Joan Martinez Alier, of the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona in Spain, said corporations based in wealthy nations were extracting natural resources from economically poorer nations without taking into account the damage being done to local communities.

Climate change, unequal trade, “bio-piracy”, exports of toxic wastes and other factors had, he said, created an imbalance between rich and poor nations and amounted to no less than “a kind of war against people around the world, a kind of aggression”.

“There are different ecological debts,” he said. “The least we could do is to stop these ecological debts from growing.”

Dr Ofelia Ortega, of Cuba and the WCC president from Latin America said the Bible was “an ecological treatise” from beginning to end. She pointed in particular to the “ecological laws” set out in Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy and their emphasis on caring for God’s creation and the fair distribution of natural resources.

“Our pastoral work must be radically ecological, which entails being aware not only of its consequences but also of the deep causes of the destruction of life in general and of the struggle for restoring God’s communion and ‘shalom’ for humankind,” she said.

“Ecology and the option for those impoverished cannot and should not be separated. The communion with the universe is starting from the relationship of justice among people and countries.”

In a heartfelt address, Dr Maria Sumire Conde from the Quecha community of Peru said that mining was having a “fatal” impact on her community.

Mining had, she said, driven people off the best land, polluted rivers and led to the prevalence of lead poisoning among the children.

“The large corporations and governments responsible carry a massive debt to the world to us indigenous peoples – ecological debt,” she said.

“We indigenous peoples propose that those responsible should take on the ecological debt and commit themselves to rectify the harm done over the years” to the earth and its people, she said.