Topic: Promoting Ecologically Sound Development Strategies
Country: Netherlands
Delegate Name: Amanda Jaworsky
School: Williamston High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Netherlands position papers GLIMUN 2016 committees
Ensuring that ideas and development are ecologically safe is an exceedingly important process for not only the current health of the world, but also for the health of future generations. In many instances it can be a difficult task to stop many procedures and acts which greatly impact the environment, both directly and indirectly, because there are many different processes the environment can be impacted by, like pollution and deforestation. While it may be a difficult task, it is also an extremely important one to consider, especially since damage on the environment can be, in many instances, irreparable and deadly for people, animals, and future generations.This is why it is very important to not only improve, but also to prevent the loss in biodiversity and increases in pollution levels.
In the past the Netherlands has struggled with ecologically safe development. As large manufacturing and industry has become an exceedingly important part of the Netherlands economy and issues with the environment, along with greenhouses gases and water quality. In the 1980’s the Netherlands began to realize the impacts they were having on their environment and in 1989 they adopted their National Environment Policy Plan. They have used this plan ever since and have found considerable success in it. They also adopted the Aichi Biodiversity Targets developed by the United Nations and have decreased their loss of biodiversity through reclaiming past agricultural land and improving natural areas, along with building more in already developed areas and avoiding development in naturally preserved areas.
The Netherlands believes that the use of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and other plans which can decrease loss of biodiversity and improve emissions, water pollution, and other environmental dangers, are policies which can greatly improve the environmental state of individual nations and whole groups of nations and support safe development. The Netherlands also wholly supports individual countries developing their own plans and goals which would pertain to only their country and the waterways near to them. The Netherlands also supports participation in international plans, such as the Aichi Biodiversity targets, which are developed by the UN, as they have found many levels of success through the use of these policies, along with their own national plans. In short, the Netherlands believes that it is extremely important to focus on improving ecological footprint and using safe development, whether this be through the rules of international plans developed by the UN or through national policies created by individual countries, or, both.
