ABSTRACT

The concepts of sustainable development and sustainable use of environmental resources emerged strongly and rapidly, to the extent that by 1990 they were firmly established in the vocabulary of environmental discourse. Sustainability can relatively easily be applied within the renewable resource sector. Sustainability, and in particular sustainable development, has gained widespread currency and has reached contemporary political agendas despite – and possibly because of – vagueness of meaning. If problems beset the precise definition of sustainability in the purely environmental sense, even greater difficulties can arise when more broadly based interpretations are considered. Following the World Conservation Strategy, the preparation of national strategies marked the beginning of progress towards sustainability in some countries, and other signs of progress became evident in other lands. Stockholm helped to promote the development of national environmental policies and the setting up in many countries of environmental agencies and ministries.