• Inability to take holistic view is becoming an impediment. A UN forum on ecological security should be set up to bring about the holistic view.
• National-level institutions should also have cabinet-based ecological forums to serve as national focal point (to be chaired by head of the government). Various ministries may be a part of it to create a sense of consistency.
• The notion of holistic approach to environmental issues is not new but has been there and has resulted in the UNCED. However, the political will at the international level and donor agencies needs to be there. Equally important, financial resources have to be mobilized.
• To counter market dominance, there have to be stronger actions. Therefore, we need a super-national body like UN to regulate the economy and trade. Stronger rules and implementation is needed.
• Governance should be linked to security because there are socio-political consequences of environmental degradation. The forums will serve an important role in bringing coherence to national approaches.
• An ecological forum should have some role in evaluating the implementation of various existing regimes. The initiative was left with UNEP, but not much has happened. Should we think of a new medium for developing an ecological forum?
• Should there be a merger of WTO with UNEP to increase effectiveness?

1. Water

Solar energy feeds the hydrological cycle. Most of the global water is trapped in sea as saline water and as ice in icebergs. The available freshwater is abundant in itself but is geographically distributed so that it’s not equally available to all. Water utilization has increased three times with a mere doubling of population in the past 50 years. For example, the water usage in some Asian countries far exceeds the available and renewable water resources. By 2025, most countries of the world will be facing a high water stress. How we deal with this water scarcity will be a major issue in the coming decades. Other problems related to water quality may include, health-related water contamination, surface and groundwater pollution, heavy metals and man made chemicals in water bodies.

Developed countries should focus on pollution control, develop management and allocation policies, come up with pricing policies, wastewater treatment and water re-use should be seriously considered. All of this requires sufficient financial resources. The developing countries on the other hand require major revision in their policy in view of the predicted population boom. Industrial and urban development should be given some serious thought in view of this problem.

There will be an increasing water stress in terms of quality and quantity. Regional conflicts and transboundary elements may increase. Maximizing of water productivity should be strongly emphasized. Demand management should be used to maximize the socio-economic benefits. Technology development is needed to cope with the increasing water utilization. A shift in the role of governments and international institutions in water management is needed – at all levels from local to global.

The problem is so ubiquitous that it’s almost invisible. A very serious problem in water management is present. The World Water Commissions outlines the goals: (a) to choose the water requirements and utilize water, and (b) conserving and manage water. Water should be (i) managed at basin level, (ii) full-cost pricing, (iii) much more funding for research & development, (iv) international river basin should be handled between governments, and (v) the private sector should have a five fold increased involvement (fiscally) to meet the challenges. No specific role in the World Water Vision has been identified for UN.

UN has a unique access to governments and can be quite helpful for international and transboundary issues. Incentives for cooperation amongst the UN agencies should be developed. Equity in infrastructure development can be brought in through UN. A large-scale capacity building effort by UN is necessary to meet the various challenges. Security of investment for infrastructure development needs to be also addressed systematically.

• The problem should be looked at from both ends: (a) improve management of existing resources and (b) improve technologies to meet the challenges. Utilization of saline water and floodwater should be considered, perhaps through biotechnology developments. UNESCO and UNIDO should take the leading role in looking at new possibilities of water-use in agriculture.
• Water should be looked as source for food, daily use and energy production. Hydro and hydel power capacity should not be excluded from the equation. This has implications for reduction in reliance on fossil fuels.
• Integrated management of transboundary water resources is a potential area for UN’s involvement. Some river basins are more bilateral in nature and there is a need for more creative approaches to create a win-win situation, proactively.
• A shift in governmental approaches is needed, such as demand management and water pricing. New technology development is essential to solve the complex problems, to be matched by financial investment. The UN can really get directly involved in management of international river basins.

1. Urbanization, Industry and Sustainability

The three domains of sustainable development are nature/environment, human resources, and economic resources. There is a conflict between soft sustainability – with a decrease in natural resources – or hard sustainability for complete preservation. Different disciplines emphasize different aspects of sustainable development. Some strong transformations in living styles and patterns have taken place, particularly in the development of an urban lifestyle.

Cities form a critical component of the global economic and commercial activity. Suburbanization has further lent itself to destruction of environmental resources, both directly and indirectly through its consumption patterns. Energy consumption comprises a critical component of this urban life pattern, leading to air pollution, acid rain and other environmental problems. The majority of the global population will live in the cities during this century; this urbanization is partly dependent on the GDP growth. This urban growth is going to result in a wide range of environmental problems including water scarcity and infrastructure problems. Lack of social cohesion is another problem that plagues the cities.

The main way to achieve industrial development without destroying the environment is to develop clean technologies. The metabolism of nations can be optimized through "leadership" at national and regional level. The consumption patterns for natural resources would decrease by 2050 as most countries enter a service-based economy. A "function innovation" is often needed to achieve order of magnitude improvements in environmental efficiency.

It is important to focus on participation in urban areas and not so much on definition and monitoring of indicators. Sustainability requires more than just democracy – a more multi-stakeholders approach should be undertaken. Also, UN should have the mandate to develop agreements with large corporate business dealing with a particular regime. This would reduce the number of stakeholders (from 188 countries to a few companies) and make it more effective in terms of impact.

Trends of transformation govern very much the response and action on environmental and sustainable development issues. There is a new level of industrialization and division of labor due to globalization and the trade regime. This has repercussions for natural resource utilization. This means that now the discussion should go beyond national boundaries.

It is important to know the significance of the year 2050, partly because the wave of democratization and urbanization would probably reach equilibrium state. Energy efficiency in urban settings can be greatly helped by incentives, positive and negative. A factor of 10 improvement in resource utilization is quite possible if there are appropriate changes in lifestyles, achieved through the incentives. Inter-generational equity is a major component of sustainable development and should be taken into account for sustainability.

• Most of urban development is on prime agricultural land, which decreases inter-generational equity. Proper planning, including a pricing policy for land, is necessary to overcome this problem.
• Energy use problems are based on economic support for fossil fuels; therefore, more emphasis has to be placed on renewable energy resources.
• Should UN undertake an effort to link communities and megacities (e.g., a conference of mayors?). This would assist in linking of policies at the city level and perhaps UNU can play a specific role.
• Perverse subsidies in various countries should be removed to minimize the impact on environment.
• Some minimal environmental standards should be established to reduce the transboundary impacts.
• The concept of subsidiarity should be very carefully reviewed and perhaps revised. Its implementation has to take place at a more local scale. Perhaps negative environmental impacts in developing countries should be included so that these countries can attain a foothold in the international market. Participatory approach (at grassroot level, accompanied by people ownership) and intergenerational equity should be incorporated into the notion of sustainable developed.

1. Global Food Security

Historically, discovery of genetic laws has greatly helped in improvement of food availability and security. This was evident in hybrid and advanced varieties of rice, wheat and maize. Population will grow to 9 billion by 2050, with 90% of growth in the South. This will lead to the very significant reduction of cultivable land area per capita and irrigation water. Improved purchasing power and increasing urbanization will lead to higher per capita food requirement. Food security has undergone some radical changes in terms of availability, access and absorption – a major problem is the quality not quantity. Maternal malnutrition is going to lead to short- and long-term consequence for population on the whole. The challenges in food security are inequity at birth and later life as well as intergenerational inequity.

A universal declaration on plant genomes, and farmer’s rights and consumer’s rights are necessary. Public concerns are bioethics, biosafety, biosurveillance (terminator gene production), food safety (toxic or allergenic effects), and consumer choice. We have to shift from green revolution to an ‘ever-green revolution’ that would be centered on farming systems. This would comprise improved management practices, including integrated pest management practices. The concept of a "virtual college" will also play an important role in this management paradigm. Integrated gene management and conservation is yet another important process at various scale; this would also require enhancement of plant quality and their sustainable use.

Equity and ethics are the way ahead, particularly when discussing various regimes such as CBD and WTO. Micro-level planning based on GIS mapping, which in turn are based on micro-enterprises and micro-credit in rural settings. Technology and trade should become allies in the movement for a more equitable world.

The action on food security has to be collective and partnerships need to be built. Deforestation and degradation of cropland and pastureland are major problems in Africa. About 40% of the African population face malnutrition. It is most important to reverse the trend of land degradation. Secondly, the richness of biological resources should be preserved. The UN needs to redefine goals and objectives for Africa and then assist in locating resources for achieving those goals. This requires significant capacity building on human and institutional level. The UN should set the target of increasing to 1% the scientific contribution by Africa by the year 2010.

• The biosecurity (and terminator gene issue) issue should be tackled by broad-based committees at the national level. These bodies should encourage transparency and dissemination of information to the general public.
• The exploration and evaluation of oceans as a food source needs to be done to fully understand its potential.
• Cooperative management practices at basin-level or village-level need to be developed for sustainable utilization of natural resources. The general approach should be totally participatory and be matched by policy development.
• New job creation has to come from on-farm and farm-related services. The concept of ‘virtual college’ needs to be pursued that would allow small-holders to access the global markets and information most relevant to them. The ethical considerations have to be re-thought and the opportunities in biogenetic revolution should be fully evaluated and explored.

1. Energy Requirements for the Next Millennium

About two billion people have no access to modern energy services. On the other hand, the required economic development would further increase drastically the need for energy. Most importantly, most of the population growth will be in the urban area. There is a linear relationship between GNP per capita (or economic development) and energy use. Other correlations also exist between factors like literacy or lifetime expectancy and energy use.

The estimates of energy resource worldwide have continued to increase and will probably increase further with technological developments. Several scenarios for projection of energy utilization to the end of this century show that fossil fuels will most likely be a major portion of the resource base throughout the century. It is a challenge to UN and international community to look at policies and technologies to reach an idealistic goal of reducing fossil fuel usage to 20% of the overall usage by the end of the century. It is also obvious that from now on the fossil fuel usage proportionately amongst other resources will decline in any case.

There may be some conflicts in land use based on the policy for energy usage followed. Similarly, there are several concerns regarding usage of nuclear energy and related problems. Therefore, many developed countries have opted to phase out nuclear energy plants. International security issues tied to nuclear technology and proliferation of nuclear arms will stay important and should be addressed by the UN. Education of decision makers is an important aspect to resolve the complex matters – this indicates a need for capacity building by UN agencies. Similarly, multidisciplinary training of selected professionals should also be undertaken by the UN.

The average global requirement is about 12 TW per year (based on a 6 billion population). Global climate change and sea level rising are important problems for continuing the current pattern of fossil fuel utilization. Several other resources need to fully exploited, including solar energy and fission-based nuclear power plants. It is quite possible that fossil fuels may be completely phased out by the end of the century based on technological developments.

• Do we need a World Energy Bank to implement the progress foreseen in the Kyoto Protocol? Or can these be implemented with the existing institutions?
• New and innovative technologies and their development have slowed down. There is a need for renewing public interest and related increase in renewable energy resources.
• Distribution of energy is an important problem where developed countries are utilizing a much higher fraction. The most important issue would be looking at the next 20-30 years rather looking really long-term.
• A multitude of factors, including social equity and economic growth, should be considered side by side with other energy-related issues.

1. Global Governance of Biological diversity

Sustainability of biodiversity resources is essential to food security. Activities by IUCN and WCED have led to general dissemination of issues pertinent to biodiversity problems and served as a bridge between scientific community and the general public. Three issues – biotechnology, biosafety, and bioprospecting – are most important in this regard. Training and capacity building is an important aspect of science-intensive biotechnology development; human resource development in the developing countries is the most important aspect. There are national level concerns regarding biosafety of LMOs as well as an international concern that regulations may limit the future growth of the biotechnology sector. Some mechanisms and guidelines are being developed for international sharing of benefits under the CBD umbrella. However, bioprospecting may have a negative impact in terms of global biodiversity conservation.

There should be partnerships developed between international institutions, UN, national governments and the civil society.

The current international discussion on biodiversity is human-centered. Perhaps other arguments such as bio-centered approach or eco-centric approach ought to be considered when discussing bioethics. Benefits of biodiversity to humanity should be equally shared among the general public. Extensive evaluation of utilizing and modifying the gene structure of natural living resources should be undertaken.

UN should follow bio-centric and eco-centric approaches toward conservation of biodiversity. A total impact of biotechnologies on environment and society should be carefully considered. UN as a whole should serve as a forum to discuss these controversial but important issues – this should also include the business sector. We may designate an ombudsman to protect non-human species. Symbolic species may be used to increase public awareness about the related issues.

• We use a much smaller fraction of the global biodiversity – about 2% of the overall species. This may increase to 5% in the future. Traditional management practices need to be preserved and fostered by the UN. There should a mechanism for compensating those who conserve biodiversity at the face of commercialism.
• Incentives should be provided to the private sector for conservation of biodiversity.
• A major effort should go into improving the interlinkages of MEAs and engage the WTO regime effectively into the process. There is also a need for a more balanced discussion on the biodiversity issues.
• The threats to biodiversity are unique in that these are irreversible in nature. It would probably take about five million years to replace "naturally" through evolution a similar biodiversity on worldwide scale. The intergenerational responsibility should therefore outweigh most other concerns in the biodiversity conservation discussion.
• UNU should take the lead in addressing biodiversity-related issues and discussing them, because these may be too "hot" to be discussed at conventional fora.

1. Land Degradation

Very large land masses are affected by land degradation, most particularly in arid lands. Many fragile and unsuitable lands are being cultivated due to population pressures. Deforestation also has serious implications for land degradation and water resource management. Soil is the most heavily impacted by land degradation problems. Wind erosion not only endangers the productive capacity of soils but also impacts the livelihood and health of people. Increasing trend of global concern of land degradation is matched by interdisciplinary nature of the related issues. Secure land use tenure needs to be encouraged.

Several UN agencies, conventions and funding mechanisms are involved efforts to manage and revert land degradation. The CGIAR also focuses on food security and poverty alleviation in developing countries. A holistic, integrated and participatory approach can be successful in tackling such a complex problem. Rehabilitation of land degradation has to be very carefully considered and evaluated.

Land degradation should be tackled at both national and international levels. Economic incentives and population planning, compatible with land’s carrying capacity, are needed at the national level. Transfer of knowledge from North to South is an important functionality that should be addressed by international agencies.

Land degradation may be difficult to define at a functional level, but is important to do so considering the inter-linked nature of the problem. As an example, good understanding of dust storms in the Asian region is not present.

• Land degradation should be understood as a broader problem, with due consideration given to the underlying processes in various geographical locations.
• Growth in animal numbers by a factor of 10 in Africa has resulted in land degradation. In some locations the damage appears to be irreversible.
• Capacity building at the institutional level is important to halt the "brain-drain" trend.
• Value of land should be increase to limit the over-exploitation for various purposes, urban or agricultural.
• Involvement and participation of people and farmers is most important to success of efforts to reverse or halt land degradation. Using people’s entrepreneur nature to help in the recovery process is important.

1. The Atmosphere

Greenhouse gases have rapidly increased in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. Creation of an ozone hole surprised the scientific community. Ozone depletion is not limited to polar regions but has been observed in a number of places, e.g., New Zealand. Surface ozone has increased very much during this century (Northern hemisphere), most likely due to anthropogenic activities. Ozone increase can lead to health problems as well as impacts on the environment. Some positive role of ozone and higher UV-B is that it acts as a disinfectant and keeps the atmosphere "clean." Aerosols and various particulate pollutants are also important in impacting the chemistry of atmosphere and the global climate. Very significant increases in aerosol production have taken place during this century – resulting in part in higher temperatures.

Substantially more attention should be given to the tropical and subtropical regions when investing global climate change. This would require substantial capacity building in these regions, to be followed by extensive monitoring.

Complexity in interactions between atmosphere and biosphere are not fully understood. These processes are, in turn, used in the negotiations and MEAs not fully appreciating the uncertainties and knowledge gaps. In the case of CFCs, the scientific community has been successful in catching the attention of the policy-makers, leading to substantial progress. Therefore, scientists need a greater voice in the climate change debate.

• A cautiousness in applying scientific information to policy-making is important; particularly, when considering the uncertainties at the moment.
• Perception of risk at the policy-making level is an important aspect and needs to be evaluated quantitatively.
• Relative impact of various pollutants on global warming needs to be quantified and accordingly considered in the process of negotiations.

The impact of human activities on the planet’s environment and natural resources has steadily, and often dramatically, increased during this past century. Although the developed countries have made significant strides in reducing water and air pollution, the overall picture we get is that the nature is under siege. Population growth has emerged as the most significant driving force behind environment problems and concerns. This, in turn, has strongly influenced patterns of intense urbanization and often led to undesirable trends in consumption of resources. These problems have been exacerbated due to uneven and inequitable geographical distribution of resources and rates and patterns of development, which has deprived about a third of the world’s population adequate access to these resources.

Eight years after the Earth Summit and at the threshold of a new millennium, we are faced with a wide spectrum of complex environmental problems that are inter-linked and interdependent. Some may claim successes on the ecological frontiers in wake of embracing Agenda 21 and the events and conventions that followed it. However, the realization of the complexity of the problem is bringing to forefront more difficult challenges for us to face in the 21st century. In the UN review made during Rio plus five, it was found that all unsustainable trends were worsening at a faster rate than they did during the Rio "Earth Summit" in 1992.

Trends such as increasing population, unsustainable consumption patterns and destruction of the environment have contributed significantly to this worsening picture. The UN predicts that the global population will reach between 8 to 10 billion by 2050. In a world, where at present, around 1.3 billion people are estimated to live in severe poverty, population-related issues such as food security, health, and safety are posing extreme challenges especially to the different global governance structures such as the United Nations.

There are a number of good news, however, in our horizon. Recent accounting of the natural environment in terms of goods and services indicates a tremendous economic value, where these potential valuations remain grossly untapped. As an example, opportunities for boosting food production through an ‘ever-green revolution’ and improving access to better drugs and other pharmaceuticals, based on genetic technologies remain largely unutilized. This is mainly due to public fears and non-transparency of scientific knowledge and also due to the lack of proper knowledge and consciousness of society of both the positive and negative aspects of the use of these resources. One example of this is the sustainable utilization of biodiversity resources in some developing countries, which up to now, have not been fully understood nor sustainably exploited.

Globalization had a major effect on the geographical distribution and impact of these environmental problems. As developing countries take an increasing share of the global market place, regional differences in resource use such as energy may be reduced and problems that that are presently only prominent in the North could mirror themselves in the South. This may be viewed in the context of the various multilateral environmental agreements, where a move from ‘common heritage’ to national ownership of natural resources is apparent. This has important implications for the world trade regime, particularly when discussing the issues of "bio-prospecting" or economic exploitation of biodiversity reserves in developing countries. The pertinent issues are not fully understood or discussed. One of the most important aspects of this is to ensure an equitable flow of benefits from such economic activities back to the developing countries.

Conversely, globalization could force cities to be more aware of its environmental concerns as competition with one another on economic, social and ecological fronts make it more attractive to deal with environmental problems in an economic context. In this sense, globalization could also have significant impacts on the urbanization trends and consumption patterns. The information boom brought by globalization is one example. As a result of easy access to information and generally rising concern by civil society regarding environmental problems, there is now an increasing pressure on business and industry to look at the ecological footprints of their goods and services.

In general, the international community faces a broad range of challenges and pressing global issues at the turn of this century. For the first time in history, inter-generational issues are at the forefront. This is obvious when considering loss of biodiversity that, unlike other problems we face, is an irreversible process. The nature of these challenges also highlights the need for urgent action. Some glaring examples of this urgency include problems like: (a) in the Earth’s mid-latitudes, the ozone has decreased by as much as 6 percent, causing increased skin cancer and eye cataracts; (b) toxic chemicals, most notably persistent organic chemicals (POPs) are also increasingly being found in most components of the global ecosystems, causing damage to the endocrine system and adversely impacting fertility rates; and (c) increasing greenhouse gas emissions are worsening the global warming and climate change trends. It may also be pointed out that the overlapping effect of these stresses may actually be greater than the sum of the parts. Therefore, it is essential to take a holistic and integrated view of the problems and solutions.

Another challenge to the international community, particularly that dealing with science and research, is that of uncertainty about the future and an element of surprise. Both natural and man-made environmental disasters also carry an element of unpredictability and surprise for us all. There may be problems that we have not yet dreamed or thought of. An obvious example of this ‘surprise element’ during this past century was the ozone hole, which no one had foreseen. Recent studies have shown that the strongest ozone depletion today is in a region where the maximum ozone concentration was found just 20 years ago. This region is also far from CFC release-regions or areas where we would have naturally looked.

Actions, programmes and conventions over the past few decades have taught us that most effective and successful approaches to meeting these international challenges are participatory in nature. Partnerships with the civil society in general, and with the population impacted by activities are crucial for success. Environmental protection activities that involve grass-root level participation have shown remarkable progress.

The UN System, and particularly the UNU, has an important role to play in finding a solution to these problems. Because of its inter-governmental nature, the UN system is a unique international forum for discussing and resolving environmental issues. This becomes more important when considering the fact that most environmental problems do not follow national boundaries, but rather impact ‘eco-regions’, such as the watershed for a river basin, or are global in nature. Also, environmental issues cut across traditional regimes and have considerable positive or negative impacts on trade, poverty and development, human health and regional security. Again, the UN system has a comparative advantage of having institutional capacity for dealing with this wide range of issues.

The participants in this UNU conference have engaged in an in-depth discussion on a selected set of these challenges and complexities of issues. This has led to some specific prescriptions for various players in the environmental arena. These prescriptions are focused on three groups: the policy makers, the scientists and academics, and the civil society.

In general there is a need for comprehensive holistic approaches to looking at and coming up with solutions for environmental problems. The holism is to encompass not only environmental process and ecological compartments but also effectively engage the complete set of stakeholders in discussion and action. There is also a need for linking national policy development to the international concerns and policies. These approaches should be such that the pace of action on these issues can be further expedited beyond the relatively slow progress so far. It is also equally important to focus the efforts to reverse detrimental trends on well-defined geographical regions that are worst impacted. In practice, high-priority geographical regions should be identified for each environmental issue.

The United Nations, being the most significant intergovernmental and international institution in the world, is strategically placed at the moment to play a very strong coordinating role in dealing with environmental issues. By its intrinsic nature, it can undertake discussion on "hot" issues, which cannot be discussed at other fora. This is particularly true for the UNU within the UN. The UN can also play a major role in assisting management of transboundary natural resources. However, to achieve this there is a need to substantially streamline the capacity of the UN system to handle environmental issues. This conference strongly recommends the formation of an Environmental Security Forum to achieve integration of UN System-wide processes. Such a forum can bring together a broad range of international stakeholders, again paving the way for holism. It would also be important for such a forum to have some authority to evaluate the actions taken within the UN and its specialized agencies as well as those beyond.

The UN is also in a key position to undertake human and institutional capacity building in developing countries. This is an important aspect for successful implementation of policies and environmental agreements as well as sustainable use of energy and natural resources. Equally important is the process of educating policy-makers on environmental issues. It has become increasingly obvious that developing countries often lack sufficiently trained professionals who can develop coherent and consistent national environmental policies. This, in turn, leads to confusion at the international negotiating table. The UN can undertake this task of multidisciplinary training in partnership with the scientific and academic community.

Policy-makers should understand and provide proper focus to the existing and projected high stress on a number of natural and energy resources, including water, food, land and biodiversity. Intergenerational equity should be highlighted for sustainable utilization of these dwindling resources. This information can be very helpful in galvanizing action in the general public. Policy-makers need to give due consideration to the notion of subsidiarity in decision-making and broader participation at a more grassroots level. This obviously has important implications for the ‘think global, act local’ paradigm, because often the thinking does not go beyond local considerations. Incentives and information to general public should be developed to encourage sustainable lifestyles and a higher level of participation in the decision-making process. As an example, the micro-level policies for food security should be pursued further in this and other sectors. Lastly, the policy-makers should be cognizant of the uncertainties in scientific prediction and knowledge gaps when considering longer-term policies. Risk assessment and scenario development can play an important role in reducing the impacts of existing uncertainty.

Rapid globalization has highlighted the need for effectively engaging the private sector in decision-making and implementation process. The private sector can often serve as the medium for bringing about sustainable development, while providing the human and financial resources that UN and international agencies are often short of.

The scientific and academic community should also adopt integrated and multidisciplinary approaches to environmental issues. Such holism would lead to effective investigation of the scientific linkages between various environmental regimes. The complexity of the problems often demands this holistic approach in research and investigation to arrive at coherent and effective outcomes.

This conference emphasizes the need for education of policy-makers and general public on environmental issues. An effective way of achieving this is through increased interaction between these sectors and a greater sharing of information with the civil society. The scientific community in particular needs to gear its output as a product targeted at and understandable to the general public. Scientific understanding behind popular environmental concepts, such as the precautionary principle, should be better explained to a general audience. On the whole, a greater transparency in scientific research and its results is essential to building the trust of general public.

The conference also highlights several areas as preferable targets for further development of information, knowledge and technology. Foremost among these areas is that of interactions between processes at micro- and macro-levels. The existing state of knowledge on these interactions is insufficient and the scientific community is urged to step in to fill the gap. Several sectors have urgent needs for technological advances and innovations. These include in water utilization and reuse. More specifically, a completely new, integrated paradigm for water management needs to be developed which will look closely at water utilization patterns, water costing, water reuse and other issues. Similarly, stresses on food production and security highlight the need for rapid development of technologies where maximized benefits can be obtained from shrinking per capita land and water resources. In this respect, the capacity of marine food resources should also be fully evaluated and examined. The energy sector also demands the attention of the scientific community in terms of development of innovative renewable resources.

The scientific community should focus its efforts on optimization in resource utilization and waste minimization to match sustainable lifestyles. This is important if population growth and urban boom has to be effectively dealt with. There is also a need for a balanced discussion on global biodiversity, biosafety and biotechnology issues. Such a discussion should give careful attention of positive aspects of genetic modifications while also considering the potential adverse impacts on the environment.

Despite a variety of doomsday predictions, the overall outlook for the future in the 21^st century is positive and hopeful. Human ingenuity and technical advances are bound to come up with solutions to complex environment and sustainable development issues. Already, we can see beyond the horizon a number of renewable energy resources, technologies for ensuring food security and reversing land degradation, and management practices for sustainable and efficient use of water resources. Nevertheless, the general public, mass media and civil society at large needs to be fully aware of the extent of threats to the natural resources and the long-term consequences for their depletion.

Information dissemination and capacity building of the general public are critical to human development, while at the same time being essential for environmental protection. This conference puts forth the notion of a Virtual School to achieve this objective, where latest advances in communication frontier and the Internet can be exploited. With decreasing costs and widespread use, these media can be relied on to prepare and disseminate more localized information to end-users.

It is important for the general public to understand that most existing urban lifestyles need to be reviewed and revised to ensure long-term sustainability. This will need involvement of all sectors of the society and an integrated approach towards consumption of resources and waste generation.

It also needs to be emphasized that threats to the planet’s biodiversity resources are to be taken very seriously. Indeed destruction of biodiversity and extinction of species is an irreversible process. Therefore, it may be prudent to adopt biocentric and ecocentric approaches to discussing the biodiversity conservation issues. Action and participation by public on this and other environmental issues is essential to reversing the negative trends.

top