A/42/427
English
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financial and technical assistance and training. But the changes required involve all countries, large and small, rich and poor.
II. THE POLICY DIRECTIONS
40.The Commission has focussed its attention in the areas of population, food security, the loss of species and genetic resources, energy, industry, and human settlements - realising that all of these are connected and cannot be treated in isolation one from another. This section contains only a few of the commission's many recommendation.
1. Population and human resources
41. In many parts of the world, the population is growing at rates that cannot be sustained by available environmental resources, at rates that are outstripping any reasonable expectations of improvements in housing. health care, food security or energy supplies
42. The issue is not just numbers of people, but how those numbers relate to available resources. Thus the population problem must be dealt with in part by efforts to eliminate mass poverty, in order to assure more equitable access to resources, and by education to improve human potential to manage those resources.
43. Urgent steps are needed to limit extreme rates of population growth. Choice made now will influence the level at which the population stabilizes next century within a range of 6 billion people. But this is not just a demographic issue; providing people with facilities and education that allow them to choose the size of their families is a way of assuring – especially for women – the basic human right of self-determination.
44. Governments that need to do so should develop long-term multi-faceted population policies and a campaign to pursue broad demographic goals; to strengthen social, cultural and economic motivations for family planning, and to provide to all who want then the education,contraceptives, and services required.
45. Human resource development is a crucial requirement not only to build up technical knowledge and capabilities, but also to create new values, help individuals and nations cope with rapidly changing social environmental, and development realities. Knowledge shared globally would assure greater mutual understanding and create greater willingness to share global resources equally.
46. Tribal and indigenous peoples will need special attention as the forces of economic development disrupt their traditional lifestyles – life-styles that can offer modern societies many lessons in the management of resources in complex forest, mountain and dryland ecosystems. Some are threatened with virtual extinction by insensitive development over which they
