The debt has imposed environmental destruction on the less-developed countries through the pattern of development which grinding poverty imposes. While the details of how this happens differ from country to country, there are common factors throughout much of the 'third world'.
First, there is water pollution, air pollution and toxification -linked to the use of chemical products, especially pesticides. Water pollution often stems rapid urbanisation; peasants driven off the land by poverty have been forced into arge urban shantytowns.
By equipped with sewage facilities.
Because of the closeness of water wells to cesspools, there is constant bacteriological contamination of the water. The effects of this have been seen dramatically in the last few Yes! I want to become a Socialist Outlook i I want to take an order of I Outlook to sell O , Name: • Address:
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2UU July 6, 1991 No. 5 months in the cholera epidemic which has broken out in Latin America. Starting in Peru, where thousands have already died, the epidemic has spread to Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil. The epidemic is directly caused by the lack of clean water; it is not just a health problem, it is an environmental problem, caused by poverty.
Because industrial processes in the less-developed countries are more antiquated, and be cause of the lack of government regulation, urban industries give rise to much more pollution than in the advanced countries, disrupting normal ecological cycles. Toxic metals like mercury and lead are regularly pumped into water supplies; cases of poisoning drinking metal-contaminated water abound.
The worst air pollution anywhere is in the major third - world cities like Sao Paulo and Mexico City. In Sao Paulo the daily toll of pollution is enor.. copies of Socialist , Please return to: Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London, N4, erosion, because the natural mous; amongst the poisons pumped into the atmosphere are 90 tons of sulphur dioxide, 5000 tons of carbon monoxide, 500 tons of particle materials, and 1200 tons of hydrocarbons and hydrogen dioxide.
The overall effect of this contamination goes well beyond the cities. City pollution in Latin America stretches out into the countryside and even as far as the coast of the Caribbean.
Toxic contamination in the third world is also intensified r tne use or many pesucia forbidden in more evelope countries. Such pesticides enter Every year the world loses twice the amount of agricultural land as is added. An area the size of Britain is disappearing annually. The UN Environmental Programme has es timated that in the next 20 years some 60 million hectares agricultural land will be lost due to erosion, urbanisation and other forms of soil degradation.
The desert is advancing in many areas, but especially in Africa between the Sahara and the Sahel. This is not solely due to climatic factors, but also to deforestation, overgrazing and I improper land management. During the first eight decades of this century more than half of the forested areas in developing nations has been destroved discriminate tree felling for industrial purposes, for providing firewood or simply for clearing land would, at the presen the forest in fifty ears rate, completely from now.
Deforestation causes soil protection against rain is lost; the torrential rains in tropical go%g areas wash the topsoil off into rivers, irrigational canals and then into the sea. In turn, obstruction of drainage facilities auses progressive salinisation f the soil. The wind then cor pletes the destructive pattern.
Part of the forest destruction can be directly attributed to the greed of big companies. But it is also the consequence of the extreme poverty of many rural groups, who have constantly to cut down the forest for the firewood to cook and keep warm, and also so they can clear the land and plant subsistence cropith the advance of commercial agriculture and ranching, large numbers of the imWE'RE OUT OF WOOD! DAMN THIS ENERGY CRISIS! poverished rural population are pushed towards the forest and mountainous areas, advancing the process of forest destruction. legradation of the third work lust part of the ectrum of environment has been outlined here. The root cause of it all is poverty. The masses of the third world need land, not being driven off the land by urbanisaion and big ranchers. The need fresh clean water. Thei need industries that do not wreck the environment. They need an end to toxic pesticides and the dumping of waste from the advanced countries. That means an end to the debt and a new pattern of economic development.
Next week the leaders of the Major, Kohl and Bush will all be there, but none of their victims from lend money.
Features the debtor countries nations slumped. Commodity change for rescheduling the counties are the victims of float-
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