Host Sets Tone for Summit, Targets Devastation for Profit

Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello, host to the Earth Summit that begins here next week, accused industrially developed countries Friday of promoting environmental devastation for the sake of profit.

Collor said that “perhaps the most perverse” form of damage, “because it is the conscious kind of devastation, is that promoted by so-called advanced societies that insist on the incessant pursuit of profit, knowing the risks to nature.”

His words conveyed what is expected to be a pervasive tone among delegates from less-developed countries to the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development, scheduled for Wednesday through June 14. The United States is certain to be a prime target of criticism. President Bush is scheduled to attend for a day or two around June 12, the White House said Friday.

Collor, speaking at a government ceremony in Brasilia, said companies in developed countries give priority to revenues rather than environmental questions. In developing countries, he added, environmental damage is an “unconscious” result of poverty. “This is caused by developing peoples, who pollute, but they pollute to survive.”

One of the summit’s main issues will be the need for economic development that, by preserving resources and the environment, can be sustainable in the long run.

Meantime, Maurice Strong, chief U. N. organizer of the Rio conference, responded in a speech here Friday to critics who say he is too cozy with multinational corporations. “How can you envisage a change of course to sustainable development without making the business community peers and allies?” asked Strong, a Canadian oilman.

“Business excellence and environmental concern can be combined,” he said. “In fact, in the near future, it will be impossible to separate the two.”