A/42/427
English
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CHAPTER 3 THE ROLE OF THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY
1. Through the ages, people have reached beyond their own borders to obtain essential, valued, or exotic materials. Today's surer communications and larger trade and capital novements have greatly enlarged this process, quickened its pace, and endowed it with far—reaching ecological implications. Thus the pursuit of sustainability requires major changes in international economic relations.
I. THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND DEVELOPMENT
2. Two conditions must be satisfied before international economic exchanges can become beneficial for all involved. The sustainability of ecosystems on which the global economy depends must be guaranteed. And the economic partners must be satisfied that the basis of exchange is equitable; relationships that are unequal and based on dominance of one kind or another are not a sound and durable basis for interdependence. For many developing countries, neither condition is met.
3. Economic and ecological links between nations have grown rapidly. This widens the impact of the growing inequalities in the economic development and strength of nations. The asymmetry in international economic relations compounds the imbalance, as developing nations are generally influenced by – but unable to influence – international economic conditions.
4. International economic relationships pose a particular problem for poor countries trying to manage their environments, since the export of natural resources remains a large factor in their economies, especially those of the least developed nations. The instability and adverse price trends faced by most of these countries make it impossible for then to manage their natural resource bases for sustained production. The rising burden of debt servicing and the decline in new capital flows intensify those forces that lead to enviromental deterioration and resource depletion occurring at the expense of long-term development.
5. The trade in tropical timber, for example, is one factor underlying tropical deforestation. Needs for foreign exchange encourage many developing countries to cut timber faster than forests can be regenerated. This overcuttinq not only depletes the resource that underpins the world timber trade, it causes the loss of forest—based livelihoods, increases soil erosion and downstream flooding, and accelerates the loss of species and
