2. Sustainable Development

The first issue that needs to be addressed is to define sustainable development. Essentially, “sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”⁸ A quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson outlines the goal of sustainability as “the earth belongs to each . . . generation during its course, fully and in its own right, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.”⁹ One definition that many consider to be the most accurate is from the Brundtland Commission which stated that development can be considered sustainable when it “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Sustainable development anticipates doing different things in different places, or, as Kaivo Oja has noted, that there is no universal model of a sustainable society,¹⁰ does not mean we cannot decipher its meaning. Rather, sustainability, like indigenous knowledge, is embedded in the cultural and moral values of society and, as Kaivo-Oja has pointed out it is “situation-based.”¹¹ Sustainability means pursuing economic activity while promoting sound environmental management and social equity both intra and inter generational. Specifically, sustainable development necessitates attaining sustainability at three levels: economical, ecological, and social.¹²

Economically, sustainability requires using, to the fullest extent, financial, manufactured, and human capital in a way that simultaneously fosters equitable distribution, access, and utilization of resources (or capital) essential to sustaining livelihoods. For example, in predominantly rural and agriculturally reliant societies, where land is the main livelihood resource, economic sustainability would require four actions: providing universal access to land and enhancing people’s ability to derive a living from it; providing access to other resources such as trees, fruits, plants, and animals that depend on the land; maintaining the quality of land and the resources that are derived from land to ensure both present and future generations are not deprived of their use; and redistributing land and other resources, where necessary, to ensure that everyone benefits.¹³

Ecologically, sustainability requires sound management of “environmental capital,” or “natural capital,” to ensure that both present and future generations enjoy the same ecosystem services.¹⁴ Ecological sustainability requires regulating human activity to ensure the quality and quantity of ecosystem services such as air, water, and soil are maintained and preserved and the diverse species of fauna and flora are not rendered extinct.

It also requires using natural resources in a way that does not impair their local and global regenerative capacities. In other words, ecological sustainability requires aligning economic activity with carrying capacity and the level of technology.¹⁵ This will ensure resources are used at rates that do not exceed their regeneration, emissions or wastes do not exceed available sinks, and non-renewable resources are exploited at a rate that equals the creation of substitutes.

In rural and agriculturally dependent societies, ecological sustainability necessitates four measures: maintaining both the quality and quantity of land through measures that monitor soil erosion and soil exhaustion; allocating land for agriculture without encroaching on forest habitats harboring fauna and flora and providing important sources of fruits, medicine, food, and fuel wood; utilizing land and other ecosystem resources at a rate that neither exceeds the sinks nor endangers the land’s natural regenerative capacity; and taking measures that reverse land degradation.¹⁶

Social sustainability deals with distributive justice, or what Lafferty calls “social justice.” Distributive or “social justice” entails, among other things, “revaluing and redistributing wealth and power.” The concept of social sustainability is based on the view that environmental problems are both ecological and social.¹⁷ Human activity affects nature and vice versa. Accordingly, social sustainability seeks to address two main issues: ensuring resource equity and maintaining “social capital.”¹⁸

Social sustainability seeks to ensure equity in the way resources are accessed, controlled, and utilized. In other words, social sustainability questions the existing forms of social exclusion, which account for the manner in which financial, manufactured, and human capital are inequitably distributed, accessed, and utilized. Social sustainability, therefore, provides a context for challenging the intra and inter gender disparities in the distribution of resources.¹⁹