ABSTRACT
In 1970 the UN released its International Development Strategy which claimed ‘the ultimate purpose of development is to provide increasing oppor tunities to al people for a better life’ and this entailed the need to ‘safeguard the environment’ (US Department of State 1972, pp. 19 and 28). The strategy preceded the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stock holm which discussed the perceived environmental danger of a rapidly industrialising Third World.
