Sustainable Development

Essay by Ed the SockUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, April 1997

download word file, 6 pages 4.5

Downloaded 241 times

By the year 2200 there will be a lot more people living on this planet then there are now. Estimates range anywhere from 15 to 36 billion people. Where will these people live? How will they live? The answer is sustainable development. Sustainable development, 'meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. ' It also, 'requires meeting the basic needs of all peoples and extending to them the opportunity to fulfill their aspirations for a better life. A world in which poverty is endemic will always be prone to ecological and other catastrophes.' Sustainable development is being ignored in Chile, the Philippines, and Siberia, practiced in Madagascar and in Alaska, and examined in the Lake Baikal region of Russia. These Countries must learn from each other's failures and success to discover what sustainable development involves in their 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 population is poor and as a result many make a living directly from the land clearing forests. In the IVth region of Chile, forest regions are being depleted at an amazing rate. This depletion of the forest in this region results in two main things, one, people must spend 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 desertification of the area. This soil erosion also removes many nutrients from the soil making the land poor for agriculture. The third division, social, is not met here either. The lack of organizations to relieve the negative effects of poverty...