MIKHAIL Gorbachov, the Soviet premier, last week called for the establishment
of an international code of environmental ethics, binding on all states,
and incorporating 鈥榰nique criteria of a civilised attitude to nature鈥�. Addressing
a meeting in Moscow of the 鈥楪lobal Forum鈥� of religious leaders and parliamentarians,
Gorbachov said the UN Conference on the environment and development, scheduled
for 1992 in Brazil, should draft such a code.
The conference in 1992, he said, should promote a global programme of
environmental conservation and promote the rational use of natural resources,
including provisions to protect the climate, protect flora and fauna, and
conserve biological diversity 鈥榳ithout which it is impossible to preserve
the regulatory properties of the biosphere, and hence life on Earth itself鈥�.
