Asia-Pacific economies may be expanding fast but growth will not be sustainable for much longer unless the region pays more attention to the environment, the United Nations said Monday. Asia-Pacific environment ministers heard the wake-up call at a two-day meeting on the environment organised by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
"The prevailing model 'grow first and clean up later' is not the answer," UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said in a videotaped message to the opening of the conference.
The UN chief said the region needed "a paradigm shift towards 'green growth'" where the goals of poverty reduction and environmental sustainability could and had to go together.
The region, which accounts for 40 percent of the world's territory but is home to 61 percent of the population, has struggled to grow fast in the face of rampant poverty.
Almost two-thirds of the world's poor, who live on less than a single US dollar a day, reside in Asia and the Pacific, UN statistics show.
During the 1995-2002 period, industrial production in the region grew almost 40 percent, almost double the global average increase of 23 percent.
Kim Hak-Su, UN under secretary general and executive secretary of ESCAP, acknowledged the region had to grow in order to pull itself out of poverty.
But he said the region now faced "increasing pressure" on its environmental resources.
Cited by Kim as main concerns in the region were declines in fishery resources, degradation of marine and coastal resources, loss of biodiversity and forests, and land degradation.
"Deterioration of these natural resources have continued to affect human health and livelihoods and increased the vulnerability of many economies," he said in a statement.
He urged the UN meeting joined by 350 delegates, including 42 ministers or deputy ministers, from the Asia-Pacific region to find "a strategy to shift towards environmentally sustainable economic growth."
"'Green growth' is the biggest challenge facing the world and this dynamic region in particular," Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), told the conference.
South Korean Environment Minister Kwak Kyul-Ho, host of the UN conference, said he would push for a 'Seoul Initiative for Green Growth' to be adopted at the close of the meeting.
The UN conference was the first high-level international environmental conference since the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster devastated parts of the region in December.
The UN ESCAP said in a statement the tragedy was "another testimony of the urgent need to address the risk of common threats caused by natural hazards for sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific region."
The December 26 tsunamis killed nearly 290,000 people around the Indian Ocean, according to a UNEP report released last month.
A UN Environment Programme report urged tsunami-hit countries to erect natural buffer zones, such as mangrove swamps and coral reefs, along their coasts and rebuild in less exposed areas to protect against future calamities.
The UNEP estimates post-tsunami reconstruction and rehabilitation costs could top 10 billion dollars and take as long as a decade to implement.
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