ABSTRACT
Environmental sustainability is a condition combining ecosystem integrity, carrying capacity and biodiversity. Viable future development in Bangladesh depends on environmental sustainability, since continuity of human life requires a dynamic balance between human, social and economic systems and the ecological systems that provide ecosystem services. The protection of natural systems represents not an overarching panacea for achieving economic vitality and social justice, but a necessary component of an entire system for achieving economic, social and environmental 'sustainability' in longer term, in which economic reforms and social reforms are as important. Internally, accelerating growth in agricultural output, faster growth in manufacturing industry and development of fossil fuels have been associated with degraded agro-ecosystems, groundwater depletion, damaged rivers, wetlands and coastal zones, deforestation and desertification. Deforestation, burning of fossil fuels and a mass of other human activities have raised average global surface temperatures and triggered instabilities in weather patterns, the presence of surface water, ice sheet margins and the strength of ocean currents.
