ABSTRACT
It is a paradox that environmental degradation continues in most regions of the world despite more than three decades of unprecedented international attention. The 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment focused world attention on the human environment; the 1987 Brundtland Report (WCED 1987) followed, culminating in high-level commitments made at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and Agenda 21, which were reaffirmed at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. Over this period, there has been no shortage of normative and political agreements, high-level pronouncements, and public commitments to reduce environmental degradation (table 3.1).
