GEO Brasil - UNEP

UNEP Presentation
Introduction to Environment Outlook -
Brazil
Since the United Nations Summit on the Human
Environment in Stockholm in 1972 and the Earth Summit
in Rio de Janeiro that took place 20 years later, the
environment has become more and more important for
world development. Today, in the expectations surrounding
the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held
in Johannesburg, we recognise that many of the victories
that were reached in Rio were not followed through.
Although the Earth Summit made a crucial impression on
the debate for sustainable development, it did not represent
a decisive moment in the hoped for change for a new model
of sustainable development.
Innovative political policies are necessary to reverse the
tendencies that are damaging to the environment, fully
incorporating it into economic development. Such policies
should be based on reliable current information on
environmental tendencies and should take efficiency into
account. This information represents a base for decision
making and appropriate environmental management. GEO-
Brazil is a valuable tool in this sense.
GEO-Brazil integrates the set of evaluations of the Global
Environment Outlook (GEO). These include those that
register the progress reached in the area of sustainable
development on the global, regional and national levels.
The report was developed by the Brazilian government under
IBAMA co-ordination using UNEP evaluation methodology.
Dozens of partner institutions participated in the process
contributing with technical knowledge on all areas related
to the environment, accomplishing an integrated evaluation.
In addition, GEO – Brazil clearly demonstrates the
importance of GEO as a process where hundreds of
individuals and organisations participated in the elaboration
and publication of the report and contributed to the
implementation of a national network of current information
on the environment in order to provide information for the
developers of political policies as well as the general public.
This report is only the first in a series that will be broadened
and refined periodically over the next few years.
The United Nations Environment (UNEP) is proud to have
sponsored GEO-Brazil. The development of a GEO report
about a country with the size and the abundance of resources
and ecosystems that Brazil has presented an enormous
challenge. Like similar initiatives, this project reveals the
priority given by PNUMA and Director Dr. Kalus Toepfer to
collaboration with Brazil, currently one of the principal
partners of UNEP in the region. GEO Brazil also serves the
proposals of the Forum of Ministers of the Environment of
Latin America and the Caribbean, whose presidency is
actually exercised in Brazil, soliciting UNEP support for
national and regional initiatives of GEO in Latin America
and the Caribbean.
We hope that GEO Brazil contributes in a significant way to
the environmental debate in Brazil and stimulates progress
towards sustainable development in a country that harbours
so many of the natural resources of Latin America and the
Caribbean and the world. The sustainable use of these
resources will serve as an inspiration to other countries in
their efforts towards the search for a new model for
sustainable development for the future.
Ricardo Sanchez Sosa
Director
Regional Office of the United Nations Environment
Programme for Latin America