Market forces therefore do not favour or reward sustainable natural resource management. In fact they encourage and reward the opposite - exploitation of the environment for short term benefit. This picture becomes more complicated when we introduce the problem of equity. The growth process has been accompanied by an increasing division of wealth and poverty due to a host of historical factors such as the technological, educational and military dominance of some countries, and inequities in the system of international trade. At the poverty end of the scale, countries are forced to exploit their natural resources to pay national debt interest, and landless people cut down forests to grow basic food crops.
Population growth is highest among the poorest.
At the richer end, over-consumption of energy and material goods is directly causing global warming, pollution, etc. The Earth Summit was held in Rio in 1992 to discuss these problems. Although this was an historic meeting, the clash of national and vested interest groups prevented far-reaching solutions to these problems. Arguably the most significant output was Agenda 21, a blueprint for sustainable development for the 21st Century. Many of the central ideas in Agenda 21 - education, consultation, participation, the role of women, global cooperation, the tackling of poverty, etc.