The introduction of the concept of Sustainable Development (SD) was seen as a profound paradigm-shift by many analysts, activists and policy-makers, as it brought environmental concerns to the centre-stage of development. The Brundtland Commission report is of course best known for its defining statement: `”Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs''. Equally important is the clarification that follows: “the concept of 'needs', [refers to] in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given”. The report, which provided a sense of global acceptability to the concept of SD, based its considerations on the argument that development was not possible in the long run without protecting the environment. It simultaneously recognized that environmental degradation was further impoverishing people (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). The conception of sustainable development in the report gave a high priority to poverty alleviation and to equitable development, arguing that “a world in which poverty and inequity are endemic will always be prone to ecological and other crises” (p.43) and that “long before these are reached, the world must ensure equitable access to the constrained resource” (p.45).