... because we humans can only work
for a future we can imagine.
PRINCIPLES OF ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
from Ecologically Sustainable Development: a submission from the Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace Australia, The Wilderness Society, and World Wide Fund for Nature - Australia , to the Federal Government, August 1990, by WL Hare (Editor), JP Marloe, ML Rae, F. Gray, R. Humphries and R. Ledger. Pages 17-18. Published on-line with permission.
Ecological sustainability is an iterative process more than an objective and as such the principles outlined here are only a step towards guaranteeing Australia's future. The guiding principles are:
Inter-generational equity
The present generation should ensure that the next generation is left an environment that is at least as healthy, diverse and productive as the one we enjoy. Owing to the massive and irreversible rate of loss of species and habitats at present, we have an additional responsibility to give the highest priority to conserving the world's natural environment and species.
Conservation of biodiversity and ecological integrity
Conservation of biodiversity and the protection of ecological integrity should be a fundamental constraint on all economic activity. The non-evolutionary loss of species and genetic diversity needs to be halted and the future of evolutionary processes secured.
Constant natural capital and 'sustainable income'
Natural capital (eg biological diversity, healthy environments, freshwater supplies, productive soils) must be maintained or enhanced from one generation to the next. Only that income which can be sustained indefinitely, taking account of the biodiversity conservation principle, should be taken.
Anticipatory and precautionary policy approach
Policy decisions should err on the side of caution, placing the burden of proof on technological and industrial developments to demonstrate that they are ecologically sustainable.
Social equity
Social equity must be a key principle to be applied in developing economic and social policies as part of an ecologically sustainable society.
Limits on natural resource use
The scale and throughput of material resources will need to be limited by the capacity of the environment to both supply renewable resources and to assimilate wastes.
Qualitative development
Increases in the qualitative dimension of human welfare and not quantitative growth in throughput is a key objective.
Pricing environmental values and natural resources
Prices for natural resources should be set to recover the full social and environmental costs of their use and extraction. Many environmental values cannot be priced in monetary terms and hence pricing policies will form part of a broader framework of decision making.
Global perspective
A global perspective is needed to ensure that Australia does not simply move its environmental problems elsewhere.
Efficiency
Efficiency of resource use must be a major objective in economic policy.
Resilience
Economic policy needs to focus on developing a resilience to external economic or ecological shocks. A resource-driven economy is unlikely to be resilient.
External balance
Australia's economy needs to be brought into balance. External imbalance creates pressure to deplete natural capital and could undermine the prospect for an ecologically sustainable economy.
Community participation
Strong community participation will be a vital pre-requisite for affecting a smooth transition to an ecologically sustainable society.
Return to the possum skin cloak
To About the project
To the Bioregion
To the Painting the Future Real home page.
To the Imagine The Future Inc home page.
'Painting the future real' is an initiative of Imagine The Future Inc with the support of project partners.
For more information, contact Imagine The Future at
340 Gore Street, Fitzroy, Victoria 3065, Australia
phone: +61 3 9417 2033, fax: +61 3 9416 0767
email: imagine@peg.apc.org, or merrillf@dingo.vut.edu.au
[Page history: created and first published on www.ecoversity.org.au as part of Painting the future real (1995-97), the prototype for Redreaming the plain (1998-2002); taken off-line in 1998 and re-posted in its original form in July 2004 as a web archive. For more information contact redreaming@rmit.edu.au.]