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Experts in the matter who have studied humankind�s relation with nature will often tell you that some of the blame for our egocentric view of life lies in a too literal interpretation of some of the recommendations handed down to us in our Judeo-Christian culture. In the book of Genesis you can read that, after creating Humankind, God said:.�Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth�. Now we know that this is not exactly the best advice to follow if we want our planet to be the home for future generations.

The progress of humankind since the Industrial Revolution has made us aware of the enormous potential we have for changing the world in which we live. So important are these changes that we may even be putting our very survival in jeopardy. The world�s population growth is seen by some scientists as a time bomb; ruling over fish, birds and all kinds of living creatures is so easy for us that we have caused the extinction of hundreds of species while many more are in danger. Such is our voracity for natural resources that the debate nowadays is no longer centred on the fear of exhausting our fossil fuel reserves but rather that their indiscriminate consumption could bring about a major climatic change.

A sustainable development must take these factors into consideration in order to prevent the breakdown of our environment. It should be in consonance with our natural resources� capacity for regeneration, while at the same time allowing us to limit and manage the environmental impact that we inevitably cause. To achieve this it is essential to take into account cultural, political, economic and social aspects which affect the relationship we have with our planet. These aspects will cause the Rio de Janeiro conference to go down in history as the Earth Summit.

But sustainable development is pie in the sky unless we adopt practical measures to turn theory into reality. We need go no further than to look at this section�s weekly articles to find measures based on the idea of sustainable development. Separating our household rubbish for recycling, saving energy and water, or protecting our woods from forest fires are just different sides of the same coin. And we can only make it work if we all pull together.

The fact that our Spanish lynx is almost extinct is dramatic proof that our development is not exactly sustainable. We are driving this wildcat out of its natural habitat. The biologist Miguel Delibes, one of the greatest experts on lynxes, believes that what is happening with the lynx and other endangered species is a symptom of the Earth�s poor health and that one day this may affect us as well. This is why he warns, �humankind�s challenge is to stop the earth from changing so greatly that not even we will have a place to live; we�ll be pushed out too�.

�Did you know�?

• The first international conference to talk about sustainable development was held in Stockholm (Sweden) in 1972.
• All countries have a duty to draft a national sustainable development strategy since, from an environmental point of view, neither islands nor borders exist. The Earth is home for all of us and it would have been no use, for example, if just a few countries had taken measures to protect the ozone layer.
• Spain presented its Strategy for Sustainable Development on 21 June, 2001, with three specific aims: economic development and employment growth; social welfare and cohesion; and the effective protection of the environment and the "prudent" use of natural resources.
• Next year another summit will be held, Rio+10, which will try to guarantee the fulfilment of a series of treaties regarding sustainable development which were signed by all countries ten years ago.
• Not only companies but also many towns and cities are signing agreements to grow following sustainable development guidelines. They comply with what began to be known in Rio de Janeiro as Agenda 21. In Spain the province of Soria has become famous the world over for the number of towns and villages that actively adhere to Agenda 21 criteria.