Developing world ethic for sustainable living

In recent years, the global scale of environmental degradation has become clear. As a result, environmental awareness as well as a diversity of green movements and institutions have established themselves, which in their own right have facilitated the promotion of a world ethic on sustainable living. However, because of the sheer complexity of issues surrounding global sustainability and its many obstacles, it is argued that a world organization is needed to monitor and implement the rights of nature, and to emphasize the responsible stewardship of it.

The protection of nature is a worldwide responsibility that transcends all cultural, ideological and geographical boundaries. Everyone should take responsibility for their impacts on nature. Humanity should not endanger the survival of species or entire ecosystems, nor inflict cruelty and unnecessary killing of creatures. Resources should be shared more equally and used sustainably whenever renewable. Most fundamentally, each generation should leave to the future a world that is at least as diverse and productive as the one it inherited. Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living published in 1991, is a follow-up to the World Conservation Strategy. It formulates principles for sustainable living and the actions to put the principles into practice with the aim of integrating conservation and development and is composed of three parts: Part I: the principles for sustainable living – the principles are respect and care for the community of life, improving the quality of human life, conserving the Earth's carrying capacity, changing personal attitudes and practices, enabling communities to care for their own environments, providing a national framework for integrating development and conservation, and forging a global alliance. More substance is given to the principles in the following eight chapters; Part II: additional actions for sustainable living – these describe corresponding actions that are required in relation to the main areas of human activity and some of the major components of the biosphere. The chapters deal with energy, business, industry and commerce, human settlements, farms and rangelands, freshwater, and oceans and coastal areas; and Part III: guidelines for implementation and follow-up.

The World Conservation Union's (IUCN) Ethics Working Group is proposing a major international consultative process that will result by 2000 in a vision of how the diverse cultures of the World can affirm a shared environmental ethic.