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despite formidable achievements, raises concerns over dependence on relatively few crop strains and large doses of agrochemicels. New life forms produced by genetic engineering should be carefully tested and assessed for their potential impact on health and on the maintenance of genetic diversity and ecological balance before they are introduced to the market, and thus to the environment.[1]
III. STRATEGIES FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
47. Resource and environmental considerations must be integrated into the industrial planning and decision-making processes of government and industry. This will allow a steady reduction in the energy and resource content of future growth by increasing the efficiency of resource use, reducing warts, and encouraging resource recovery and recycling.
1. Establish Environmental Goals
48. In dealing with industrial pollution and resource degradation, it is essential that industry, government, and the public have clear benchmarks. Where the workforce and financial resources permit, national governments should establish clear environmental goals and enforce environmental laws, regulations, incentives, and standards on industrial enterprises. In formulating such policies, they should give priority to public health problems associated with industrial pollution and hazardous wastes. An they must improve their environmental statistics and data base relating to industrial activities.
49. The regulations and standards should govern such matters as air and water pollution, waste management, occupational health and safety of workers, energy and resource efficiency of products or processes, and the manufacture, marketing, use, transport, and disposal of toxic substances. This should normally be done at he national level, with local governments being empowered to exceed, but not to lower, national norms. In preparing environmental regulations, it is important that flexible systems are adopted without specifying a particular process or technology and recognizing that governments differ greatly in their capacity to formulate legal standards and enforce
50. Regulations to control the impacts of industrial activity across national boundaries and on the international commons are also needed. Existing o future international conventions dealing with transfrontier pollution or management of shared natural resources should enshrine certain key principles:
- the responsibility of every state not to harm the health and environment of other nations,
- liability and compensation for any damage caused by transfrontier pollution, and
- equal right of access to remedial measures by all parties concerned.
- ↑ The U.S. Government recently announced a comprehensive regulatory policy for ensuring the safety of biotechnology research and products. See 'Coordinated Framework for Regulation of Biotechnology', Federal Register, 26 June 1986.
