Giorgio Nebbia, Bartolomeo Sorge and the Contribution of the Holy See to the UN Conference on Human Environment

The Stockholm Conference represented a turning point for the global consideration of environmental issues not only because of the decisions that were made there but also because of its visibility, the forces it mobilized, and its long and painful gestation. Among the many initiatives taken during the preparatory phase, one had the merit of directly involving and mobilizing all the governments of the participating countries: the request to respond to an eight-point questionnaire on the state of the environment in their own country and to draw up a more comprehensive report around the possible form and content of the final declaration of the Conference. In spite of its small territorial size the Holy See made a serious effort to respond to the UN solicitation and provided two competent and thoughtful documents of considerable depth. This was due to the fact that the coordinator of the commission charged with drafting the documents, the Jesuit Father Bartolomeo Sorge, was able to gather around him a diverse and qualified group of experts and was able to benefit in particular from the expertise of Giorgio Nebbia, one of the first Italian scientists to join the Italian environmental movement of the Sixties.