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other dimensions such as political freedom, the ability to participate in one’s community, self respect and so on will often remain inaccessible. UNDP 2008: iii.
For many indigenous peoples, programs and projects aimed at propelling the economic growth of the countries they live in have brought about the very opposite of human develop-
ment. These have deprived them of what they already had – i.e., water, food, medicine, clothing, shelter and the means by which to produce or gain access to such necessities. In most cases, the
said programs and projects have also been implemented by denying indigenous peoples their political freedom, their civil liberties, their human rights.
4. The human rights-based approach to development
Increasingly, however, development institutions, such as the UNDP, and funders, such as the European Commission, have adopted a human rights-based approach to development. In rela-
tion to indigenous peoples, this means the promotion of development with due regard for their rights – especially:
• the right to self-determination, including • the right to define their own development concept or model, programs or plans and poli-
cies; • the right to say yes or no to other plans that may affect them;
• the right to land, territory and resources; • the right to their own economic, cultural and socio-political systems;
• their basic civil liberties and human rights.
5. The concept of sustainable development
In textbook terms, economic growth means the production and consumption of increased amounts of goods and services. The production of consumption goods requires the investment
of physical capital, the extraction of raw materials from nature, the use of intermediate materials processed by human hands and the expenditure of more human labor. In the market economy,
profit from the production and sale of goods can be transformed into financial capital for further production and sale, and so on. Thus, economic growth both requires and results in the har-
nessing of ever-increasing amounts of all sorts of resources in a process that is – theoretically – unending.
The earth’s resources are, however, finite. Some resources are renewable – water, a colony of coral, a forest, plants and animals in the water and on land, humus, micro-organisms, etc. But
they cannot be replenished if they are consumed at a rate that is faster than nature has time to regenerate them. And the organisms in an ecosystem are interdependent; some species of plants
and animals cannot be made to thrive again if the other species they depended on have been decimated. It is possible for the earth to regenerate petroleum, coal, even minerals and humic
acid. But this would take at least one geologic era – i.e., several hundred million years. In practi- cal terms, then, these resources are non-renewable.
The capacity of human beings to endure exploitation is also finite. In earlier times, it was possible for one people or its ruling class to exploit other peoples and classes for generations.
Since ancient times, however, human beings have so matured in consciousness of what is right and wrong, just and unjust, that no people or social class would bear continued exploitation by
another people or class for even a single generation.
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In short, economic growth based on massive and intensive exploitation of the earth and of human beings is unsustainable. It is this exploitation that has given rise to the environmental
and social crises that have erupted worldwide since the last century. Since the last quarter of the 20th century, social and environmental scientists have been putting forward arguments for an
alternative to this, and proposing variations on a common model of what has come to be called “sustainable development”.
In its 1987 report, the UN World Commission on Environment and Development WCED chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland defined the term sustainable development as “development
that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” UNWCED 1987: Chapter II: 1
Governments, multi-lateral institutions and transnational corporations have appropriated the term, making sustainable development appear possible without compromising their goals
of endless economic growth and boundless profit. They make it seem like the problems of envi- ronmental degradation and poverty are simply the result of inefficient resource utilization and
persistence in backward technology, and can be solved if developing countries were to adopt the more efficient methods and more advanced tools of production employed in developed coun-
tries. Thus, upon the urgings of the IMF, the governments of many developing countries have adopted policies that favor the takeover of their extractive industries by transnational corpora-
tions, saying these corporations command the capital and technology needed to make natural resource extraction more efficient and environment-friendly – more “sustainable”. This is the
case in the Philippines and Indonesia, for example, in the field of mining. The original proponents of sustainable development, however, question the very need for
continued extraction of huge amounts of certain resources – for example, metals, which can be reused or recycled from waste rather than mined; diamonds, which would not be in great de-
mand were it not for the market for jewelry.
The model of sustainable development is precisely a rejection of the aforementioned goals of endless economic growth and boundless profit. Its proponents espouse scaled-down production
and consumption, sufficient only for meeting the genuine needs of the masses of humanity and not the artificial needs that have been induced by the market or the insatiable cravings of affluent
elites. They believe that it is possible for all persons and peoples to have all their genuine needs met, and to live decent, productive and creative lives, if the earth’s remaining resources were to
be utilized rationally and carefully – rather than greedily and wantonly – and the benefits from such utilization were to be shared equitably.
This model of development resonates with the values that underpin indigenous peoples’ traditional relationships with nature and with each other – values that uphold the conservation
of natural resources for future generations and equitable sharing of these resources among the members of communities.
REFERENCES UN Development Programme. 2008. Human Development Indices: A Statistical Update.
http:hdr.undp.org UN World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future.
http:worldinbalance.netintagreements1987-brundtland.php.
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