Carlsson, Ingvar G.

Collor, Fernando A.

Strong, Maurice F.

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NOTES, NEWS & COMMENTSJoint Communique of Three Concerned Leaders*Nineteen years ago, on this day of the calendar,delegates from all over the world gathered here inStockholm for the United Nations Conference on theHuman Environment. A few years before, the people ofthis planet had seen the first pictures taken from space ofour one and single common home, 'small and blue andbeautiful'. No wonder that the Conference theme became'Only One Earth'.The results of the 1972 Conference were of historicimportance. The Stockholm Declaration laid downprinciples for the responsibilities of States which havenever been challenged. The environment was firmlyplaced on the international agenda and its relationship todevelopment acknowledged. The United Nations Envi-ronment Programme was created. Important conventionswere signed in the follow-up to the Conference. A newawareness of the fragility of the world's ecologicalsystem began to influence minds and policies.World Changes During the Latest Twenty YearsThe world today is very different from that of 1972.Tremendous political and economic changes have takenplace. But the impact of the Stockholm Conference hasbeen felt throughout the period; environmental damage atthe local and regional levels has been checked in manyparts of the world, where progress, wealth, and advancedtechnologies, allowed countries to take effective action.Nevertheless, in other parts of the same world, mostcountries continued to face enormous economic andsocial problems — thus being unable to give theenvironment, in spite of increasing public awareness, thepriority it might have otherwise deserved.All these and many other efforts cannot conceal thefact that the planet's future is still at risk. Over the lastdecade, new and global threats have been perceived andothers have become more acute — such as ozone-layerdepletion, climate change, pollution of the oceans on aglobal scale, reduction of biological diversity, anddegradation of land resources. The realization of thoseproblems, whose consequences go far beyond nationalboundaries, leads to the realization of a sense of commonresponsibility towards the conservation of the planet'senvironment. The international community has to act asone — to tackle those problems in all their interrelatedaspects — if we are to keep alive the hope of a betterenvironment for the generations to come.Development Coupled to EnvironmentFurthermore, we have begun to understand better thatglobal environmental action requires global developmentaction. Poverty is in itself both a cause and a consequenceof environmental deterioration. The gravity of thedetrimental effects of this vicious circle is particularlyevident in the fast-growing cities of the 'developing'world, in which living conditions have been continuouslydeteriorating, sometimes to levels well below theminimum requirements of human dignity and surely of* Issued in Stockholm, Sweden, on the occasion of thecelebration there of World Environment Day, 5 June 1991 — seealso the substance of the speech of the President of Brazil, entitled'Passing of the Torch', to be published in our next issue. — Ed.health. Individual responsibility for the environment,which is the basis for effective action, cannot be expectedfrom people who see no hope of a better life. Solidarity atthe international and national levels is a prerequisite forsustainable development.Following the 1987 report of the World Commissionon Environment and Development, all these strands cametogether in the resolution by the UN General Assembly toconvene the United Nations Conference on Environmentand Development that Brazil will host in Rio de Janeiroin June 1992. If the Stockholm Conference consolidatedthe inclusion of the environment in the internationalagenda, the Rio de Janeiro Conference is to be seen as abridge between global environmental concerns, the manydifferent initiatives already under way to face them, and ajoint and concerted action by the whole internationalcommunity — aimed at the promotion of new andenvironmentally sound models of economic deve-lopment.The unique amplitude and comprehensiveness of theagenda set forth for the 1992 Conference stand as a signalof the high hopes of the whole international community.Passing the TorchAs the torch is now being passed — from Stockholmto Rio de Janeiro, from the Baltic to the Atlantic, andfrom North to South — Sweden and Brazil are united in ajoint commitment to the cause of environment anddevelopment. The President of Brazil and the PrimeMinister of Sweden, together with the Secretary-Generalof the Conference, solemnly pledge to spare no effort tomake the Conference a success, and to cooperate closelyin order to achieve decisions on concrete and effectiveaction in Rio de Janeiro.The Rio Conference is firmly placed in theperspective of the 21st Century. On this WorldEnvironment Day 1991 we look towards next year'sgreat Conference as the dawn of a new era ofinternational cooperation — a true global partnership forenvironment and development. The Future of Our OnlyOne Earth is In Our Human Hands.FERNANDO A. COLLOR, PresidentFederative Republic of BrazilOffice of the PresidentPlaga dos Tres Ponderes70 150 Brasilia DFBrazil,INGVAR G. CARLSSON, Prime MinisterPrime Minister's Office103 33 StockholmSweden,&MAURICE F. STRONG, Secretary-GeneralUnited Nations Conference on Environmentand Development160 Route de FlorissantPO Box 801234 ConchesGeneva, Switzerland.176Environmental Conservation, Vol. 18, No. 2, Summer 1991 — © 1991 The Foundation for Environmental Conservation — Printed in Switzerlandhttps:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892900021792Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 13:09:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at

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