All human activity relies on the earth and its natural resources. Uncontrolled activity puts intolerable pressure on the environment.

If the basic living conditions of millions of people in developing countries, such as Brazil, are to improve and be maintained at an acceptable level, it is essential that the environment in which we all live should be cared for and sustained–not only for its own sake but to provide a healthy basis for the development of current and future generations. Sustainable development is a means towards improving economic and social conditions for people in developing countries in ways that enable them to change their lives for the better, without becoming dependent on external support or damaging the natural resources upon which they depend.
The environment and natural resource base of Brazil and in particular its Amazonian region, suffered massive deterioration between the 1960s and 1980s.
In this period the military government (1964-1985) launched numerous, highly destructive mega-development projects in the Amazon region. They included subsidised cattle ranching and logging initiatives, road construction and huge mining and hydroelectric projects. The military governments justified these projects using several arguments: Brazil needed to integrate the Amazon into its modernisation and industrialisation plans, it had to use the resources of the Amazon to pay the external debt, the unemployed and poor needed work and Brazil’s border areas had to be colonised in order to be defended. In reality the mega-projects were the result of a short-sighted, nationalistic, authoritarian regime, which ignored the interests of ordinary people and which used bureaucratic-state investment and practices to support its big-business supporters and international corporations.
These projects were both environmentally and socially damaging. They destroyed sensitive and irreplaceable ecosystems, thus threatening the unique biodiversity of the region, they degraded soil and poisoned water supplies and contributed through such destruction to the global warming crisis.
They also encouraged massive migratory flows of poor peasants from other Brazilian regions. These peasants occupied Indian lands and protected areas. A three-way conflict for land and resources ensued between the cattle ranchers, peasants and traditional forest peoples - ndians
and rubber tappers. Initially the mining and hydroelectric schemes created much needed work in the region. With the completion of the dams and with the introduction of capital intensive extraction techniques in the mines, the workers were left jobless, to fill the shanty towns on the edges of already poor Amazonian towns. In all these cases the poorest groups–the peasants, rubber tappers and Indians–and the environment, were the victims who lost out in this process.
The destruction continues at an ever more alarming rate. US NOAA satellite data taken from readings over the Amazon in 1997 indicated that burnings in the Amazon have increased by 28 per cent between 1996 and 1997. There are new threats to the Amazon too. The Brazilian Government is selling logging rights to national park forestry reserves in a risky bid to manage and control deforestation. Brazil on the Move will involve the creation of a new era of mega-projects in the Amazon, such as roads and waterways. These could lead to increased logging from Asian companies which are already beginning to log areas of the Amazon. They may also repeat the social problems which befell the migrant population of workers in the 1960s and 1970s.
Sustainable development offers a means of resolving these problems - of supporting both the livelihood struggles of the poorest of the region and of conserving the environment.
It is the only viable alternative to the disastrous mega-projects which have done so much damage to the Amazonian region. Previous alternatives to such projects have not always been so sustainable. Until relatively recently, alternatives for the region have focused on the preservation of the environment. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, international environmental organisations argued that the Amazon ought to be protected from all human activity. They proposed the creation of protected areas, such as parks and reserves. They ignored the fact that southern nations such as Brazil needed to develop economically. They did not take into account the fact that the Amazon is inhabited by poor peasants and Indian communities who are struggling to make a living in the forests. Their mistake was to perceive the Amazon as a type of zoo or natural museum. Such methods were a form of ‘eco-imperialism’ imposed by developed Western nations on undeveloped southern nations.
This mistake was rectified by the conception and promotion of sustainable development. From its first conceptual introduction in the Bruntland Commission report, Our Common Future, in 1987, to its formal acceptance by the international community and Brazilian Government, at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, sustainable development has emerged as the optimum development model for the Amazon.
Since the Earth Summit, sustainable development models have undergone several transformations. Today we finally possess a model which can harmoniously resolve the environmental and social problems of the Amazon.
At the Earth Summit economic and environmental sustainability were fused into one idea of development. It was formally agreed by all, that southern nations needed sustainable economic development and that this development must be based on the sustainable use of natural resources.
Since the Earth Summit, sustainable development has become more ‘people friendly’. NGOs, environmental groups and forest groups have successfully promoted a version of sustainable development which focuses on the interdependent relationship between ordinary people at the grassroots (or micro-level of development) and environmental sustainability. We have argued that the best way to preserve the Amazon environment is to incorporate in any development projects those who have to live and work in the forest. Forest peoples are dependent upon the forest for their livelihoods, therefore they have a direct interest in its continued preservation.
Sustainable development has grown out of two arguments: first, that unless the needs and demands of the peasant colonisers are heeded, they will ignore all conservation projects and continue utilising short-term and unsustainable development methods; and second, that many of the extractive working methods of groups such as Indians and rubber tappers are in harmony with the forest ecosystems and therefore potential models for the sustainable use of the entire region.
This model of sustainable development is now official policy for the region. The G7 Pilot Programme emphasises the involvement of forest communities at all levels of planning and execution. The rubber tapper initiative of extractive reserves are a centre-piece element of the G7 Pilot Programme and Brazilian Government policy for the region. The World Bank has investigated and is correcting Planafloro, due to criticism of its failure to incorporate the demands of participating communities and NGOs.
It is only with the direct participation of such groups in the design and application of sustainable development in the Amazon that the Amazon will be preserved as a working and productive resource for the people of the Amazon, Brazil and the world.