There is much more to a tree than wood, fruit and leaves. An Indian scientist estimates the worth of environmental services rendered by a tree over a 50 year lifespan to be IRs 1.57 million — four times the average Indian's income over a similar period. Calculated into the figure is oxygen production worth IRs 2,50,000, soil conservation and fertility maintenance worth' the same, water recycling and humidi ty control (IRs 300,000), and air pollution control (IRs 500,000).
These figures, contained and analysed in the latest publication of the New Delhi-based CSE may be fanciful, but nevertheless represent an attempt to de sig an environmental cost-benefit analysis which will help national planners decide "whether it (economic growth) is not being obtained today at the cost of discounting our future."
A compilation of the proceedings of a seminar on the economics of the sustainable use of forest resources, the book is fittingly dedicated "to the firewood pickers of the the world who have to contend with the long and short term everyday."
Sustainable development is oftendefined as meeting "the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs", but in the poor and mainly rural developing world, environmental damage hurts this generation itself, as, for example, villagers are forced to walk ever longer distances for their survival needs of fodder, fuel and timber.