Humanity is part of a single, integral biosphere to which we may be causing irreparable damage. Since mankind is not disposed to suicide, it is safe to say that a new ecological imperative, to paraphrase Immanuel Kant, faces the policy of states as well as the everyday life of individuals.
The vital resources that sustain our lives are products of past biospheres. And we should not forget that clean water, oxygen and soil fertility are a result of the interaction of hundreds of thousands of species of plants, animals and microorganisms that make up ecosystems. The stability of ecosystems and hence the quality of the environment depend on the preservation and maintenance of biological diversity and equilibrium of the biosphere.
I must admit that in the Soviet Union we only recently came to understand the vital importance of the ecological problem. The danger of war stood in our light. Also, after the revolution, when we started industrializing our country, we were not inclined to divert our attention to "secondary questions," as the environment seemed to us at that time. The size of our country and its riches also encouraged ecological carelessness.
However, we are now engaged in a revision of our attitude to nature with a view toward "ecologizing" our development policy by taking into account the ecological capacity of territories to sustain industrial sites, by seeking resource-efficient and waste-free technologies and pursuing the strict and consistent implementation of environmental protection measures.
"Ecologizing" our society also means acknowledging the priority of universal human values in making ecology a part of education and instruction from an early age, molding a new contemporary attitude by which we recover a sense of being a part of nature. No moral improvement of society is possible without such an attitude.
The ecological crisis we are experiencing today - from ozone depletion to deforestation and disastrous air pollution - is tragic but convincing proof that the world we all live in is interrelated and interdependent.
This means that we need an appropriate international policy in the field of ecology. Only if we formulate such a policy shall we be able to avert catastrophe. True, the elaboration of such a policy poses unconventional and difficult problems that will affect the sovereignty of states. Our problems are solvable, but only through cooperative effort. The Soviet Union is for working out an international program as soon as possible to save the biosphere and restore its vitality. Here are our main ideas:
- The Soviet Union fully supports the conservation plans and actions of the United Nations and its agencies. We want the U.N. Conference on the Environment and Development, which is to be held in Brazil in 1992, conducted at summit level. The conference should discuss drafting an international code of ecological ethics. Binding on all states, this code of ethics should contain common standards of a civilized attitude toward nature.
The 1992 conference should also adopt a global program of action on environmental protection and rational use of natural resources. Such a program should include the protection of the world's atmosphere and the preservation of biological diversity, without which it is impossible to preserve the regulating properties of the biosphere and, consequently, of life on Earth.
The Soviet Union considers it necessary to develop an international legal mechanism for protecting unique natural zones of global importance, especially the Antarctic.
Additionally, do not tropical forests and coral reefs - the ecological heritage of mankind - need our common care and concern? What about unique natural phenomena such as Siberia's Lake Baikal?
- The Soviet Union believes that the world is in urgent need of an international mechanism for technological cooperation in conservation. We are for developing an international system of exchanging ecologically clean technologies effectively accessible to all nations.
- An international mechanism of ecological monitoring must be set in place.
- The right to a healthy environment must be considered a basic human right. Thus, we need a system whereby every state would regularly present its nature-preservation activity and report on ecological accidents or their prevention.
Perhaps it would be useful to institute a kind of international Green Cross that offers its assistance to states in ecological trouble.
- Last but not least, the Soviet Union believes the time has come when the limitation of military activity is needed not only for lessening the danger of war, but for protecting the environment. The best thing to do here would be to ban all nuclear tests. We are ready to ban nuclear tests completely, for all time, and at any moment, if the U.S. does the same.
In the course of history, terms coined in one era take on new meaning in another. The term "biosphere" was a product of the 19th Century, but it was given a new meaning by the great Russian scientist, Vladimir Vernadsky. He constructed a theory of the biosphere which raised the issue of turning the entire medium in which mankind lives into a sphere ruled by reason. His call was for the triumph of the trinity of scientific knowledge, human reason and universal moral principles. This task is as magnificent as it is difficult. I wish it success.