Sustainable Development of the Biosphere

The future management of the world's resources depends upon reconciling the needs of socio-economic development with the conservation of the world's environment. This book provides a strategic framework for understanding and managing the long-term and large-scale interactions between these two requirements, based upon the sustainable development of the natural resources of the biosphere. It represents the first results of an on-going collaborative study organized by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and involving some of the world's leading historians, natural scientists, development specialists and policy advisors. It provides an authoritative introduction to some of the most complex contemporary environmental issues, and is written in an easily comprehensible style to make the information accessible to a wide range of professional disciplines, to policy makers and analysts, and to the concerned layman.