Environmental Sustainability

Environmental Sustainability

Sustainability

Sustainability means that the resources of the land must be used in such a way that it will continue to be available. Sustainability is in supports that future generation has equal opportunities to the resources that the planet earth offers. Sustainability is concerned with ensuring that the relationship between man and nature for the co evolution of both within the earth surface is maintained. Brundtland Commission defines “sustainable development as development that meets the need of the present generation without compromising the needs of future generations”. It is also referred to as the goal that allows for the continuing improvement of standard of living without reversible damage to resources for surviving (Lehrer, 2001). The word ‘sustainability’ means the capacity for an activity to be carried on indefinitely into the future, given the amount and type of resources available, whereas ‘development’ implies that society will change or grow in the same way. Hence, ‘sustainability’ suggests change and improvement that is compatible with environmental, social and other limits, both now and in the long-term future (Gray and Wiedemann, 1999 cited in Alabi, 2012).

Environmental Sustainability

Environmental sustainability is the process of making sure that man interaction with the natural resources of the land within the environment are continued with the idea of keeping the environment in its original state based on ideal-seeking behavior. Sustainability can be identifying with the conservation of the environment as everlasting source of natural resources for man. The opportunity for improvement arrived when a new philosophy called ‘sustainable development’ was introduced in 1987 in Brundtland Report. Since that, many progressive global events had taken place to increase the awareness on environment and sustainable agendas such as Rio Earth Summit 1992, Maastritcht Treaty 1992, Kyoto Conference on Global Warming 1997, Johannesburg Earth Summit 2002 and Washington Earth Observation Summit 2003 (Nazirah, 2005). Therefore sustainability concept and its practical implementation have been increasingly considered by policy makers to be one of the most critical tools of achieving a balance between economic, social and environmental objectives.
To answer the question ‘what is to be sustained’ the Board of Sustainable Development of the United State National Academy of Science under the support of the Brundtland Commission identified three main categories of what is to be sustained as nature, life support systems and community. From surveyed literatures, the board found that most commonly emphasis was placed on life support system, which defined nature as a source of services relating to the life support of humankind, the study of ecosystem services has strengthened this definition over time. In contrast, some of the sustainable development literature value nature for its basic and essential value rather than its utility for human being. There were also needs to sustain cultural diversity, including livelihoods, groups, and places that constitute distinctive and threatened community. In general, there is sustainability of the environment if there is control and reasonable exploitation of the ecosystem by man for whatever development. In actual fact sustainable development entails:

(a) Inclusion of environmental, social, cultural and economic criteria in the planning and also the implementation of developmental policies in both public and private sectors.

(b) Conservation and recovery, where necessary, of the adequate natural capital to support a qualitative development policy.

(c) It is resolving the conflict between the various competing goals, and involves the continuous pursuit of economic prosperity, social equity and environmental quality.

These are regarded as three dimensions with the resultant vector being technology, it’s a continually developing process. Sustainability is fundamental to every issue in the strategy of planning and indeed for the construction of life on the planet. Sustainable development aims to bring about complete integration of economic, social and environmental matters. Sustainability of the environment is regarded as a state in which human activities do not irreversibly damage the environment in which natural habitats, the global abundance and diversity of plant and animal life are maintained in which the extraction and use of natural resources is within human impacts can be prepared by the earth’s natural and biological processes.

REFERENCES

Adebisi Adedayo (2000). Environmental Sanitation and Waste Management Policies at the Local Level in Nigeria, Department of Geography, University of Ilorin Kwara State. Vol.1. No 1 – 2

Chris. O. Nwoko (2013). Evaluation of Environmental Impact Assessment System in Nigeria. Green Journal of Environmental Management and Policy and Policy Safety, Department of Environmental Technology, Federal University of Technology, PMB 1526, Owerri, Nigeria, Vol. 2(1), pp. 022–031. conwoko2002@yahoo.com.

Fagbemi. S. Akinolu (2012). The Concept of Sustainable Development: A Double- Edge Sword, Department of Public and International Law, Faculty of Law, University of Ibadan, Ibadan. sakinfagbemilawpractive@yahoo.com