A/42/427
English
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The world's environmental problems are greater than the sum of those in each country. Certainly, they can no longer be dealt with purely on a nation-state basis. The World Commission on Environment and Development must strike at this fundamental problem by recommending specific ways for countries to cooperate to surmount sovereignty, to embrace international instruments in order to deal with global threats. The growing trend towards isolationism demonstrates that the current rhythm of history is out of harmony with human aspirations, even with its chances for survival.
The challenge ahead is for us to transcend the self-interests of our respective nation-states so as to embrace a broader self-interest – the survival of the human species in a threatened world.
Hon. Tom McMillan
Minister of Environment,
Government of Canada
WCED Public Hearing
Ottawa, 26-27 May 1986
estuarine river systems through dams or diversion for agriculture and municipal water supplies. These pressures have destroyed estuarine habitats as irrevocably as direct dredging, filling, or paving. Shore-lines and their resources will suffer ever increasing damage in current, business-as-usual approaches to policy, management, and institutions continue.
11. Certain coastal and offshore waters are especially vulnerable to ecologically insensitive onshore development, to competitive overfishing, and to pollution. The trends are Of special concern in coastal areas where pollution by domestic sewage, industrial wastes, and pesticide and fertilizer run-off may threaten not only human health but also the development of fisheries.
12. Even the high seas are beginning to show some signs of stress from the billions of tons of contaminants added each year. Sediments brought to the oceans by great rivers such as the Amazon can be traced for as much as 2,000 kilometres out to sea.[1] Heavy metals from coal-burning plants and some industrial processes also reach the oceans via the atmosphere. The amount of oil spilled annually from tankers now approaches 1.5 million tons.[2] The marine environment, exposed to nuclear radiation from past nuclear weapons tests, is receiving more exposure from the continuing disposal of low-level radioactive wastes.
13. New evidence of a possible rapid depletion of the ozone layer and a consequent increase in ultraviolet radiation poses a threat not only to human health but to ocean life. Some scientists believe that this radiation could kill sensitive phytoplankton and fish larvae floating near the ocean's surface, damaging ocean food chains and possibly disrupting planetary support systems.[3]
- ↑ M.W. Holdgate et al., 'The Marine Environment', in The World Environment 1972-1982 (Dublin: Tycooly International Publishing Ltd., 1982).
- ↑ See National Academy of Sciences, Oil in the Sea (Washington. DC: National Academy Press, 1985); and OECD, Maritime Transport, 1984 (Paris 1985).
- ↑ 'Scientists Closer to Identifying Cause of Antarctic Ozone Depletion', National Science Foundation News, 20 October 1986; Ad Hoc Working Group of Legal and Technical Experts for the Elaboration of a Protocol on the Control of Chlorofluorocarbons to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer (Vienna Group), 'Report of the Second Part of the Workshop on the Control of Chlorofluorocarbons, Leesburg, USA', UNEP/WG.151/Background 2, Na.86-2184, UNEP. Nairobi, 15 October 1986: A.S. Miller and I.M. Mlntzer. The Sky Is the Limit: Strategies for Protecting the Ozone Layer. WRI Research Report No. 3 (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 1986).
