SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: the possible utopia?

Those who like a romantic approach to the history of environmental protection say that the formulation of the concept of sustained development, which appeared for the first time in the report of the Brundtland Commission in 1987, is based on an old Africa saying "We don't inherit the Earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children". Others claim that the concept is an evolution of the term eco-development, used by Maurice Strong in 1973, in the first meeting of the United Nation's Environment Program (PNUMA), and defined subsequently by Ignacy Sachs in 1974 in his classic "Environnement et styles de développement" (Sachs, 1986).

Either way, it is undeniable that, in the last three decades, hundreds of specialists have engaged in theoretical and conceptual discussions of the term, that quickly changed from sustained to sustainable, with a classic definition given by the United Nations Division for Sustainable Development: "sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/). The expression gained enough status to define UN's World Summit in Johannesburg in August 2002 (World Summit on Sustainable Development), and it became one of the most common of media jargons.

In the last thirty years scientist have thoroughly discussed the concept of sustainable development. In a quick search through the database available " on line" we will find hundreds of theses, articles and documents on this theme. Unfortunately, the conceptual and theoretical evolution was not accompanied in practice. The successful experiments of the sustainable use of a natural resource invariably ran into a scale problem. There are very few well-documented case studies where, the sustainable use of natural resources generates and/or maintains the economical, social and/or cultural development of groups and/or communities larger than a few dozens of families. Paradigmatic examples, such as the ecotourism program in the region of Bonito/MS, do not survive a more detailed analyses of sustainability, as shown in the Point of View of this number of BIOTA NEOTROPICA.

Opposed to the inevitable pessimism which arises from these reports, the consolidation and the success of the BIOTA/FAPESP Program, obstinately, insists on reaffirming daily that the collective effort can transform utopia into reality. The launch of the Biota Bioprospecting and Bioassay Network/RedeBio, it is just one more step in this transformation process.

The goal of RedeBio is to integrate all the research groups that work in the different stages of research of organic compounds of economical interest in the State of São Paulo. One of the premises of this network is that a percentage of the royalties, which originate from the commercialisation of resulting products developed from the research undertaken within the net, must be invested in the State's "in situ" conservation infrastructure. As a consequence, if RedeBio succeeds the BIOTA/FAPESP Program will generate the financial resources and contribute for the creation of the necessary economical mechanisms to make biodiversity conservation viable. This is an indirect way of assuring the sustainable use of this priceless patrimony. But perhaps it is through innovative approaches of this type that we will find the mechanisms to provide conservation with na infracstructure and means to support a new economical model. And, then, utopia will become reality!

Carlos Alfredo Joly

Biota/Fapesp Program Coordinator