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Abstract: The contemporary adaptation of the society to more and more restrictions imposed by global changes, especially by climate ones, involves a vigorous and innovative set of actions. The environment scene is populated by many actors, who play in a synergic and cohesive manner for defining and implementing a real sustainable development. In this context, we assist at increased responsibility of all these actors: the decision makers, specialists, mass media and, obviously, population. Their affective relationship with the Environment defines the respect of its resources and quality. The paper argues that respect for environment could be a central variable in the process of sustainable development of communities. Connected with this notion we could define some general issues: respect for the next generations, diversity, general structure of the natural components, and cultural landscape. Crucial roles for consolidation and awareness of the respect for environment have the education, protection of the environmental values, building of feeling of solidarity, increasing of the communities’ exigencies for their own existence, spreading of good practices in the environmental management, etc. The sustainable development strategies have to be enforced the respect for environment, which may harmonize the globalization and localization processes, frequently categorized as contradictory ones. Respect for environment contributes to the diversity of the local environment, encouraging the creation and innovation processes, to the adaptation process to increasingly complex restrictions coming from the global environment, to the diffusion of the universal values in a local environment, and inversely, to the promoting local values by globalizing forces. Consequently, the paper could be considered as an incentive to reflection and action, and a real message for specialists in the field of sustainable development to concentrate their best efforts on an optimal insertion of the communities in the local, regional or global environment.

Keyword: respect for environment, sustainable development, environmental protection, responsibility, development strategies