(vi) Principle 3 of the Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 1972, Renewable resources

(vii) Principle 5 of the Stockholm Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, 1972, Non renewable resources

The capacity of the earth to produce vital renewable resources must be maintained and, wherever practicable, restored or improved.

The non renewable resources of the earth must be employed in such a way as to guard against the danger of their future exhaustion and to ensure that benefits from such employment are shared by all mankind.

We draw from stocks of non renewable natural resources (for example, oil and metal ores), and we deteriorate or modify the quality of other resources (for example, water and arable land) by imposing on them a rhythm of exploitation superior to their capacity for regeneration.

But, happily for us, our evolution is determined not only by entropy, but also by the accumulation of knowledge and technological progress a process that is just as irreversible as the decrease in stocks of non renewable resources and the degradation of environmental quality.

In fact, the exploitation of non renewable resources frees the speed of economic growth from that of ecological renewal, aggravating the deterioration of the biosphere, including irreversible climate changes.