Censat Agua Viva

Since 1987, when the Brundtland Commission first linked environment and development concerns, it has gradually become fashionable to approach biodiversity conservation from an economic perspective. In the early 1990s analyzing the impacts of economic, trade, finance and subsidy policies on biodiversity was a relatively new thing: "It's the economy, stupid" was a popular slogan that was used by certain conservation scientists and NGOs. It was still considered to be very forward looking if a conservation organization decided to include economists in its staff. By looking at biodiversity conservation through economists' eyes, the biodiversity conservation community hoped it would be able to influence economic policies and incentive schemes and adapt them to the needs of biodiversity conservation.

Sarawak was the focus of the international tropical timber trade campaign from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s when the Penan and its other indigenous communities blockaded logging roads to stop logging companies from destroying their forests and called upon the international community to support their cause.
The European Parliament back then responded by passing several resolutions, calling upon Malaysia to stop destructive logging and human rights violations against its indigenous peoples.

Rapid expansion in the use of agricultural crops as a transport fuel has been justified in Northern countries as a pro- development policy that will help bring developing countries out of poverty. The agrofuels boom, it is said, will increase agricultural production, generate foreign revenues through export, make countries less dependent on imports of fossil fuels, and drive much needed new investments in agriculture and rural communities. No other region has embraced this idea as much as Latin America, where countries have started expanding agriculture production and putting in place the infrastructure necessary to access and supply the European and US markets. Brazil has become one of the most vocal promoters of agrofuels. In order to deflect criticisms, these countries assure the North that there is enough land available for increased production, that the local population is actually benefiting and that the crops are being grown in a sustainable way.

The upheaval caused by climatic change is approaching the scale of that caused by armed conflict. A recent United Nations report shows that more people are being displaced in the world today as a result of environmental problems than because of conflict, and many of them are climate refugees. Climate change is no longer a potential threat. It is now an established reality of life on our planet.

“Local initiatives for sustainable development through community-based resource governance necessarily imply a struggle for greater control over resources and institutions by those hitherto excluded from such control. Such struggles for self-empowerment are inevitably highly conflictive”

Poverty is the greatest shame and scandal of our era. As we kick off the 21st century, more than one billion people around the world live in extreme poverty. Some 25 million people die from hunger each year, and a billion people lack access to clean drinking water. Nearly half of all Africans live on less than one dollar per day. The figures are numbing; however, a growing number of people believe that it is possible to eradicate poverty within the next few decades.