ecological circles, but it is not a new idea.

According to the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, "sustainable development meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.'' In Britain this month, Prince Charles, a leading advocate of sustainable development, ignited the public debate again with a call to recognise the inter-connectedness of all things, and an attack on the arrogance of science.

He was echoing the views of US President Thomas Jefferson, who in 1789 said: "The earth belongs to each...generation during its course, fully and in its own right, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.'' The ideas have been nurtured in the ecological movement from the 1960's onwards and informed William Ruckelshaus's 1989 essay "Towards a Sustainable World''.

But it was not until the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, Brazil, that the concept of sustainable development entered into mainstream political thought.