Source: Inter Press Service. Date: 4 Dec 90. Story Type: News.
Original Language: English. Dateline: Perth, Australia. Byline:
Leah Makabenta. Text: Full. Brief Remark: Forwarded by ipsny.
ENVIRONMENT: NATURE CONSERVATION OR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT?
As awareness about the threats to the planet's life-support
systems spread, sharp differences have surfaced among green groups
over what direction global environmentalism should take.
There are undercurrents of conflict between purists who want
environmentalists to stick strictly to the conservation agenda to
protect nature and those who lean towards allowing the world's
poor to sustainably use natural resources so they can stay alive.
The issue has come to the fore at an international
environmental conference here organized by the Switzerland-based
World Conservation Union, which is known by its French acronym,
IUCN.
Traditionalists within the IUCN would like the organization to
concentrate on its original mandate -- protect nature reserves,
wildlife sanctuaries and national parks.
Disagreement about exploitation of the world's last-remaining
rainforests has brought the nature versus sustainable development
issue into sharp focus at the Perth meeting.
Green activists, represented here by a wide spectrum of Western
non-governmental organizations, charge that the IUCN is leaning
too far towards development instead of its conservation goals.
Philip Toyne, executive director of the Australian Conservation
Foundation -- the largest environmental group in the country --
said he believed the IUCN was changing its objectives to "curry
favor with the Third World".
IUCN officials consider the criticism unfair, and say they have
to balance the concerns of radical green groups with those of
Third World countries that need to develop.
"The Third World needs food, drinking water, land, minerals,
foreign exchange. Sustainable development will not erode the
world's environmental capital," asserted M.S. Swaminathan, the
Indian scientist and outgoing president of IUCN.
Sridath Ramphal, the former secretary general of the
Commonwealth and who now heads IUCN, agreed.
"The very fact that developing countries are involved in the
work of IUCN means that the IUCN would simply become irrelevant to
the problems of the south were it not to address them," Ramphal, a
Guyanese, told reporters.
He added: "Development for developing countries has to be the
priority."
The way to achieve this, according to sustainable development
proponents, is to obtain access to "clean and green" technologies.
Another controversy that has dogged the IUCN is whether or not
it should obtain sponsorship from transnational corporations and
big business.
Non-governmental groups have strongly opposed to the idea of
IUCN opening up its membership to groups like the Canadian Fur
Association (CFA) or the Australian Mining Industry Council
(AMIC).
These and other business groups are attending the conference as
observers, but they took part in the controversial debates --
particularly on business and the environment and the sustainable
use of tropical forests.
Said J.R. Damayanti of the Indonesian Forest Conservation
Network (SKEPHI): "Some of the mining companies were active
participants in the workshops. It seems to me that the workshops,
especially the one on tropical forests, were designed to give
legitimacy to the logging activities of the big transnational
companies."
On Dec. 2, the IUCN assembly rejected a call for it to open up
membership to business groups or to state governments in countries
like Australia and the United States.
That, however, did not end the debate on the whole issue of
IUCN and development.
The assembly was set to debate today a "mission statement"
which greens have criticized as a major dilution of what the
organization is all about.
The IUCN council has recommended a new mission statement for
the organization that reads: "To harness the insights and skills
of the world conservation movement in order to promote the
sustainable and equitable use of nature and natural resources and
to establish la harmonious future for humanity within the world
environment".
The problem in view of some developing countries delegates like
Javed Jabbar from Pakistan is the IUCN's "Euro-centric"
orientation and preoccupation with the concerns of people in the
rich world.
"The problem is that IUCN's president may be Asian but its
bureaucracy is first world," he told IPS.
Swaminathan agrees, and says he tried during his tenure to
bring the concerns of developing countries to the attention of the
body.
"I directed IUCN to take interest in the Andes, the Sahel. But
it is a slow process," Swaminathan told IPS. "For example, I
strongly believe the IUCN headquarters should not be in
Switzerland, but in some Third World country."
As for Ramphal, he said he would like to stress development in
its conservation dimension. He said: "To me species means living
species, and it mean all living things, not only pandas and
people."