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negotiations would contribute significantly to stemming the spread of nuclear weapons as the major nuclear-weapon states would deliver on their promise to build down their nuclear arsenals. Such progress is consistent with the basic needs of our times and the right of humanity to have the spectre of nuclear destruction removed from the face of the Earth.
48. Nations must turn away from the destructive logic of an 'arms culture' and focus instead on their common future. The level of armaments and the destruction they could bring about bear no relation to the political conflict that triggered the arms competition in the first place. Nations must not become prisoners of their own arms race. They must face the common danger inherent in the weapons of the nuclear age. They must face the common challenge of providing for sustainable development and act in concert to remove the growing environmental sources of conflict.
Footnotes
1/ For some preliminary analyses along these lines, see L. Timberlake and J. Tinker, 'Environment and Conflict: Links Between Ecological Decay, Environmental Bankruptcy and Political and Military Instability', Earthscan Briefing Document, Earthscan, London, 1984: N. Myers, 'The Environmental Dimension to Security Isues', The Environmentalist, Winter 1986; R.H. Ullman, 'Redefining Security', International Security, Summer 1983: and A.H, Westing (ed.), Global Resources and International Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
2/ E. El-Hinnawi, Environmental Review (Nairobi: UNEP, 1985).
3/ Relief and Rehabilitation Commission, 'Drought and Eehabilitaton in Wollo and Tigrai', Addis Ababa, 1975.
4/ L. Timberlake. Africa in Crisis (London: International Institute for Environment and Development/Earthscan, 1985).
5/ Project Paper for Haiti Agroforestry Outreach Project (Project 521-0122), U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington, DC, 1981.
6/ National Park Service/U.S. Man and the Biosphere Secretariat, 'Draft Environmental Profile of E] Salvador', Bureau of Science and Technology, U.S. Agency for International Development, Washington. DC, April 1982. See also T.P. Anderson, The War of the Dispossessed: Honduras and E1 Salvador 1969 (Lincoln, Nob.: University of Nebraska Press, 1983); W.H. Durham, Scarcity and Survival in Central America: Ecological Origins of the Soccer War (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1979).
