ABSTRACT
Existing environmental legislation, regulations, and standards concerning the coastal and marine environments must be enforced. However, there is a need in some countries to strengthen and broaden environmental protection either through creation of enforcement agencies where absent or by developing and expanding the legal framework for protecting coastal and marine environments. The legal framework for protecting the marine environment must be further developed on both the international level and within the legal context of individual countries. Comprehensive, enforceable laws dealing with pollution of surface and ground waters by pesticides and other pollutants are needed. Many of the less developed countries of the tropics have modeled their environmental institutions and laws after those of more industrialized and developed nations; however, those countries still in the process of establishing or revising their environmental protections should learn from the mistakes of others and seek to improve the basic model to fit local conditions, environmental, cultural, and political. As authorities responsible for regulatory control of pesticides become adequately conversant with control systems already in effect in other countries, they will be able to more effectively streamline the guidelines and standards currently in effect in various countries to ensure the future safe use of pesticides.
