Thursday 6 November 2003

He also wanted conservationists to favour economic growth in underdeveloped and failing countries, and to acknowledge that material progress could be good for the environment.

Adair Turner is chairman of the UK Pensions Commission and the UK Low Pay Commission, and a trustee of WWF. Speaking to an audience that included Sir David Attenborough, he was delivering the WWF Founders' Memorial Lecture in honour of Guy Mountfort and Max Nicholson, who both died earlier this year.

"Material progress" he declared, "is delivering huge benefits to people throughout the world. And the technological progress which powers prosperity is also capable of being used to make that prosperity sustainable - provided we make sensible choices."

Economic success, he believed, was determined not only by narrow economic policy, but also by the wider political context - "and the greatest threats to economic growth and to the environment in poor countries come from political instability, corruption and war, from political elites spending money on advanced weaponry, and from the complete social breakdown that occurs when criminal economic activity - trading in conflict diamonds or in drugs - crowds out normal economic development.

"The economic benefit to rich countries of selling fighter jets or small arms is trivial," he declared. "Even if we were unworried by ethical concerns, we should impose far tighter arms controls. And if we want to help sustainable economic development in the drug-ridden states such as Colombia and Afghanistan, we should almost certainly liberalise drugs use in our societies, combating abuse via education, not prohibition, rather than launching unwinnable 'wars on drugs' which simply criminalise whole societies."

Adair Turner said there were numerous reasons to be optimistic in terms of progress and the environment. "Many aspects of economic growth do not imply increasing environmental impact," he said. "Cheaper mobile phone calls and internet access do not harm the environment. A growing healthcare sector does not on the whole create environmental complications. Increasing demand for organic food is positively good for the environment. Many things consumers want as they get richer impose much less strain on the environment than when they wanted their first delivery of heating coal, their first washing machine, their first car."

But, he warned, we must guard against "conspicuous consumption of raw materials for its own sake". It was also necessary to engage in a debate about population stabilisation, and to support changes such as an increase in the retirement age which could make a stable population economically sustainable.

WWF's role, Adair Turner concluded, was to influence people to make consumption choices less harmful, to debate and influence taxation and trade policies, and to motivate people by preserving wildlife and habitats - "for our aim is not merely to prevent disaster, but to ensure that future generations can enjoy the beauty and the quiet of wild countryside, the wonder of starlight above a black velvet night, the sense of wonderment which we feel in observing the diversity, harmony yet continued change of the natural world, the sense of elegance we see in the big cats, the majesty and the mystery of elephants.

"The conservation movement needs to make its efforts compatible with global economics, and to come to terms with some of the difficult trade-offs and choices we face. But it also needs to capture people's imaginations and to inspire them to want to preserve the beauty of a wonderful world."