Global environmental issues

The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, convened in 1972 in Stockholm, proclaimed that: "A point has been reached in history when we must shape our actions throughout the world with a more prudent care for their prace environmental consequences. Through ignorance or indifference we massive and irreversible harm to the can do earthly environment on which our life and well-being depend. Conversely, through fuller knowledge and wiser action, we can achieve for ourselves and our posterity better life in a an environment more in keeping with human needs and hopes. There are broad vistas for the enhancement of environmental quality and the creation of a good life. What is needed is an enthusiastic but calm state of mind and intense but orderly work. For the pur pose of attaining freedom in the world of nature, man must use knowledge to build, in collaboration with nature, a better environment. To defend and im prove the human environment for present and future generations has become an imperative goal for man kind a goal to be pursued together with, and in harmony with, the established and fundamental goals of peace and of worldwide economic and social development."

This volume, based mainly on the annual state of the environment reports, produced by the United Nations Environment Programme since its est ablishment in 1972, reviews the main global environmental issues that have been brought into focus during the 1970s. It is not intended to be encyclopaedic but rather selective in describing the main environmental events that occurred in the decade. The book is directed mainly to environmental policy-makers, students of the environment and all those concerned about contemporary environmental issues.