Barbara Ward - Environmental Concerns

Environmental Concerns

Ward started to see a close connection between wealth distribution and conservation of planetary resources. "… the careful husbandry of the Earth is sine qua non for the survival of the human species, and for the creation of decent ways of life for all the people of the world." She used the phrases "inner limits and "outer limits" to refer to the inner limits of the human right to an adequate standard of living and the outer limits of what the Earth can sustain. In 1966, she published Spaceship Earth and is sometimes said to have coined the phrase.

With hindsight, Ward is seen as a pioneer of sustainable development. She and René Dubos, co-authors of Only One Earth (ISBN 039330129X), have been described as "parents" of a concept which "did not know its own name at first". Only One Earth: The Care and Maintenance of a Small Planet was written for the 1972 UN Stockholm conference on the Human Environment. The report was commissioned by Maurice Strong, secretary general of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment.

Ward's work was rooted in her sense of morality and Christian values. She saw care of the environment and concern for the well-being of all humankind as a "dual responsibility", especially for anyone sharing her religious outlook. At the same time, she believed wealth distribution combined with conservation was essentially a rational policy: "We are a ship’s company on a small ship. Rational behaviour is the condition of survival."

In 1971 she founded the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), acting as president from 1973 and chairman from 1980.