ABSTRACT
Exploring the relationship between the environment and development has proved to be a complex, but rewarding, enterprise. In examining the concept of sustainable development it was suggested that the term could express more than a pious hope, but rather less than a rigorous analytical schema. Sustainable development is a concept which draws on two frequently opposed intellectual traditions: one concerned with the limits which nature presents to human beings, the other with the potential for human material development which is locked up in nature. Unravelling and deconstructing this contradiction has been a principal focus of this book. Sustainable development, if it is not to be devoid of analytical content, means more than seeking a compromise between the natural environment and the pursuit of economic growth. It means a definition of development which recognizes that the limits of sustainability have structural as well as natural origins.
