Socially unsustainable development

Development is socially unsustainable as long as people have inadequate control over their own lives and experience their community identity as being continually eroded. Development is culturally unsustainable as long as it is incompatible with the culture and values of the people affected by it as determined by their own participation in the development process.

One example of socially unsustainable development is the devastating effect the paper pulp industry is having upon the countries of the southern hemisphere. This industry, previously considered environmentally benign, is responsible for wide spread misery, destitution and destruction of local communities, their land and the forests around them, particularly in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Indonesia, Thailand and South Africa.