Third World environmental movements seem preoccupied with tree-plantings and ceremonial observances. Meanwhile, the underlying political issues relating to global and local environmental issues are ignored.
June 5, World Environment Day, came and went in South Asia as elsewhere, leaving behind hundreds of speeches given at numerous functions — expressions of the ascendancy of the green fashion the world over.
This year, not only did we mark World Environment Day, we also added another day of celebration: 22 April Earth Day. Beyond this, a series of regular meetings are being held in many parts of the world to discuss preparations for the forthcoming World Conference on Environment and Development, to be held in Brazil in June 1992. This mega-event on the environment is being planned and organized from a sprawling villa in Geneva, Switzerland.
Officials of international agencies, as well as institutions that the guru of alternative development Marc Nerfin calls the "Hilton-brand NGOs" are busy making trans-Atlantic or trans-Pacific flights to talk about ozone layer depletion, global warming, tropical deforestation, and so on. The term "sustainable development", whose actual meaning remains elusive, is sure to die through sheer repetition between now and 1992. Of the term, a noted British environmentalist has said that "its very strength is its vagueness: Sustainable development means different things to different people."