ABSTRACT
A year after the UN Conference on the Human Environment, few people have begun to grasp the radical implications of the principles, from the Declaration approved by their countries at Stockholm. The preparations for Stockholm embraced a steadily widening view of the total environment problem. Under the guidance of the 27-nation Preparatory Committee established by the General Assembly, a vast array of knowledge and opinions was brought together—not only from governments and international organizations, but from a broad cross section of the world’s scientific and intellectual community. The relevant institutional networks for ecological management can and should take a great variety of forms and permit a diversity in size and orientation. What is required is the addition of the ecological dimension to the management of man’s activities. Before Stockholm many people were understandably skeptical of the United Nations’ ability to deal with an issue so complex—an issue with so much potential for conflict among the industrialized and the developing nations.
