Arab environment-development joint commission meets in Cairo
The Arab environment-development joint commission started its first session in Cairo Monday.
The session is debating priority actions to be conducted to protect the environment and promote development in the Arab states. It will also look into the 2000-2001 program of action of the council of Arab environment ministers, that provides among others for the updating of legislation related to the protection of lands and waters in the Arab states.
Preparation of Arab participation in the second earth summit "Rio plus 10" is also on the agenda of the commission which seeks to consolidate Arab, regional and international efforts geared towards a lasting development in the Arab states.
The commission also seeks to foster cooperation between the Arab League, the UN bodies and Arab and international organizations dealing with environment.
The Moroccan delegation to the session (Morocco chairs the meeting) distributed a document highlighting the kingdom's environment policy and the actions conducted to secure balance between the right to development and the duty to protect the environment.
The document underlines the pressures affecting the country's natural resources in view of demographic growth and economic development. Over the past three decades, the water ratio per inhabitant decreased from 3000 cubic meters in 1971 to less than 1000 cubic meters in 1998. Air quality is deteriorating because of industrial activities and increasing number of vehicles on Moroccan roads, the document says adding industrial units alone release 2.5 million tons of polluting elements per year while vehicles emit 0.5 million tons.
Land is not spared in view intensive exploitation, desert encroachment and soils erosion that threatens about 22.7 million hectares. Erosion is also behind a decrease of the stocking capacity of dams with an annual loss of about 5% of their overall volume.
The volume of solid waste has been increasing over the past decades in view of economic development, population growth and expansion of urban areas. The volume of these wastes went up from 1,600 tons a day in 1960, to 12,370 tons in 1992 and to 17,413 tons in 1999.
Morocco loses about $2 billion every year, or 2% of the GDP, because of the incidence of pollution, the document says.
The document also surveys the environment related problems facing the countries of the south in general and imputes the failure to conciliate between the right to development and the imperative to protect the environment to the inadequate approach adopted by the international community which privileges services and science to the detriment of environment.