The Brundtland commission: Environment and development to the year 2000

The World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) was established by the United Nations in 1984. Under the chairmanship of the Norwegian physician and political leader, Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, it was asked to propose long-term strategies for dealing with the world's environmental and development problems to the turn of the century. In this article I describe the methods adopted by the Commission in order to fulfil its mandate, and highlight one of the problems (tropical rain forest destruction) that the WCED studied.