Since 1990, environment and sustainable development have been positioned high on the world’s agenda. The global community has become increasingly conscious of its fundamental dependency on ecosystems and its simultaneous impacts on these same ecosystems through the pressures of population growth, resource consumption and the discharge of waste and pollutants to air, land and water. The outcome of the various conferences held, from Agenda 21 (1992), through the Barbados Plan of Action (1994) and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (2002) to the Mauritius Strategy (2005) have all successively recognised that access to information on the environment is one of the catalyst for the implementation of the policies contained in these reports. It is this awareness and commitments taken by States to foster sustainable development that have driven the emergence of environmental reporting in an effort to improve understanding of the environment, monitor its health and serve as a tool to ensure its protection. The Mauritius Environment Outlook Report (MEO) is the fi rst report of its kind published by the Government of Mauritius, which refl ects a fi rmly based and growing recognition of the importance attached to environmental issues as an integral part in the pursuit of sustainable development.
United Nations Environment Programme
