Can poor countries pursue development that takes the environment into account?

- Poor countries have an even greater imperative than wealthy countries to protect the environment because it is their main resource, providing raw materials and water, for instance. Poor countries are realizing now that the environment is not just an idea that comes from the North, the environment is what can make poor countries richer. I met recently with Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, and he said 'we have been so reckless, we have been very wrong to harm our environment. Now we have to change.' China is becoming aware of the economic and human damage it is suffering because they did not take care of the environment.

The costs of air pollution, water pollution, are becoming much more visible to developing countries. They are becoming far more interested in the environment, not because they are listening to the industrialized countries, but because environmental problems bring with them very heavy costs for future development. The old belief that you can ignore the environment and go back and clean it up later we have found just doesn't work. The most important thing for developing countries to understand is that their own poverty will persist if they continue to destroy the environment and resources upon which their development depends.

Does the military have a role in helping protect the environment?

- Many countries are now looking for new roles for the military because there are not many external enemies anymore. Like any institution, the armed forces have a desire to survive so they have to develop new roles. Instead of keeping people down, perhaps they can turn to constructive work, natural resources and the environment. One of the most active organizations in the United States in the field of water conservation is the Army Corps of Engineers.

But that is just one aspect of the relationship between the environment and peace, which is manifest, for example in how to manage river basins that cross national borders. It means anticipating conflicts before they arise. That is why we created the University for Peace and now we are establishing an Ombudsman who can help anticipate and resolve natural resource conflicts. The armed forces can have a constructive role in this process.

What are the principal objectives of the University for Peace?

- Education, training and research. We are not those who send in the peacekeeping forces, we provide education and training with the hope that such forces will eventually be unnecessary.

Recently I worked on reforming the agencies of the United Nations, to determine which should be abolished, which should be consolidated and which should be strengthened. Although the University for Peace was rather weak and modest in size it had some good things, so we decided it should be expanded to serve the global purposes of the environment and peace. We have a research center here in Montevideo that is a big part of it. The experience of Uruguay in making the transition from a dictatorship to a democracy brings with it a sort of expertise, so it can now help many other countries around the world that are making the same kind of transition.

The University for Peace is working with the World Conservation Union (IUCN) and the Earth Council on an initiative for peace parks. Many countries where there have been conflicts are now considering setting up peace parks along their borders, such as North and South Korea, Ecuador and Peru. There is a peace park in Canada and the United States. All around the world now there are more than 100 countries that want to have peace parks. There are no international standards or support for doing this yet, but we are looking at establishing a system.

Do you think it is necessary to establish basic global standards for the environment?

- At the Rio Summit I strongly urged nations to adopt the Earth Charter as a set of guidelines and moral principles for conduct in relation to the earth, but they were not ready for it. After that we realized if the governments won't do it, it is up to the people. We started with a few and now tens of thousands of people are involved. We hope to present the final draft of the Earth Charter, approved in March of this year, to leaders all over the world. This is not a treaty. Treaties are important, but they are usually ignored. We want this to be an active document.

There are diverse spiritual and moral beliefs around the world, of course, but there are certain basic principles we must agree on if we are to survive as a species. The Earth Charter is an attempt to distill this diversity so that people from all religious, cultural and linguistic origins can feel comfortable and identify with this idea.

I hope I am wrong, but I believe this century could be the last of our civilization. We are self-destructing. That doesn't mean that all life will disappear, as many insects and animals will survive. But fundamentally we cannot sustain the type of civilization we now have. With the level of the human population and the scale and intensity of human activities we are changing the conditions of nature and we are changing them at a record rate. Natural change occurs also, but over long, long periods of time.

We can work to change our civilization, reduce poverty and bring good lives to everyone around the world, or we can destroy ourselves. With education and the values of the Earth Charter, people can be more aware of how they can affect the situation. I do believe there is a solution but I often think our chances of survival are not very good. It is a challenge and a chance. I am an older man now and I have grandchildren. I want to be able to leave something for them - a world in which we are at peace with nature and with each other. The two things are very closely linked.

Is the health of the planet showing any sign of improvement?

- We are worse off now than we were before the world conferences in Stockholm and Rio de Janeiro. In Stockholm, we lost our innocence. Before, we had been harming the environment without realizing it, doing things inadvertently. In Rio we had a much better understanding and we signed conventions on climate change, on biodiversity.

But what has happened since Rio? The population has doubled, the world economy grew by 400 percent, and the impacts on the environment continue to increase. In addition, the Kyoto Convention on greenhouse gas emissions was not enough. Most countries won't meet the reduction targets, not even my own country.

Environmental problems are very much like cancer. At first the symptoms are hardly noticeable, maybe you think you are catching a cold or the flu, but gradually the cancer reaches a certain point, and if you have not started to treat it, it becomes incurable. Since Stockholm and Rio we have developed the technological means to solve environmental problems, but we lack the motivation. We lack a moral and ethical value system. Government is probably the most important means through which we express these values, but people are at the base of the issue. I don't trust government. I know I'm not supposed to say that but governments aren't providing leadership in this area.

*The authors are IPS correspondents.