Over the past few decades the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) of the European Union (EU) has resulted in major surpluses of agricultural products. However, it has also resulted in severe environmental pollution and degradation. For these reasons, in the early 1990s, the CAP was reformed by means of the Mac Sharry Plan (MSP) (Commission of the EC 1991). This Plan aims to: 1) reduce agricultural surpluses and expenses, 2) adopt a more market-oriented approach, 3) keep a sufficient number of farmers in the countryside, and 4) render agriculture more benign to nature and the environment. The last of these aims has not yet been adequately elaborated in the MSP and it is uncertain whether the adopted measures will really lead to less agricultural pressure on nature and the environment.

The production and import of fertilizer have previously been identified as the major source of three separate European environmental problems related to nitrogen compounds. In order to obtain a picture of the changes in the anthropogenic nitrogen flows needed for a solution, the effectiveness of several more radical interventions is estimated using Substance Flow Analysis (SFA). A selection of rigorous technical measures is expected to reduce the atmospheric deposition of N compounds to a level that seems acceptable for the EU as a whole, and will reduce the anthropogenic input of N compounds into the North Sea well below the agreed level of 50% of the present load. The third problem, the pollution of groundwater with nitrates, would remain unsolved. Resolution of this last problem requires radical changes in the agricultural sector, reducing agricultural output substantially. Two directions are explored by assessing the impacts of the extremes: termination of industrial fertilizer use to combat the problems at the source, and abolition of the entire stock-breeding sector to increase agricultural efficiency radically. These changes do contribute to a solution of the groundwater problem, but imply either greater dependence on imported food, or a major change in food consumption patterns, from animal towards vegetable products. The current EU population and diet are incompatible with the absence of environmental problems. The question then arises, how does acceptance of the draconian measures required to solve such an environmental problem weigh up against acceptance of the fact of having to cope with contaminated groundwater?

Attitudes and incentives of people living around protected areas are widely considered to constrain successful management of these areas. Two contrasting protected areas in Honduras, a Biosphere Reserve of high biodiversity rainforest, and a cloud forest providing essential environmental services to the capital city, are analyzed in terms of their management problems and the strategies used for their protection. The response at the national level to the issues raised in these case studies is then assessed, focusing on the impact of government policies, legal changes affecting land tenure and use, and the role of state institutions in protected area management. The case studies indicate that while the non-government organizations (NGOs) have tried to promote a more participatory approach to conservation (with mixed success), the Honduras Government has tried to follow a more regulatory approach but without the resources and political will to implement it effectively. Opportunities have been missed to provide positive incentives for protection, for example in the area of eco-tourism and community-based natural forest management in situations where this would appear to be a viable option. The participatory approach has also been complicated by policies and land legislation which have sent out negative or ambiguous signals to local communities. Above all the case studies show how critical local attitudes are to the achievement of conservation objectives, and demonstrate the need for positive economic incentives that link development with conservation in buffer zones and surrounding areas.

The cultural norms or core values for sustainable development are an amalgamation of core social values and core environmental values. Widely-shared core social values became strikingly articulated following the Second World War via such instruments as the 1948 Genocide Convention and the 1948 Human Rights Declaration. By contrast, widely-shared core environmental values did not surface until some two decades after the Second World War, being first clearly expressed in the 1972 Stockholm Declaration, to be followed by the 1982 World Charter for Nature and, more recently, by the 1992 Rio Declaration. I find that whereas the emerging core social values have until quite recently been essentially innocent of environmental concerns, the emerging core environmental values have been from the start generally couched in social terms.

Key ethical issues regarding the cultural norms underlying sustainable development include the questions of how to strike a proper balance between anthropocentric and ecocen-tric justifications; and a proper apportionment of the global biosphere between humankind and the other life on earth. Several lines of evidence suggest to me that the environmental and social strands of widely-shared core values for sustainable development are beginning to merge, and that there has begun to occur a slow but progressive development in mainstream thinking toward a recognition of an unbreakable link between social development and environmental conservation.

A number of major stumbling blocks to the achievement of sustainable development exist of course, amongst them the imbalance between human numbers plus needs and available natural resources, the prevalence of totalitarian and corrupt regimes, and the ineffective system of peaceful world governance. Despite obstacles to sustainable development, a trend towards a commitment to it seems evident in such components of society as governments, intergovernmental agencies, non-governmental organizations, academia, religious bodies, and grass-roots movements.

Approximately 780 million people world-wide are chronically undernourished, and past gains in food production have been associated with environmental problems, yet global demand for cereals is projected to increase by 56% and for meat by 74% between 1990 and 2020.

The International Food Policy Research Institute has developed the view that every person in the world can have access to sufficient food to sustain a healthy and productive life, that malnutrition can be abolished, and that food can originate from efficient, effective, and low-cost food systems that are compatible with sustainable use of natural resources. Moreover, IFPRI has concluded that these conditions can be achieved by the year 2020, if the world commits itself to specified changes in behaviour, priorities, and policies. In order for these changes to occur, sustained action is needed in six areas: (1) strengthening the capacity of developing-country governments; (2) investing more in poor people; (3) accelerating agricultural productivity; (4) assuring sound management of natural resources; (5) developing competitive markets; and (6) expanding and realigning international development assistance. We have the knowledge and the capacity to meet the food needs of every person without damaging the environment. What is needed is political will and commitment on the part of all members of society to take the required action.

Analyzing permanent plot data from 40 tropical forest sites, Phillips and Gentry (1994) found that there has been a significant tendency for tree turnover – as measured by tree mortality and recruitment – to increase since the 1950s. The dataset is now substantially improved, and includes 67 mature forest sites with turnover data representing most of the major tropical forest regions of the world. This paper presents an updated and expanded analysis of the latest data, and confirms that tree turnover has increased in mature tropical forest plots. Several artifactual explanations have been suggested but none are supported by the available data, suggesting that surviving mature tropical forests have been recently affected by large-scale anthropogenic or natural change. The effects of increased turnover may include impacts on future global atmosphere, climate, and biodiversity. Better understanding of the ecological changes in mature tropical forests depends on progress in two critical research areas – a ground-based monitoring network of long-term, fully identified tropical forest plots, and controlled manipulation of atmospheric conditions in forest experiments. Research activity in both areas needs to be substantially increased if we are to understand and predict the complex interactions between tropical forest ecology and global environmental change.

There is very little information on effects of particulate pollution from cement factories in the Middle East and northeastern Africa. Variations of natural vegetation, germinable soil seed bank and species diversity were therefore investigated amongst four study sites situated at different distances from the Suez Cement Company factory, south of Suez, Egypt. The composition of plant life-forms was similar in both vegetation and seed-bank communities, with only site-dependent differences in their proportional values. For the standing vegetation, chamaephytes attained the highest relative density and cover, while hemicryptophytes and geophytes exhibited the lowest values. Germinable soil seed bank of all life-forms tended to increase with distance from the cement-dust pollution source. Vegetation, seed rain and seed banks of hemicryptophytes and geophytes were the most affected by cement-kiln dust accumulation in the area. The ratios of seed-bank/seed-rain in all life-forms were less than unity, with a narrow range of variation amongst sites and species. The germinable seed bank was more affected by cement-kiln dust accumulation than the seed rain in all species and life-forms. The species diversity of perennial plants was greater than that of annuals, with values increasing as distance increased from the cement-dust pollution source. Diversity in the standing vegetation Was higher than that of the germinable seed bank. Differences in the standing vegetation and seed-bank reserves were observed in the different study sites. According to their response to cement-dust accumulation, the plant species (listed in text) in the study area were separated into four major groups: (1) tolerant species; (2) non-tolerant species; (3) species having intermediate tolerance; and (4) indifferent species. Management considerations for the conservation of vegetation in cement quarrying sites and around cement factories were put forward to optimize recovery and restoration of vegetation in sites polluted by cement dust.

Conflicts between local people and managers of protected areas (PAs) have often undermined conservation goals in Asia. Since the 1970s, conservation planners have tried to address these problems by incorporating rural development into PA planning. More recently, many conservationists have argued for increasing community involvement in PA management, and for allowing traditional resource uses inside PAs. Based on research in Thailand I make three arguments regarding obstacles to implementing the new approach.

In Thailand, laws governing Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks enacted in the early 1960s were premised on the idea that human use and nature preservation were incompatible. Rapid expansion of these PAs in recent years has produced endemic conflict with rural people claiming resources inside PAs. To address this problem, the Thai Royal Forestry Department has cooperated with NGOs providing development assistance to rural people living in buffer zones outside of some PAs. I argue that this approach has met limited success because the main source of conflict is not poverty but claims on resources inside PAs.

The second argument is that the Forestry Department has resisted changes to laws making local use inside PAs illegal because these laws are important for consolidating the Department's control over territory and in justifying increasing budgetary allocations. In addition, by redefining itself as an organization devoted to strict defence of forests, the Department has obtained the support of many urban environmentalists. The third argument is that the community forest approach taken by a recent draft Community Forest Bill is an important first step in that it implicitly recognizes community property. At the same time, this approach will also fail to address key problems because it is based on a notion of the traditional village, and does not allow for the commercial nature of rural forest use or the household-based nature of forest tenure.

I suggest that the new expansion of PAs be halted, that land claimed by rural households be taken out of PAs, and that the government recognize community management rights in areas that remain classified as protected. More generally, the goals of conservation would be better achieved by replacing an approach based on the rapid expansion of PAs with one promoting conservation outside PAs.