IN A WORLD CHARACTERISED BY political, economic and cultural
diversity, international co-operation on the management of resources and
the environment must be based on scientific criteria. There can be no other
foundation on which to build international consensus.
Sustainable development is the political concept that the World Commission on Environment and Development was able to unanimously endorse. The North-South perspective was a major issue in the aforementioned UN commission, until agreement was reached on where the balance should be set between conservation and the utilisation of resources.
The developing countries gradually gained acceptance of the view that the wealthy nations must not he allowed to force the poorer nations into refraining from uitlising their resources, but this uitlisation must be of such a nature that the basis of these resources is maintained for future generations.
For many years, the hunting communities of the North Atlantic have been treated harshly by industrial society. In the cities of Europe and North America in particular, where people live far removed from nature, an understanding of the needs of hunting communities has been sadly lacking. Unfortunately, I believe that not many people realise that we are faced with a violation of other people's culture, when emotional campaigns are allowed to deprive the hunting communities in Canada, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroes and Norway of the basis of their economy. Local communities in the United States and Russia have also been affected.
Our cultural diversity obliges us to embrace the hunting cultures as long as the hunt is carried out on a sound ecological basis. A lot still remains to be done before the markets for marine mammal products can be reopened: the obstacles to trade that still remain are totally lacking in scientific justification. A resolutely implemented information policy will hopefully help us well along the way. This brochure is a contribution to just that.
Oslo, November 1996
Gro Harlem Brundtland
Prime Minister of Norway (2)
(2) The preface was written autumn 1996, while Gro Harlem Brundtland was still Prime Minister of Norway.