development, "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. " It also, "requires meeting the basicneeds of all peoples and extending to them the opportunity to fulfill their aspirationsfor a better life. A world in which poverty is endemic will always be prone toecological and other catastrophes." Sustainable development is being ignored inChile, the Philippines, and Siberia, practiced in Madagascar and in Alaska, andexamined in the Lake Baikal region of Russia. These Countries must learn from eachother's failures and success to discover what sustainable development involves intheir own country.Sustainable development has three divisions, economic, environmental, and social.If sustainability is to occur it must, meet these three divisions. In Chile, none of these divisions is being met. Economically speaking, almost 40% of the populationis poor and as a result many make a living directly from the land clearing forests. Inthe IVth region of Chile, forest regions are being depleted at an amazing rate. Thisdepletion of the forest in this region results in two main things, one, people mustspend increasing amounts of energy traveling to the site of present cutting and two,the removal of the trees over time has lead to soil erosion and rapid desertificationof the area. This soil erosion also removes many nutrients from the soil making theland poor for agriculture. The third division, social, is not met here either. The lack of organizations to relieve the negative effects of poverty on the environment haveonly contributed to the problem.In the Philippines the environmental degradation is similar in nature but morecatastrophic in result. There in the province of Leyte 6000 people were killed whenflash flood ripped through Ormoc City in 1991. The floods were a result of logging of a forest in that region and conversion of that area into commercial farming practicessuch as sugarcane. This in itself did not cause the floods, the conversion of theforest into farming left the heavy rain from a typhoon with nowhere to go. Normallythe forest would have stopped any flash floods as it would have held the water let itout slowly, but with the forests gone there was nothing to delay the water fromexiting the system. The economical effect of this that land and buildings weredestroyed causing millions of peso's worth of damage. The social impact is easy todiscern, those who lost loved ones, friends, and family can never get them back.In Madagascar the same type of thing was happening. Locals were cutting down theforest and planting rice and cassava. It was estimated that this process of deforestation was costing the country between, "100 and 300 million a year indecreased crop yields, the loss of productive forests and damage to infrastructure."Something needed to be done, the government implemented a plan to, "protect andimprove the environment while working for sustainable development." The approach integrates all aspects of sustainable development. Socially, a publiceducation programme explains why locals shouldn't cut down the tree's and why itis economically more important that they don't. Environmentally, the forests will not
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