This report outlines issues of sustainable development and its measurement which can be relevant for use in the PanAmazonian Countries (PAC). It reviews concepts of sustainability that have been formulated both in the political and scientific worlds and attempts to apply them to specific issues that can be relevant for assessing sustainable development in the PAC. The report emphasises the various ways in which sustainable development can be defined and measured. It describes the evolution of the concept of sustainable development in both the political and scientific arena. Many different definitions and operationalisations of the concept of sustainable development come to the foreground. However, there does not exist a methodology that can scientifically prove which conception or operationalisation is to be preferred above the other ones. More problems arise when sustainable development is to be measured by indicators. Indicators schemes that have been provided in the literature seem to be defined ad-hoc at best. For the study area of Amazonia, the report suggests that the Agenda 21 indicators can be a useful element in future studies. The precise set of indicators to be used depends also on the sustainability patterns to be investigated (economic sectors, regions, communities), the availability and reliability of the data necessary to construct the indicators, and the questions we want to answer
