ABSTRACT
Agenda 21 is a far-reaching international environment and development plan that was agreed and signed by the world’s heads of state in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The plan provides a framework for working towards the concept of sustainable development. Sustainable development is the response to the prospect of global ecological breakdown due to planetary overload. For example, based on current estimates of consumption and known reserves, CFCs and similar compounds are damaging the defensive ozone layer. Emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide into the atmosphere contribute to global warming (Crombie 1995, McMichael 1994). While many of the impacts of these changes appear to be most graphically illustrated in the poorer countries, they are by no means confined to tropical regions. Supplies of minerals, such as lead, zinc and mercury, will be exhausted in less
than twenty-five years. Marine stocks, topsoil, forests and fresh water are all being consumed faster than they are being replaced.
