when did the idea of sustainable development began
Sustainable development While the modern concept of sustainable development is derived mostly from the 1987 Brundtland Report, it is also rooted in earlier ideas about sustainable forest management and twentieth century environmental concerns. As the concept developed, it has shifted to focus more on economic development, social development and environmental protection for future generations. It has been suggested that "the term 'sustainability' should be viewed as humanity's target goal of human-ecosystem equilibrium (homeostasis), while 'sustainable development' refers to the holistic approach and temporal processes that lead us to the end point of sustainability".[1]
Our Common Future The Brundtland Commission Report recognised that human resource development in the form of poverty reduction, gender equity, and wealth redistribution was crucial to formulating strategies for environmental conservation, and it also recognised that environmental-limits to economic growth in industrialised and industrialising societies existed. The Brundtland Report claimed that poverty reduces sustainability and accelerates environmental pressures – creating a need for the balancing between economy and ecology.[2] As such, the Report offered “[the] analysis, the broad remedies, and the recommendations for a sustainable course of development” within such societies (1987: 16). However, the Report was unable to identify the mode(s) of production that are responsible for degradation of the environment, and in the absence of analysing the principles governing market-led economic growth, the Report postulated that such growth could be reformed (and expanded); this lack of analysis resulted in an obfuscated-introduction of the term sustainable development.[3]
Alonso Álvarez de Pineda
Human overpopulation According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year research effort by 1,360 of the world's prominent scientists commissioned to measure the actual value of natural resources to humans and the world, "The structure of the world's ecosystems changed more rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century than at any time in recorded human history, and virtually all of Earth's ecosystems have now been significantly transformed through human actions."[163] "Ecosystem services, particularly food production, timber and fisheries, are important for employment and economic activity. Intensive use of ecosystems often produces the greatest short-term advantage, but excessive and unsustainable use can lead to losses in the long term. A country could cut its forests and deplete its fisheries, and this would show only as a positive gain to GDP, despite the loss of capital assets. If the full economic value of ecosystems were taken into account in decision-making, their degradation could be significantly slowed down or even reversed."[164][165]