New commission builds on Earth Summit legacy.

One year after the "Earth Summit" in Rio de Janeiro focused world attention on the environment, the new Commission on Sustainable Development met for its first substantive session (New York, 14-25 June) to discuss how to monitor Agenda 21 - the Summit's blueprint for action - and help translate its goals into deeds.

The 53-member Commission charted its future work programme, putting its work on a "very firm footing", according to its Chairman, Razali Ismail of Malaysia.

The body was formally established on 12 February by the Economic and Social Council.

United States Vice-President Al Gore, addressing the Commission on the opening day of the session, defined sustainable development as "economic progress without environmental destruction". He said the Commission had primarily a catalytic role: "It can serve as a forum for raising ideas and plans. it can help resolve issues that arise as nations proceed in their sustainable development agendas."

High-level meeting

The legacy of the Earth Summit - formally known as the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) - and the hopes invested in the work of the new Commission were discussed at the session's end, at a two-day high-level meeting (23-24 June), attended by over 40 Ministers.

Manuel Rodriguez, Director of the Environmental Institute of Colombia, speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, said the Commission's work was crucial in pursuing the principles agreed to in Rio. A slim flow of resources was impeding the implementation of Agenda 21 - the blueprint for sustainable development activities adopted by UNCED.

Sven Auken, Minister for the Environment of Denmark, said the Commission should develop into a political forum to make political decisions on the environment, something like a "Security Council on the environment".

Commission action

In adopting six resolutions, the new body outlined some mechanisms to monitor the implementation of Agenda 21.

An inter-sessional ad hoc group of experts was to be created to assist in monitoring requirements, availability and adequacy of financial resources, and related issues, such as debt relief and terms of trade.

Another ad hoc group was to assist in reviewing progress achieved in promoting the transfer of environmentally-sound technologies, cooperation and capacity-building.

Governments were encouraged to provide information on UNCED follow-up. The General Assembly, through the Economic and Social Council, was asked to review the functioning of the intergovernmental machinery in relation to the implementation of Agenda 21.

The Commission also decided that its high-level meetings should consider urgent and emerging policy issues, in addition to the outcome of Commission discussions. The Secretary-General was requested to prepare a number of reports that would synthesize information related to progress in implementing Agenda 21.

The Commission also adopted a programme providing a framework for reviewing progress in the implementation of Agenda 21, consisting of nine clusters of the Agenda chapters - five to be considered on an annual basis and four on a multi-year basis.

Subjects to be considered annually are: critical elements of sustainability, such as poverty and changing consumption patterns; financial resources and mechanisms; education, science and transfer of environmentally sound technologies; decision-making structures; and roles of major groups.

To be taken up once during a three-year period are: health, human settlements and freshwater, and toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes (1994) land, desertification, forests and biodiversity 1995); and atmosphere, oceans and all kinds of seas (1996).

A 7 June report (E/CN. 17/1993/8) of the Secretary-General discussed the implementation of Agenda 21 in its first year and outlined new initiatives to incorporate sustainable development principles into programmes.

The Secretary-General observed that UNCED's results were having a "profound and far-reaching effect on the programmes and priorities of relevant organizations" of the UN system, which were all reviewing their work programmes and reordering priorities to assist countries in meeting the objectives of Agenda 21.

The Administrative Committee on Coordination, which is to monitor UN involvement in the UNCED follow-up, said a "lack of adequate financing" was a main constraint in all countries, and called for a renewed political will and concerted action to overcome it.

Advisory Board created

On 1 July, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali announced the establishment of a 21-member High-Level Advisory Board on Sustainable Development to help formulate policy proposals and identify emerging issues for the attention of relevant intergovernmental bodies, particularly the Commission on Sustainable Development and the Economic and Social Council.

Among its eminent members are ocean scientist and explorer Jacques Cousteau of France, former UNCED Secretary-General Maurice Strong of Canada, and former Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), Mostafa Tolba of Egypt.

UNCED offspring

Emanating from an UNCED recommendation, the UN Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks held an organizational session (New York, 19-23 April) in preparation for a substantive session in July.

Another offspring of UNCED, the Preparatory Committee for the 1994 Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small island Developing States, held an organizational session (New York, 15-16 April).

In addition, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for a Convention to Combat Desertification in Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, held its first substantive session (Nairobi, Kenya, 24 May-3 June). The Committee.is scheduled to complete the draft Convention by June 1994.

UNEP reorientation 

UNEP, at its seventeenth session (Nairobi, 10-21 May), decided to totally reorient its activities to implement the mandate entrusted to it under Agenda 21.

To do that, said new Executive Director Elizabeth Dowdeswell in her first major policy statement to the Governing Council on 17 May, UNEP must act as an intellectual powerhouse with a bias for action and tangible improvements to the environment.

UNEP's Governing Council adopted 44 decisions at the session, on issues ranging from the control of movements of hazardous wastes to the protection of the marine environment from land-based activities, and transfer of environmentally sound technology. Governments were encouraged to establish a national environmental policy for the military sector, to support the establishment of a coordinating body for African elephant conservation, and to sign and ratify the Convention on Biological Diversity, if they had not done so.

Hope for

endangered

rhinos

Behemoths teetering on the edge of extinction, rhinoceroses can perhaps now eye a glimmer of hope for their future, thanks to a new initiative by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

Rhinoceros populations in Kenya, Namibia, South Africa, peninsular Malaysia and India have grown since the Programme started a new initiative in September 1992, UNEP reported in May. Kenya's black rhino population had increased from around 340 in 1986 to 420 today.

Pressure from UNEP led to the enforcement of bans on the sale of rhino products in Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. China banned the export of medicines containing rhinoceros horn, following a visit by a UNEP

Rhinos did not fare so well, however, in all countries: poaching had cut Zimbabwe's black rhino population from around 2,000 in 1989 to less than 400 today, and in Nepal, at least 18 rhinos were illegally killed in late 1992 and early 1993.

Rhinos unfortunately are not alone in their struggle for survival. A quarter of the world's plant and animal species is in danger of extinction in the next 30 years, according to a 20 May report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO).