"Development depends on the environment while its impact on the environment affects human well-being," the recently launched Global Environment Outlook says.

Environment for Development, the fourth report on the Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4), notes that significant changes to geo-political borders have occurred over the past two decades.

A habitable environment has seen the global population growing from 5 billion in 1987 to the present day 6.7 billion.

Trade volumes and the amount of land under agriculture have increased. Technological innovations have improved livelihoods and health.

Low transportation costs, coupled with market liberalization and the rapid development of telecommunications have fuelled globalization and altered trade patterns.

The flow of goods, services, capital, people, technologies, information, ideas and labour has expanded.

Through positive development, the GEO-4 report points out that many people across the world have worked their way out of poverty. Many people now have access to improved services such as healthcare.

Despite these positive developments, the report warns that there are more than one billion poor people in the world. They lack essential services such as clean water, adequate nutrition, shelter and clean energy. Such people are vulnerable to environmental and socio-economic changes.

A key environmental change noted in the report is the increase in the level of carbon dioxide emissions. Carbon dioxide is one of the major greenhouse gases that causes climate change.

While a clean environment drives development, it is worth noting that some development initiatives have negative impacts on the environment.

According to the GEO-4 report, the responsibility for the mounting global environmental pressures is not equally distributed throughout the world.

For example, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Annex 1 countries which account for 20 percent of the world population, produce 57 percent of gross world product based on purchasing power parity. The same countries accounted for 46 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Changing environmental pressures, including the large-scale movement of people from rural to urban areas, the widening gap between the richest and poorest, and growth in demand for energy, have led to a deepening disparity in consumption patterns and in outsourcing of environmentally damaging production processes.

According to GEO-4, there is growing evidence that investment in environmental management results in increased income generation for both the rural people and industry.

The report estimates that 80 percent of people in developing countries rely on traditional medicines, and more than half of the frequently prescribed drugs in developed countries are derived from natural resources.

Worldwide, more than 1.3 billion people depend on fisheries, forests and agriculture for employment.

Given the value of environmental resources, communities in resource-dependent countries are therefore, vulnerable to environmental degradation, climate change and the loss of services from ecosystems.

The GEO-4 report acknowledges that knowledge about the value of ecosystem services and the role of environment in supporting development has improved. A further enhancement of such knowledge can facilitate the transition to sustainable development.

The GEO reports are produced by the Department of Early Warning and Assessment of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), with a network of international collaborating centres. The collaborating centre for southern Africa is the Southern African Research and Documentation Centre. sardc.net