  Removal of poverty is therefore a prerequisite for the protection of the environment. Ensuring the security of their livelihoods is an imperative for sustainable development. b) Changing Unsustainable Patterns of Consumption and Production: With increasing purchasing power, wasteful consumption linked to market driven consumerism is stressing the resource base of developing countries further. It is important to counter this through education and public awareness. In several areas, desirable limits and standards for consumption need to be established and applied through appropriate mechanisms including education, incentives and legislation. Several traditional practices that are sustainable and environment friendly continue to be a regular part of the lives of people in developing countries. These need to be encouraged rather than replaced by more ‘modern’ but unsustainable practices and technologies. c) Protecting and Managing the Natural Resource: The integration of agriculture with land and water management, and with ecosystem conservation is essential for both environmental sustainability and agricultural production. An environmental perspective must guide the evaluation of all development projects, recognizing the role of natural resources in local livelihoods. The traditional approaches to natural resource management such as sacred groves and ponds, water harvesting and management systems, etc, should be revived by creating institutional mechanisms which recapture the ecological wisdom and the spirit of community management inherent in those systems. d) Sustainable agriculture: This implies the use of environmentally-friendly methods of farming that allow the production of crops or livestock without damage to human or natural systems. The different farming methods include agro-forestry; mixed farming; multiple cropping and crop rotation. Sustainable development thus requires the participation of diverse stakeholders and perspectives, with the ideal of reconciling different and sometimes opposing values and goals toward a new synthesis and subsequent coordination of mutual action to achieve multiple values simultaneously and even synergistically.  Sustainable development will not be brought about by policies only: it must be taken up by society at large as a principle guiding the many choices each citizen makes every day, as well as the big political and economic decisions that have. This requires profound changes in thinking, in economic and social structures and in consumption and production patterns.