By: Ray Vincent Gomez

Leoneil John Francisco

Definition

Sustainable development
 Development which meets
the needs of the present
without compromising the
ability of future generations
to meet their own needs
 The term ‘sustainable development’
was used as early as 1974 in
Cocoyoc Declaration during a special
meeting of the two bodies of the
United Nations in Cocoyoc, Mexico ,
UNCTAD and UNEP. The meeting was
to discuss the effects of technologies
which are destructive to the physical
environment.
Brief History

 In July 1970, an international

research team in the MIT
started to study the effects
and limits of continued world
growth. The conclusions
published in Limits of Growth
are:
Brief History: Limits of
Growth
 If the present growth trends in the
world population, industrialization,
pollution, food production and
resource depletion continue
unchanged, the limits to growth on
this planet will be reached sometime
within the next one hundred years.
The most probable result will be a
rather sudden and uncontrollable
decline in both population and
industrial capacity.
Brief History: Limits of
Growth
 It is possible to alter these growth
trends and to establish a condition of
ecological and economic stability that is
sustainable far into the future. The
state of global equilibrium could be
designed so that the basic material
needs of each person on earth are
satisfied and each person has an equal
opportunity to realize his individual
human potential.
 If the world's people decide to strive for
this second outcome rather than the
first, the sooner they begin working to
attain it, the greater will be their
Core issues

 Population
 Food security
 Species and ecosystems
 Energy
 Industry
 The urban challenge
Development: GNP is not
enough
 GNP measures 'productive' activity in a very
narrow way, excluding, for example, the
productive activities of the household because
many of these are undertaken by women and
children.
 A measure of 'formal' sector activity, whether
in the primary sector or in manufacturing and
services
 GNP is a very blunt instrument for measuring
economic development without considerable
attention being given to demographic profiles
 Economic growth measured through GNP is
also an inadequate measure of how
production is deployed.
Development: GNP is not
enough
 GNP figures also fail to distinguish between
groups of people especially social classes, within
a country

 GNP statistics record the productive utilization

of resources, whether or not theses resources
are renewable

 From an environmental standpoint, then ,GNP, is

a particularly inadequate guide to development
since it treats sustainable and unsustainable
production alike and compounds the error by
including the costs of unsustainable economic
activity on the credit side, while largely ignoring
processes of recycling and energy conversion
which do not lead to the production of goods or
Grassroots Environmental
Action
 The participation of people of the
local level in meeting the challenge
of sustainable development has the
great merit of providing a
mechanism for taking into
consideration local conditions and
social issues at every stage of the
planning process.
Grassroots Environmental
Action
 Local level participation or the
grassroots environmental action is
not sufficient by itself to prevent or
reverse the environmental
degradation in situations where
national policies or global-level
ecological changes create major
destructive forces.
Grassroots Environmental
Action
 Redclift’s approach calls for a
substantial rethinking of the
theoretical basis of sustainable
development, which, he asserts
should include not only economic,
but also political and epistemological
dimensions
Multiple Dimensions of
SD
 Political
 the weight of human agency and social structure in
determining the political process through which the
environment is managed;
 and the relationship of power and knowledge in
popular resistance to dominant world views of the
environment and resources.
 Economical
 we need to protect nature from
unfretted growth if we are to preserve
human welfare before diminishing
returns begin to set in
Multiple Dimensions of
SD
 Epistemological
 In the course of time much of the
knowledge possessed by people outside
mainstream science, especially in
developing countries, becomes encoded
in rituals, in religious observations and in
the cultural practices of everyday life.
Environmental Issues

 Rural Poor and Sustainable

Development
 Contested Resources: Power,
Resistance and Social Change
 Foundations for Sustainable
Development: Participation,
empowerment, and local resource
management
 Participation and Conservation
Projects : Some Promising
Zanjeras as a case study

 Zanjeras are organizations that build

and maintain irrigation ditches in Ilocos
Norte. They are known in the
Philippines and abroad for their
enduring capacity to manage gravity-
fed communal irrigation system, and for
their rules and regulations governing
water allocation and distribution,
system operation and maintenance,
and conflict management. Other
zanjeras had been operating for up to
Existing Envt’l Problems
of Zanjeras’system

 However, there exist environmental

problems associated with agriculture,
such as soil erosion. Also, the
changeability of the river’s course and
characteristics which made the task of
brush dam construction and repair
increasingly difficult.
Intervention of the
National Gov’t
Institution
 In order to bring additional irrigation
water supplies, NIA designed and
created the INIP and its JICA-grant
area to strengthen the inefficient,’
unlinked system of scattered zanjera
brush dams.

 NIA or National Irrigation Administration

 INIP or Ilocos Norte Irrigation Project
 JICA or Japan International Cooperation
Problems arises such as:

 The resistance of the zanjera to

join the project for the following
reason:
 They had enough water to sustain them
without the help of the NIA project
 They did not want to pay irrigation fees to
NIA.
 They did not want to give up their water
rights or grant NIA the ROW. The tenants
would lose their livelihood
Problems arises such as:

 This resulted to apparent weakening

of voluntary labor system for repair,
maintenance and operation activities
in some of the members. They are
now dependent on NIA equipment
and staff to make major repairs to
the dams and head intakes.
Problems arises such as:

 INIP has aggravated existing

environmental difficulties, such as
flooding, for the zanjeras in certain
areas of the project; it has also
caused and contributed to new
problems – soil erosion and
sedimentation – in other project
location
Problems arises such as:

 On several occasions it took NIA months

to repair major damages, due to lack of
funds and materials, and to bad
weather. This delay occur even when
the project was in the midst of a full
construction schedule with available
funds to make the repair.
 These delays on repair and clean-up
activities by NIA interfered the delivery
of the irrigation water in a timely
fashion of the zanjeras.
Resolution

 The thrust of INIP’s revised -

participatory planning approach is to
preserve the integrity of the zanjeras’
organization by designing the irrigation
project in a way which builds on the
strengths of the original character of
the traditional resource management
systems rather than trying to change
completely those traditional system.
Resolution

 Sustainable agriculture refers

to the ability of a farm to
produce food indefinitely,
without causing irreversible
damage to ecosystem health
Local Resource Management and
Development: Strategic
Dimensions of People’s
Participation
Environmental equilibrium can be
affected by:
 the existence and strength of
regulations governing access and use
of resources
 the existence of local organization
which work in the interest of
maintaining local livelihood
 the choice of appropriate technology for
resource management.
Sustainable Resource
Management require the
ff.:
 Resource management which is
area-specific in order to account for
the characteristics of local
ecosystem.
 Allowance for a full participation of
the local population
 Making the best use of the local
resource base: human, natural,
institutional, technological
Applications

 OPEC Nations and the Global

Dialogue on Sustainable
Development
 Agenda 21
OPEC Nations and the
Global Dialogue on
Sustainable Development
 Dire need of human perspective
changes, not political dominance in
business-oriented politics
 Financial mechanism to combat
drought and desertification, and
replenishment of its resources at an
increased level
Millennium Development
Goals
 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
 Achieve universal primary education
 Promote gender equality and empower
women
 Reduce child mortality
 Improve maternal health
 Combat AIDS/HIVs, malaria and other
diseases
 Ensure environmental Sustainability
 Developed a Global Partnership for
Agenda 21

 Agenda 21 is a ‘comprehensive plan of

action to be taken globally, nationally
and locally by organizations of the
United Nations System, Governments,
and Major Groups in every area in
which human impacts on the
environment’.
 Agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on
Environment and Development and the
Statement for the Sustainable
Management of Forest where adopted
by more than 178 Governments at the
United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development
Agenda 21

 Poverty alert
 1.3 billion without access to clean
water;
 about half of humanity lacking
access to adequate sanitation and
living on less than 2 dollars a day;
 approximately 2 billion without
access to electricity;
Agenda 21: Philippine
Trends
 Demographic Trends – 9th most
populous country in Asia and 14th in the
world. The country’s population will
double to 128 million by 2025
 Cultural trends – inherent traits of
Filipino culture – openness, freedom of
expression, resilience, strong family
orientation – continue to support social
cohesion within the society. However
some cultural values had undergone
some erosion – commodification of
indigenous culture, sexual tourism,
consumerism and increasing
materialism.
Agenda 21: Philippine
Trends
 Science and Technology Trends – the
sector has its share of problems, such as
the “brain drain” phenomenon: unfair
monopoly of intellectual property rights;
increasing use of technology as simplistic
response to complex problems; poor
quality of science education due to
inadequate funding and facilities
 Economic trends - despite the positive
economic growth , challenges remain –
high level of public indebtedness, low level
of savings, large deficits, remaining
distortion of the price and incentive
system, rampant casualization of labor ,
indiscriminate land and ecosystem
Agenda 21: Philippine
Trends
 Urbanization Trends – unplanned and
uncontrolled urbanization lead to
pollution, water shortage, flooding,
violence and other social ills
 Human development trends –
rampant substance abuse, break-up
of families, economic exploitations
and homelessness as evidenced by
the growing number of street
children.
Agenda 21: Philippine
Trends
 Environmental trends – mine tailings,
deforestation, pollution, salt water
intrusion
 Institutional Trends – ineffective
mechanism for enforcement and
implementation, information
inadequacies and continuing system
graft and corruption destruct strong
institutional building blocks for SD
 Political Trends – the rich continue to
dominate political processes as
Agenda 21 Philippines

 Key Actors in SD

Civil SD Governme
Society nt

Busines
s
The three Essential Dimensions of Society in
Relation to
Nature, the Human Being and Sustainable
Development
Human
Being

DEVELOPMENT
SUSTAINABLE
Culture Polity
Societ
y
Economy

Nature
Conclusion: Poverty,
Empowerment, and Sustainable
Development
Common argument is that poor people
are forced to cultivate marginal lands, or
to overexploit resources in spite of the
fact that they threaten their future
livelihood by doing so, because they will
not otherwise be able to survive the
present season.
 The excessive wealth and
overconsumption of industrialized
societies is responsible for the vast
majority of unsustainable resource
extraction, and that wealth may
Conclusion: Poverty,
Empowerment, and Sustainable
Development
 The poor communities not only have
high incentives for managing their
resources sustainably, but they have
historically often been able to develop a
variety of effective and adaptable means
of doing so.
 This growing inability of communities to
participate in resource management
resources on which they depend, their
traditional tenure rights and rights to
exclude outsiders may be abrogated, or
their ability to make their own decisions
regarding resource management may be
curtailed.