Concept of Sustainable development

Sustainable development is a relatively new concept. One of his first, and probably the best known, is the definition provided by the Brundtland Commission in 1987. The Brundtland Commission was a commission convened by the United Nations in 1983 to take into account "the accelerated deterioration of the human environment and natural resources and the consequences of that deterioration of the economic and social development." Formally known as the World Commission on Environment and Development, the commission is better known by the name of its chairman, the Norwegian diplomat Gro Harlem Brundtland. The Brundtland Commission defined sustainable development as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs".

In its simplest most basic sense, sustainable development refers to the creation of social and political systems that enable people to reach their highest level of health, happiness and success by using but not deplete natural resources available. In that sense, sustainable development is often considered to be based on three pillars: environmental sustainability, economic sustainability and sociopolitical sustainability. The primers on sustainable development often illustrate these three elements in the form of a diagram showing three intersecting circles, one for each of the three pillars. The intersection of any pair of circles represents one aspect of sustainable development. The interaction of the business and socio-political, for example, represents the characteristic of a society that guarantees equality of all members of a society. The intersection of economic and environmental circles is a viable society, ie it continues to operate effectively, and that does not deplete natural resources it needs to continue operating at maximum efficiency. Take the intersection of the three circles, of such a diagram to represent a sustainable society in which they are meeting the needs represented by the three circles.

Needless to say, perhaps, that a society probably can not survive unless it adopts a philosophy of sustainable development. Consider a nation, for example, that depend on trees for most of their basic needs such as fuel, shelter and raw materials for a variety of products. If the people of that nation's crop trees as fast as they need, faster than the trees can grow back with time out of basic materials which culture depends. The country's economy may begin to fail (the economic effect), and the life of the people is almost certain to make it harder (socio-political effect). Many early peoples learned this principle without having to read about it in books. Discovered by trial and error they had to think about their needs not only for this year but for years in the future, ensuring that protect natural resources to ensure they would be available for future generations. Nations have been developed only recently begun to exhaust their supplies of natural resources at a rate faster than they can be replaced, a phenomenon that led, in fact, to the creation of the Brundtland Commission in 1983.

Some people argue that sustainable development implies fourth pillar: cultural diversity. Compare the need for cultural diversity to biodiversity. I mean, like a healthy environment depends on a wide and complex variety of plants, animals and other living organisms, so does a viable world or regional society depends on a complex mix of different cultures, all with their own stories, philosophies, traditions and development approaches. The argument for culture as the fourth pillar of sustainable development most often comes from the natives, who are under pressure from developed countries to modernize their cultures and leave the ways "old-fashioned" of life maintained by generations . These people have claimed in various international forums that sustainable development depends not only on economic and political development and social and environmental protection, but also in the protection of cultural diversity, to provide a means "to achieve a more satisfactory intellectual , emotional, moral and spiritual existence ".

The concept of sustainable development has swept the world over the past two decades. Government agencies at all levels, from the United Nations to local city governments have begun to examine the specific ways in which sustainable development principles can be implemented within their areas of competence. In addition, many non-profit organizations and private NGOs have been formed to study the implications of sustainable development and the means by which this concept can be put into practice. As an example, the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) was created in 1992 within the Department of Economic and Social Affairs to follow up the recommendations of the United Nations Conference 1992 on Environment and Development UN (so-called Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro. Today, the DSD is dedicated to a wide variety of activities, ranging from help countries and regions to develop sustainable development policies to help countries develop and implement sustainable development practices.

Another way to address the problems of sustainable development through organizations such as the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), a research organization created by the Canadian government in 1990 to study specific issues in sustainable development and to provide information on its findings to the countries and communities where they can practice. IISD is currently conducting research and providing information on a variety of issues, including climate change and energy, foreign investment for sustainable development, sustainable markets, adaptation and risk reduction, and governance for sustainable development.

The implementation of sustainable development is inevitably heavily influenced by local issues. The United Nations University (UNU), for example, has focused on the problems of sustainable development in Zambia, a country whose economy is dominated by the environmental devastation of the mining industry. UNU has been trying to find ways to improve the quality of social, cultural and political development in the country, considering the crucial economic role of mining in Zambia.