Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Appendix - Recommendations of the
ISOS conferences
This appendix contains selected extracts and all of the 33 recommendations that were
contained in the communiqué from the 2003 ISOS ('In Search Of Sustainability')
internet and face-to-face conferences co-hosted by Australia 21, Nature and Society
Forum and Sustainable Population Australia. The full communiqué can be down-
loaded from the conference website: <www.isosconference.org.au>.
Australians are not living sustainably and we are part of a shrinking and
interconnected world that is becoming increasingly hostile to the long-term
survival of our species.
In moving towards a sustainable future, we need to ensure that we:
•
avoid eroding the natural resource base
•
provide substantial global equality of opportunity
•
have some sort of cultural and spiritual foundation for the future
•
keep the size of the human population within ecological limits.
In spite of growing recognition and action by Australian Governments
and industry in these matters, our society still falls far short of meeting these
criteria.
The consensus emerging from the internet discussions which have been
taking place during the past nine months between Australian experts and
lay-people is that we must now, as a nation, make significant changes in the
way we manage our social, economic and environmental assets.
The necessary changes need to be coordinated and integrated at all levels
of government. Industrial and community bodies also need to be involved in
the changes that will alter the way we govern and manage our lives. Our
progress towards a more just and sustainable global society must be under-
stood and monitored by all Australian citizens.
Material progress has been the dominant paradigm of modern Western
societies like Australia. We have tended to view progress as a pipeline: pump
more wealth in one end, and more welfare flows out the other. Economic
growth in this outdated model is paramount.
