The UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) said rapid globalisation -- which is seen as contributing to the emission of greenhouse gases -- had an impact on the world's finite natural resources and, if unchecked, could eventually exercabate poverty and conflicts over scarce raw materials.

UNEP chief Achim Steiner said globalisation risked devouring its own gains, notably in the eradication of poverty.

"Wealth is being generated on an unprecedented scale and millions are being lifted out of poverty. But a big question mark hangs over its future and its sustainability for current and future generations," he said.

"If rising living standards and inefficient methods of production and consumption intensify pressure on nature's natural resources -- from fish, freshwater and the atmosphere to forests and fragile land -- globalization could become a spectacular failure rather than a saviour," he warned.

"The question is not whether globalization is good or bad but whether we have in place the regulations, creative economic instruments, guidelines, rules and partnerships that ensure it delivers the widest possible benefits at the minimum price to the planet," he added.

While conceding that globalisation was the key to modern development, the agency warned that the model would undo its gains if governments fail to heed calls of sustaining the increasingly fragile environment.

"Action towards a more intelligent, socially acceptable and environmentally sensitive form of globalisation is long overdue," the UNEP report warned.

"In some ways the need for such action has become even more critical as the production and consumption pattern of the developed world are being marched by those rapidly developing economies such as Brazil, India and China," it added.

The annual Global Environental Outlook 2007 report was released here at the yearly meeting of UN Environment Program (UNEP) governors and comes three days after climate scientists issued a hard-hitting warning that global warming was "unequivocal" and that it was being spurred by a raft of human activity.

The report made a raft of reccommendations including the expansion of forests under the certification of the International Tropical Timber Organisation from the current 10.5 million hectares or three percent of the natural production forests.

"These could be expanded to other natural resources and complimented by green procurement policies," the report said.

In addition, it called for an expansion of the number of marine protected areas, warning that the rising demand for seafood and other marine products could lead to the collapse of commercial fish stocks by 2050.

In 2002, governments agreed to create a marine reserve network by 2012, but at the current pace, the network will be achieved three decades after the collapse of commercial stocks, in 2085, the report warns.

The report lamented that climate change -- chiefly caused by greenhouse gases -- may aggravate the situation by increasing the acidity of the oceans and seas by bleaching the coral reefs -- important nurseries for fish.

In India and Tunisia, the report said partnerships between the UNEP and the private sector had financed solar homesystems which had benefitted "consumers and the international fight against climate change."

The report called for the creation of a framework to "maximise benefits while reducing risks" posed by nanotechnology, which now stands at 0.1 percent of the global manufacturing economy and is set to rise to 14 percent by 2014.

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