There was a split between North and South over environmental issues at the 1992 Earth Summit. A similar rift may re-emerge as British ODA opens management of its training programmes to competition in 1993. Emerging environmental training institutions in Asia have the advantages of similar environments, relevance and lower costs. As these increasingly realise that ODA funding for third country training is not tied to British Universities, they will compete with UK training institutions. The existing one way student traffic to UK institutions can benefit from competition.