This book recounts the successful story of national and international approaches to the population question since the 1960s to the present and of the progress made in reducing rapid rates of population growth and high levels of fertility. It describes the evolution of national population policies by governments, their aims, successes and shortcomings, and subsequently of the emergence of international agencies seeking to reinforce and underpin those commitments. This study draws heavily on documents and sources, and carefully assesses the achievements of the 1974 Bucharest World Population Conference, the 1984 International Conference on Population in Mexico and the several major national and international initiatives that followed them, up to the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development, in Rio. It examines the prospects for a new international consensus in population, and the preparation for the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994. The text is excellently supplemented with valuable annex materials.

This work recounts the successful story of national and international approaches to the population question from the 1960s to the present, and examines the progress made in reducing rapid rates of population growth and high levels of fertility. It describes the evolution of national population policies by governments, their aims, successes and shortcomings, and explores the emergence of international agencies seeking to reinforce and underpin those commitments.

Human exploitation of other mammals has passed through three histori cal phases, distinct in their ecological significance though overlapping in time. Initially, Homo sapiens was a predator, particularly of herbivores but also of fur-bearing predators. From about 11 000 years ago, goats and sheep were domesticated in the Middle East, rapidly replacing gazelles and other game as the principal source of meat. The principal crops, including wheat and barley, were taken into agriculture at about the same time, and the resulting Neolithic farming culture spread slowly from there over the subsequent 10 500 years. In a few places such as Mexico, Peru and China, this Middle Eastern culture met and merged with agricultural traditions that had made a similar but independent transition. These agricultural traditions provided the essential support for the industrial revolution, and for a third phase of industrial exploita tion of mammals. In this chapter, these themes are drawn out and their ecological signifi cance is investigated. Some of the impacts of humans on other mammals require consideration on a world-wide basis, but the chapter concen trates, parochially, on Great Britain. What have been the ecological consequences of our exploitation of other mammals? 2. 2 HISTORICAL PHASES OF EXPLOITATION 2. 2. 1 Predatory man Our nearest relatives - chimpanzees, orang utans and gorillas - are essentially forest species, deriving most of their diet from the fruits of forest trees and the shoots and leaves of plants.

Is 'sustainable development' a charade sold to an increasingly misled public? This book presents a wide-ranging, penetrating critique of sustainability and what it actually means. The author argues that despite the rhetoric of socially and environmentally sustainable development and the ever-increasing number of legislative environmental policies, the real issues such as consumption, population growth and equity are either sidestepped or manipulated in international policy and law. Analyzing the main areas of concern - economic growth, market structure, trade, aid, debt, security and sovereignty - he shows that the entire development structure and the underpinnings of the debate are leading down quite a different path to that intended by sustainability.

Presents a global view of today's most pressing issues through an analysis of the twelve major regions of the world. Economic and political restructuring, agriculture, industry, catastrophe, human conflict are just some of the issues covered

This up-to-date and comprehensive encyclopedia focuses on the population in each of the 194 countries of the world. Emphasis is on the world's population at the end of the twentieth century and on predictions for the next fifty years. This will be the authoritative source of information for students, scholars, librarians, government officials, and journalists.

This English edition of the German "Lexikon der Vereinten Nationen" provides concise and comprehensive information not only about the structure of the UN system, its goals and functions, but about recent developments and reform efforts in the face of global opportunities and challenges. The contributing authors are academic scholars of international law, economics and political sciences; active and former diplomats and UN officials; journalists and members of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and offer a variety of interesting perspectives. The entries are provided with Internet addresses for further information and are supplemented in the annex with a trilingual list (English-French-German) of the most important institutions and items of the official terminology and a list of information facilities concerning the UN. Readership: scholars and students of international law, international economics and political sciences, teachers, journalists, diplomats and politicians in the parliaments of the UN member states. "This new encyclopedia on the United Nations is a welcome addition to the works of academic research and political analysis covering the organization, its complex goals in the post-cold war era, and its ever broader role in the new millennium. While taking stock of more than half a century's achievements and setbacks, the encyclopedia also reflects the many ways in which the United Nations touches the lives of people everywhere." from the Preface by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan