World resources 1987 : Report by the International Institute for Environment and Development and the world resources Institute

One year ago, World Resources 1986 was published as the first of an annual series devoted to providing objec tive, accurate, and up-to-date information on the world's environment and natural resources. This series was launched with the belief that wise management of natu ral resources and the protection of environmental quality are intimately linked to achieving sustainable economic growth, alleviating poverty, promoting public health, cop ing with the pressures of population expansion, and ensuring long-term political and economic stability.

By coincidence, during the week that World Resources 1986 was released, world attention focused on the small town of Chernobyl in the Soviet Union. The nuclear reac tor accident there released a cloud of radiation that passed over most of Europe and raised fears that it might encircle the globe. The governments of most European countries scrambled to assess the full extent of the radia tion and to devise strategies for dealing with fallout and contamination while they wondered what could have been done to prevent or at least to respond better to such a crisis. That single event, more than any other in 1986, dramatized our dependence on the environment and our ability to affect it significantly.