The WWF International Living Planet Report 2004 and the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Report, 2005, are the basis for this Conference. Humanity is in ecological overshoot and the free ecosystem services which our planet provides and on which life depends are seriously degraded and jeopardised by human activity. Climate Change is no longer a possible threat somewhere on the horizon.

Ever since the first symptoms of environmental degradation emerged in the mid-1960s, humanity has been struggling with the complex issue of reconciling environmental degradation with development.

The landmark UN Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm, 1972, first brought the environment into the mainstream of global consciousness and concern with the resolve that something must be done to change the way humanity was living on its planet.

The UN Comission on Environment and Development commisioned by the Stockholm conference produced its Report - The Bruntland Report 'Our Common Future' in 1987. Today, we are at Bruntland +20. This report gave the world the first concept of 'sustainable development'.

Since then, there have been two major UN Conferences - Conference on Environment and Development, Rio, 1992 and World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, 2002 (with the Millennium Development Goals, 2000, in between) seeking and pursuing the best formula for development - social and economic - that is also ecologically sustainable.

The year 2007 marks the mid-point of the decades that mark these conferences. Stockholm +35; Rio +15 and Johannesburg +5, and it is now time for more evaluation.

The year 2007 also marks our country's half century as an independent nation where 'a poor, mainly agrarian country has been transformed into a diversified and relatively prosperous nation.'

Even as we celebrate this significant anniversary with pride and thanksgiving, hovering on the sidelines, and sometimes center stage - as in the major Johore floods - are some of the consequences of successful economic development - the cost to the natural environment and the backlash that nature brings.

Integrated into the Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006 - 2010) is the challenge for development that is ecologically sustainable. Chapter 22 on Promoting Environmental Stewardship seeks the development of Sustainable Development Indicators such as natural resource accounting, to monitor sustainable development in Malaysia (22.36). This is indeed timely so that the final thrust to developed nation status by 2020 will be appropriately balanced with ecological sustainability.

This Conference seeked to explore some of the challenges to ecologically sustainable development and to consider whether the Ecological Footprint Analysis could be adopted as a suitable sustainable development indicator to guide appropriate decision making. A Workshop was held prior to the Conference to introduce participants from selected stakeholder groups to the concept of the Ecological Footprint.