UN General Assembly
1998

environment and an equally ambitious vision of our place in the world. We continue to work very hard to ensure that the development necessary to give our people a high degree of social well-being does not affect the “last sanctuary on Earth”, as we call ourselves. “Environment” for us is not a fashion statement. We do not intend to give any lessons, but we certainly intend to be the conscience of the world. Whilst others, infinitely more powerful and developed than we are, pollute and spoil, we preserve and protect. We have set aside some 45 per cent of our national territory for the protection of nature. And we have offered to the international community two of its most precious natural treasures as World Heritage Sites. But all this has a cost. We bear the brunt of it, conscious of our responsibility to future generations, conscious that planet Earth is our common heritage. Ours, though, is a shared responsibility, requiring global solutions to a global problem. And the solution is to be