WARNING TO U.N. Anti-Pollution Measures Could Curb Development

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32313, 3 June 1970, Page 22

WARNING TO U.N. Anti-Pollution Measures Could Curb Development

(N Z PA.-Reuter —Copyright) NEW YORK. Initial enthusiasm at the United Nations for international action to fight pollution is now being tempered by warnings that the fight for a better environment should not detract from the fight for economic development.

Some diplomats have questioned whether the United Nations should take up the question of environment at all, sinee it is already totally committed to development and the two issues will inevitably clash. “You can’t industrialise without smoke, and you can’t have smoke without pollution," said one Latin American diplomat. The United Nations was, in fact, ahead of the times when in 1968 it decided that an international conference on environment should be held to dramatise the growing air and water pollution problem throughout the world, particularly in industrialised countries.

The conference has now been arranged for Stockholm. Sweden, in 1972, and a special committee has begun drawing up subjects to be discussed.

At the first session of this preparatory committee, several African and Latin American delegates sounded a note of caution about the possible effect on development if resources that might otherwise go to industrialisation were spent on saving the environment

A typical reaction was that: of the Brasilian ambassador (Mr Joao Augusto de Araujo Castro) who'pointed out that

developing nations could not always afford the least-pollut-ing techniques involved in industrialisation. “All recommendations on human environment policies must be carefully prepared in order to attain their legitimate goals without hindering the industrialisation process of developing countries,” he : said. i. “It must be remembered that such a process, in order to be economically viable, ; presupposes initial stages of implementation in which the most advanced technology cannot always be applied. “Labour-consuming techniques and less complicated and less advanced industrial production, although not always the best solution in terms of human environment, might be quite indespensable as a stage for further industrialisation," Mr Castro said. Many developing countries, however, also have environmental problems—not the same kind found in industrial societies, such as air and i water pollution, but equally serious ones, such as high population rates and soil eroI sion.

On the question of population, few countries dispute the need for birth control, but Brazil, which is going through a period of nationalism under a military government, feels 'hat population problems result from unsatisfactory use of natural resources, not from high birth rates. Many developing countries have expressed concern that: the cost of enforced methods of pollution control tn industrial countries will be passed on to poorer countries which need to import capital goods for their development. The theory has been put forward that there should be I special industrial-concentra-

tion areas, with less stringent laws on pollution control, and recreation areas where the environment is carefully preserved.

To some extent, this division already exists through the creation of national parks in many countries.