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Planning for a Sustainable Future: The Case of the North American Great
Plains Sustainable Development: A Prescription for the Future | |
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As a keystone of the global food system, the success in creating a self-reinforcing cycle of ecological health and economic growth here on the Great Plains will be an important indicator of our capacity to achieve sustainable development on a global scale. With all the skills and talents available, expectations of your leadership are high. The challenge we face is avoiding being trapped in a situation in which our appetites collide with the ecological system that supports us. The need for human food, fuel, and shelter is placing an enormous strain on our natural resources - and on nature itself. The world's population is now 5.6 billion and increasing at the rate of 100 million per year, and it may hit 11 billion by the middle of the next century. At the same time, the world economy is also expanding. At 4% a year, global GDP will grow from $20 trillion to $160 trillion by the middle of the next century. The result is that ecological limits are being breached on regional and global scales. Regionally, cod stocks off the coast of Newfoundland have collapsed as a result of unsustainable harvests. Globally, evidence to date suggests that our climate is changing more rapidly than it was at the end of the last ice age and that we are losing biological diversity rapidly. We don't even know the long-term effects of many of these changes on our economies or our health. Another problem is the increasing number of chemicals and toxins being released into our waterways and atmosphere. DDT used to control malaria in Zimbabwe is showing up in the beluga whales of the Canadian Arctic. Native Innuit women's breast milk has been shown to contain chemicals and toxins at concentrations that would not be allowed in dairy products purchased at the store. The prosperity of future generations depends on economic growth, because the current global economy cannot sustain the needs of the current population and because economic growth is vital to controlling population growth. But future prosperity also depends on sustaining a critical mass of nature. The arithmetic doesn't work, because a $20 trillion economy has already exceeded these ecological limits. So the prospects for a $160 trillion economy are not good if a $160 trillion economy is just eight times more of the same. The critical step is realizing that our future condition is a result of our individual and collective choice. It is not preordained, and we have the power to determine a different future. The peculiar feature of these trends is that they don't show up on our political or economic radar screens. They don't lend themselves to easy imagery. The value of healthy ecosystems is not captured in the marketplace. The loss of species is hard to measure - especially when so much of what we are losing has neither been named nor catalogued. The effects of climatic change - and even of ozone depletion - will take a long time to manifest themselves. The effects of much toxic pollution are felt by other people in other places. The role of government, therefore, is to find ways of capturing value and ensuring the visibility of ecological effects so that political and economic decisions can be made in a way that acknowledges our obligations to the future. What that means, more specifically, is that government's role is to find ways to level the conservation of nature and the adaptation of human enterprise through the marketplace. Government has a big role to play in science and research - both in monitoring and understanding the state of nature and the causes and consequences of its loss. It has a role to play in creating the legal framework to ensure responsibility for fish stocks, the ozone layer, climate, and other aspects of global commons. And finally, it has a role to play in correcting the incentive effects of existing policies and institutional arrangements. These are critical roles - but in the grand scheme of things they are small because what ultimately matters is the decisions made by individuals and the action taken by communities to sustain nature and to sustain growth in the diversity of places and circumstances in which only local knowledge and local action is effective. My prescription would be:
About the Author Robert Slater was appointed assistant deputy minister, Environmental Conservation, at the Canadian Department of the Environment in November 1993. He joined the Department in 1971 and has a wealth of senior-level experience across a wide range of domestic and international issues, working both in the field and at headquarters. He played a leading role in the Canadian delegation to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Mr. Slater also served as assistant deputy minister of Corporate Policy, in which capacity he was instrumental in developing the Green Plan, the Canada-U.S. Accord on Air Quality, and numerous other national and international environmental initiatives. Previous appointments include assistant deputy minister of Environmental Protection and regional director general for Ontario. He was chairman of the International Joint Commission's Great Lakes Water Quality Board for six years and a member of the executive committee of the Multilateral Fund for the protection of the ozone layer. He is also a member of the Board of the World Environment Centre. Mr. Slater's early career involved working as a teacher in West Africa, as technical services manager for a water pollution control company in North America and Europe, and as manager of an environmental consulting organization in Canada. | |