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| Since British colonisation more than 99.5% of native grasslands and grassy woodlands have been destroyed in Victoria. Only small, isolated remnants remain. Can we/will we pass them on to future generations? |
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| Digital composite created bu Csaba Szamosy for Imagine The Future Inc, 1996, from photographs by James Ross, Ian McCann, Tom Wheller, Mike Martin, Vanessa Craigee and John Seebeck. |
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| Each year millions of migratory waders and other birds visit the coastal and inland wetlands of Victoria's basalt plain. Will they be able to do so forever? |
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| Digital composite created bu Csaba Szamosy for Imagine The Future Inc, 1996, from photographs by Mark Trengove, Patrick O'Callahan, Melbourne Water, Parks Victoria and Merrill Findlay. |
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External links will open as separate pages which need to be closed individually.
As long ago as 1990, the Australian Conservation Foundation, Greenpeace Australia, The Wilderness Society and World Wide Fund for Nature (Australia) released a collaborative research document outlining a set of principles to guide our society towards a sustainable future.
This publication, Ecologically Sustainable Development, represented the environment movement's formal response to a discussion paper released by the Australian Federal Government in June of that year, as part of its international obligations to the United Nations.
The Report outlined a set of guiding principles for what, in Australia, is called Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD), or Ecological Sustainability.
As the Executive Summary of the Report states:
The principles outlined … constitute an important framework within which policies designed to achieve ecological sustainability should be cast. The application of the principles may well require fundamental changes in existing policies.
The approach we have taken is to seek principles which transcend a purely economic framework and which are capable of integrating ecological and economic considerations. An economic framework alone is inadequate to the task of capturing the fundamental problems surrounding ecological sustainability, such as inter-generational equity and conservation of biological diversity.
Ecological sustainability emphasises the qualitative aspect of development, as opposed to the more traditional emphasis on quantitative growth.
To grow means 'to increase naturally in size through the addition of material through assimilation or accretion&'. To develop means 'to expand or realise the potentialities of; bring gradually to a fuller, greater or better state'. In short, growth is quantitative increase in physical scale while development is qualitative improvement or unfolding of potentiality. An economy can grow without developing, or develop without growing, or do both, or neither (Herman Daly, 1990).
In brief, the Australian ESD principles are as follows.
Intergenerational equity
The present generation should ensure that the next generation is left with an environment that is at least as healthy, diverse and productive as the one the present generation experiences. Owing to the massive and irreversible rate of loss of species and habitats at present, we have an additional responsibility to give the highest priority to conserving the world's natural environment and species.
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| Freshwater swamps, rivers and streams are fundamental to our wellbeing, but are still being damaged and destroyed by industrial, agricultural and urban development. |
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| Digital composite created bu Csaba Szamosy for Imagine The Future Inc, 1996, from photographs by Mark Trengove, James Ross, Ian McCann, Parks Victoria, and a historic image contributed by Geelong Heritage Centre. |
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Conservation of biodiversity and ecological integrity
Conservation of biodiversity and the protection of ecological integrity should be a fundamental constraint on all economic activity. The non-evolutionary loss of species and genetic diversity needs to be halted and the future of evolutionary processes secured.
Constant natural capital and 'sustainable income'
Natural capital (eg biological diversity, healthy environments, freshwater supplies, productive soils) must be maintained or enhanced from one generation to the next. Only that income which can be sustained indefinitely, taking account of the biodiversity conservation principles should be taken.
Anticipatory and precautionary policy approach
Policy decisions should err on the side of caution, placing the burden of proof on technological and industrial developments to demonstrate that they are ecologically sustainable.
Social equity
Social equity must be a key principle to be applied in developing economic and social policies as part of an ecologically sustainable society.
Limits on natural resource use
The scale and throughput of material resources will need to be limited by the capacity of the environment to both supply renewable resources and to assimilate wastes.
Qualitative Development
Increases in the qualitative dimension of human welfare and not the quantitative growth in resource throughput is a key objective.
Pricing environmental values and natural resources
Prices of natural resources should be set to recover the full social and environmental costs of their use and extraction. Many environmental values cannot be priced in monetary terms, and hence pricing policies will form part of a broader framework of decision making.
Global perspective
A global perspective is needed to ensure that Australia does not simply move its environmental problems elsewhere.
Efficiency
Efficiency of resource use must become a major objective in economic policy.
Resilience
Economic policy needs to focus on developing a resilience to external economic or ecological shocks. A resource-driven economy is unlikely to be resilient.
External balance
Economic policy needs to be brought into balance. External imbalance creates pressure to deplete natural capital and could undermine the prospect for an ecologically sustainable economy.
Community participation
Strong community participation will be a vital prerequisite for effecting a smooth transition to an ecologically sustainable society.
Extracts from Hare, W. et al, Ecologically Sustainable Development (1990) published by the Australian Conservation Foundation, 340 Gore Street, Fitzroy, Victoria, 3065, Australia. Re-published on-line with permission.
The Australian Conservation Foundation is a partner in Re-dreaming the plain.
What are your stories about creating a sustainable society on Victoria's basalt plain, and other grasslands around the planet? What are your own principles for ecologically sustainable development?
Copyright Imagine The Future Inc. and Australian Film Commission, 2002. Text by Merrill Findlay for ITF.
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