Respect for the environment

30. At present, nature is teaching all a lesson in solidarity that could easily be forgotten. In the very act of producing food, everyone discovers that they are either active or passive component parts of an ecosystem. A new sphere of responsibility is opening up to people's consciences.

The pretense of pretending to want to provide more food to more people and at the same time weaken agriculture cannot continue. Agriculture seems to be contributing more pollution (with the wholesale use of fertiliser, pesticides and machines) as it reaches the industrial stage, before having developed the capacity to work without polluting. In addition to the other elements necessary in life, the atmosphere, water, soil and the woodlands are all threatened by pollution, over-consumption, man-made desertification and deforestation. In the space of fifty years, half the tropical forests have been cleared, more often than not in the quest for more land or because of short-term policies to intensify farming in order to offset the debt burden. In the poorest regions, desertification is being caused by survival practices that actually are increasing poverty. These include over-grazing as well as felling trees and shrubs for cooking and heating(⁴⁷).