The State of the Environment 1986: Environment and Health

This report aims to show that the achievement of sustained development, the promotion of health, and the rational use of the environmental resources are absolutely inseparable. Disregard one and, sooner or later, the other two will collapse. If the envi- ronment is abused, both health and development suffer; people become ill from envi- ronmental diseases, and development - which depends on the use of environmental resources - fails. Similarly, if nations do not develop, poverty condemns their people to continued disease, debility and early death, and drives them to destroy their environ- ment in their desperate attempt to survive. Finally, ill-health is itself an enormous drain on resources, sick people are less productive, and are often driven to do further environ- mental damage. In such matters, as the late Barbara Ward used to say, "everything connects".