ENVIRONMENT: People, Governments Differ on Ecology, Polls Say

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 14 1997 (IPS) - The world’s people increasingly see environmental risks as a major health problem requiring urgent action, while governments are confident they are now more equipped to manage their countries’ natural resources, two new polls show.

A survey conducted over the past three months by the International Environmental Monitor Ltd (IEML) and its research partners in 25 countries shows a widespread popular worry over environmental hazards.

In 19 of the countries studied, more than 80 percent of all respondents believed their children’s health could be affected by environmental problems, according to the survey released at a forum here that is reviewing progress on commitments governments made at the Earth Summit five years ago.

In South Korea, 77 percent of respondents expressed a great deal of concern over health risks, and another 20 percent expressed a fair amount of concern. Vast majorities of those polled also declared a great deal of concern that children would face health risks, including 76 percent of Italian respondents, 78 percent of Peruvians, and 75 percent of Indians.

The level of concern is so great, the IEML reports, that strong majorities in most countries surveyed would prefer immediate action to be taken on issues like climatic change before waiting for further data.

That view was shared by 74 percent of French respondents, as well as 71 percent each in Italy and Germany and 69 percent each in Japan and South Korea. The public in the United States and Russia appear to have lower levels of concern, with only 46 percent and 27 percent respectively asking for immediate action.

“We were surprised by the sharp rise of public health concerns in both developed and developing countries over a five-year period in which their leaders have moved in the opposite direction on the environment issue,” IEML president Doug Miller said here at the Mar. 13-19 ‘Rio Plus Five’ Forum.

“Governments and industry leaders ignore these deepening environmental and health concerns at their peril,” he said.

One common thread among the countries in the poll was the feeling that industry and government in fact are not doing enough five years after the Rio Earth Summit to protect the environment.

In 14 countries, majorities of those surveyed said industry was doing either a poor or very poor job of dealing with environmental problems. Except among Eastern European countries, majorities also believed that the government should focus more on environmental protection than on economic growth.

On the other hand, a study by the Switzerland-based World Conservation Union (IUCN) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) shows a more upbeat view of government actions. The study centres on the more than 170 governments that are party to the Convention on Biodiversity as well as on selected non-governmental organisations

The survey shows that 93 percent of respondents have increased access to information on biodiversity since the convention entered into force at the end of 1993. More than nine-tenths of all respondents have already prepared or are preparing national biodiversity plans in accordance with the convention.

Three-fifths of the experts surveyed said they have applied new forest management techniques, while 58 percent consider their state of information on biological diversity to be good or excellent.

“All but two countries had, or were developing, specific socio- economic measures to act as incentives for the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources…but very few were able to give an actual cost of these measures,” the IUCN says in a report on the survey’s findings.

Despite clear signs of progress on the biodiversity accords, however, the public at large fears a wide range of environmental hazards that vary from nation to nation, Miller told IPS.

In Australia and New Zealand, for example, respondents shared a greater level of concern over the hole in the earth’s protective ozone layer and consequent health risks posed by it. On the other hand, in India, public fear over health risks is “very much a garbage and water issue”, Miller added.

Ultimately, he said, public pressure for faster and more environmental improvement will have to be heard. “It is as if the survival instinct of our species has been activated,” Miller argued.