GEO Brasil - UNEP

ecommendations
1 Uncertain Futur
uture
2 Apparent Local Dichotomy
The Third World GEO publication from the United Nations,
in 2002, presents four possible scenarios for the planet in
the next thirty years. Each scenario receives differentiated
weights for a group of similar variables. These variables
include economic and social uses and predominant abuses
of natural resource bases. These variables depend on the
balance among the nations and their ethical premises and
purposes.
In the first scenario, globalisation and economic
liberalisation are held as “indispensable elements to the
economic development process”, with growing negative
impacts on the environment. In scenario two, “social and
environmental goals” would determine economic growth.
The evaluation of the environmental cost would be priority.
This factor would determine the approval, or not, of the
political projects, reducing their impacts on the natural
resource bases. Scenario three presents the worst possible
perspective, where the preponderance of the economical
safety of industrialised countries would justify conflict and
isolation. This scenario would generate serious
consequences for the integrity of the planet. In contrast to
this horrific scenario, the last alternative of possible future
presented by the UN would favour consensus and
understanding among nations in the united construction
of economic and environmental sustainability policies.
This chapter deals with the current stage of this specific
construction effort, in which many countries are already
involved. Some countries maintain their commitment in
industrialised and underdeveloped countries. However,
others in the same categories, do not. A future is being built
with internal and international dissidence, with consensus
and conquest, with accomplished commitments and faulty
negligence, as well as our hopes. We must ask ourselves
which hopes these are.
The hypothetical contradiction - environment/development
- apparently underlies the resistance many times found in
countries with economies in transition. This is true for the
action of the State, as well as acceptance by society and the
implementation of changes that lead to the appropriate
administration of the environment.
Such hypothesis needs to be dealt with as a reality.
Developmental planning strategies based on economic
models that prioritise monetary return in detriment to any
other aspect appear as possible causes. Mechanisms of
sectorial development and fragmented administration,
which disrespect the interrelations among the various
components of the environmental system, understood as
natural, economic and social resources.
This hypothesis and its possible causes seem to stand out
in the State’s action. Sectorial despoiling occurs with the
economic and technological characteristics of the
development model implanted at the expense of the
apparent natural fertility of forest areas that is progressively
devastated. Since the beginning of the process of
accelerated industrialisation in the fifties until the nineties,
environmental degradation was considered to be the
“normal” price. Therefore, it was a politically acceptable
price to pay for the much-desired development.
Over the last decade, the adoption of the sustainable
development model as a desirable goal generated a series
of changes and readjustments in public policies and
production and consumption patterns in the country.
Dissidence and conflicts contribute as well. These are
presented in the third and second chapters of this report. In
terms of accomplished commitments and criticism of faulty
negligence, the support of the Brazilian population has been
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