*The Agreement on High Seas Fishing: An Update Introduction
In the decade following the adoption of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, fishing on the high seas became a major international problem. The Convention gave all States the freedom to fish without regulations on the high seas, but coastal States, to which the Law of the Sea conferred exclusive economic rights, including the right to fish within 200 miles off their shores, began to complain that fleets fishing on the high seas were reducing catches in their domestic waters.

*Changing Our Patterns of Production and Consumption to Save the Global Environment
Every time we turn on a light, use the clothes washer or listen to music on the stereo in a country that produces power by burning coal or oil, we add to the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that is released into the atmosphere. When we jump into the car to run an errand or visit a friend, the petrol we use also emits carbon and other wastes which cause global warming and ground-level smog. If the petrol is leaded, particles are released into the air, causing health problems for local people.

*Combating Global Warming: The Climate Change Convention
Since its adoption five years ago at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has been the centrepiece of global efforts to combat global warming. It also has been one of the international community's most essential tools in the struggle to promote sustainable development. A great deal has been accomplished since Rio -- but the most difficult decisions still lie ahead.

*Earth "trends" report sees danger ahead
Unless the "business as usual" development patterns of the last 25 years change, warns a United Nations report, "Critical Trends: Global Change and Sustainable Development", the next quarter-century is likely to be characterized by declining standards of living, rising levels of conflict and environmental stress. Poverty will deepen, especially in the large cities of some developing regions, triggering conflict over dwindling natural resources and a shortage of agriculturally productive land. Fresh water, a crucial component of economic activity as well as of human health, will be scarce in many areas and increasingly polluted in most.

*Earth Summit Review Ends with Few Commitments
Over 50 Heads of State or Government Attend; Some Progress on Climate, Forests, Water World leaders ended a week-long special session of the United Nations General Assembly in the small hours of the morning on 28 June with at least one agreement: five years after the Rio Earth Summit, the planet's health is generally worse than ever. But the final document adopted by delegates from over 165 countries -- while taking small steps forward on a number of issues, including preventing climate change, forest loss and freshwater scarcity -- disappointed many in that it contained few new concrete commitments on action needed.

*Global Water Supplies in Peril, UN Report Finds
Overall Sustainable Development Lags, a Companion Study Says
The world's supply of clean fresh water, already threatened by growing levels of pollution, is growing so scarce in some areas that if current trends continue, two-thirds of humanity will suffer "moderate to severe water stress" within 30 years, according to a forthcoming United Nations report. The report warns that the situation not only imperils human health and development on a vast scale, but also the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems on which much of the Earth's life depends.

*International Action on Toxic Chemicals and Hazardous Wastes
Chemicals are essential for economic and social development. Yet the use of substances such as DDT, chlordane, PCBs, dioxin, sulphuric acid, mercury, lead and arsenic can pose significant risks to human health and the environment. Human exposure and pollution of the environment may arise at all stages in the life cycle of chemicals, from their production through to ultimate disposal.

*Sustaining the Future
The environment became an international issue in 1972, with the UN Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm. In the following years, only limited results were achieved in making the environment part of national development plans and decision-making. While some progress was made on scientific and technical issues, politically, the environment continued to be neglected with ozone depletion, global warming, forest degradation and other environmental problems becoming more serious.

*The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity: A Constructive Response to a Global Problem
Species Loss - The Environmental Problem. Biodiversity--the variety of plant and animal species present in the natural environment--is not only fundamental to the quality of human life. It is essential for human survival. Goods and services such as food, clothing, housing and medicines are derived from diverse biological resources. Advances in biotechnology have also led to many new medical and agricultural applications, all dependent on biologically diverse sources.

*The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification: A New Response to an Age-Old Problem
The Environmental Problem - Desertification and Its Causes
One quarter of the earth's land is threatened by desertification, according to estimates by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). The livelihoods of over 1 billion people in more than 100 countries are also jeopardized by desertification, as farming and grazing land becomes less productive. Desertification does not mean that deserts are steadily advancing or taking over neighbouring land. As defined by the UN Convention, desertification is a process of "land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities". Patches of degraded land may develop hundreds of kilometres from the nearest desert. But these patches can expand and join together, creating desert-like conditions. Desertification contributes to other environmental crises, such as the loss of biodiversity and global warming.

*UN Assessment of Freshwater Resources: The world faces a worsening series of regional and local water crises, according to a 1997 study by the United Nations and the Stockholm Environment Institute.
Overuse and pollution are limiting the amount of freshwater that is available to safely meet the needs of human society and of the ecosystem, according to the Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World, prepared for the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and presented to the June 1997 General Assembly Earth Summit Review. With agriculture highly dependent on access to ample freshwater resources for irrigation in addition to rainfall, qualitatively improved irrigation techniques will be necessary if there is to be enough food for the world's growing population, the study finds.

*United Nations Panel on Forests to Hold Final Session from 11 to 21 February. Will Countries Create a Binding International Accord on Forests?
Nations will decide whether or not to pursue a formal, legally-binding world convention on forests during the final session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests (IPF), which will hold its fourth and final meeting at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 11 to 21 February 1997. The meeting is expected to be the culmination of an intense international debate opened five years ago during the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

*United Nations Panel Proposes Action to Implement Earth Summit Forest Accords. Governments agree to continue dialogue towards international convention on forests
A high-level panel set up by the United Nations to promote sustainable management of forests in all parts of the world today put forward far-reaching proposals for action on a broad range of issues which will go a long way in improving the state of the world's forests. The Panel's conclusions reflect how the issue of forests, which was contentious and difficult at the 1992 Rio Conference, is now one that governments can discuss and begin to reach agreement on. The Panel urged countries and international organizations to immediatelly implement the set of Proposals for Action negotiated over the past two years and adopted by the Panel today.

*Women and Sustainable Development
Since 1962, when American author Rachel Carson alerted the world to the dangers of pesiticide poisoning in her ground-breaking book "Silent Spring", women have played a vital role in the global environmental movement. In 1988, the World Commission on Environment and Development, headed by Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, published its report, "Our Common Future", linking the environmental crisis to unsustainable development and financial practices that were worsening the North-South gap, with women a majority of the world's poor and illiterate.