Conservation is not enough

Abstract

Economic development has become the overriding priority of almost every government in the last fifty years. Over this period, social and ecological imperatives have been the ruthlessly and systematically subordinated. As economic development has gone out of control, the pressures on the natural world have become immense. In fact, "free trade" and economic development are fundamentally in conflict with environmental conservation. We need to oppose the new World Trade Organization and the various free trade treaties such as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT Uruguay Rounds), because once these have been set in place, there can be no environmental conservation. Conservation, as we know it, is not enough.