What right to develop.

I have recently seen a number of stories about environmentalist decrying the growth of developing countries and the use/ destruction of their own natural resources. There is a moral, social and responsibility conflict in play with many of these situations and it’s being played out in developing countries around the world, especially in countries desperate for social and economic reform like South America, Africa and India.

Developed countries like Australia have for the past 200 years or so had the opportunity to develop their economies and revolutionise our way of life without any meaningful restrictions on what we could do or how we did it. We built dams, we flooded valleys, we dug up coal and uranium we built power stations and we displaced countless people to build the wealth of this country, rightly or wrongly.

Many developing countries now find themselves in a position where they too have the opportunity to build a modern and prosperous society and bring social reform, health and benefits to millions of their citizens.  Those countries like ourselves who now enjoy the social and economic benefits of that development over the last 200 years must be careful not to place the guilt or responsibility for our failures on other countries who simply desire the same benefits we now enjoy.

The guilt and responsibility for our own failure to protect, value and preserve our own natural assets, people and culture should not be placed on the shoulders of other countries. Counties and people who not only deserve the same level of wealth, health benefits,  financial security and living standards that we now enjoy but are most in need of that social renewal and financial security, things that come with such development.

I don’t know what the answer is and I don’t know what the right balance is but we must find it together as a world. I am very reluctant to simply stand up and say NO you can’t do that when no one ever said or had the right to say no and stop us from doing exactly the same thing. Do we have the right to doom millions of people who had no say in where they were born to continuing poverty, security threats and third world living standards by stopping them from developing and using their own natural resources because of our own shame?

And I have not even started on the issue of the amount of financial aid we are then obliged to give such countries keeping them just hovering in poverty unable to develop, propped up by us because they are unable to develop their own resources- that’s a whole new topic.