Georgraphy

Just in the past half century, the world has grown by leaps and bounds, not only in terms of population, which has more than doubled, but also in political systems. More population growth has taken place in Southern or less developed areas, places like Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Equivalent economic growth has occurred in places like North America and Europe. The world’s economy has grown 600 percent and its trade by a factor of 1500. What’s more is that the number of independent states acting globally has more than tripled (Soroos, 10.27).

Because of this unbounded global growth, nation states have been forced to come together to work towards improving and sustaining the one earth. Sustainable development is socially responsible economic development. It is the idea that each nation will work not only to “promote a supportive and international economic growth and sustainable development in all countries,” which includes growth in jobs, productivity, profits, and quality of life (Dernbach, 10.9, 10.14-10.15), but also a reduction in devaluing things such as waste, pollution, and p

World Bank Group, The. Archives. 2002 The World Bank Group.

“Sacrificing the future to salvage the present” has lead to environmental decline. And since the economy of the rural poor relies heavily on their environment, this has lead to a perpetuation of poverty. “Most villagers have a love for their native land, a desire to own land, an intense attachment to their ancestral soil… a reverence for nature..and ancestral ways,” believes Richard Critchfield, an awward-winning journalist who has studied village culture. In this way, poor farmers who are secure in their use of land tend to care for it meticulously, making sure it will be available for their use for generations to come, which is sustainable use. Squatters who are sure of their long term rights of land care for it more sustainably than those with no legal rights to the land, though not as well as those who own the land outright (Durning, 42). In Nepal, for example, the health of the villagers can be directly related to the retreating tree line on the mountainous slopes surrounding the village (Durning, 43). As governmental loans make their way into the hands of the large scale ranchers, the livelihood of the smallholders are at stake. They are driven off their land to make way for the cattle or other livestock. The poor then become concentrated in the more fragile and less sustainable regions of the country. The poor are forced into shanty towns, insect laden fields, or made to clear forests to support poor field farming. Burned plots of vanishing forests can be found in Thailand and the Amazon, throughout Africa and Latin America.

Some topics in this essay:
World Bank, America Europe, Rio Declaration, Third World, Richard Critchfield, United Nations, Supported UN, Studies UNICEF, Latin America, Action Congress, world bank, united nations, sustainable development, multilateral institutions, global environmental, hipc initiative, agenda 21, bank imf, debt relief, global environmental politics, international institutions, environmental politics ed, political science 1542, guide political science, science 1542 global,