Book

Description

Sustainability is increasingly displayed as the desired goal of development and environmental management. This term has been used in many different disciplines and in a different variety of contexts, ranging from the concept of maximum sustainable yield in forestry and fisheries management to the vision of a sustainable society with a steady-state economy. The meaning of sustainability is extremely dependent on the context that its used in, in which it is applied and on whether its use is based on a social, economic, or ecological perspective, Sustainability may be defined in a broad way or in a narrow way, but a useful definition must specify explicitly the context as well as the temporal and spatial scales being considered. Although societies differ in their conceptualizations and their way of applying of sustainability, indefinite human survival on a global scale requires certain basic support systems, which can be maintained only with a healthy environment and a stable human population.