The United Nations General Assembly has instructed the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme to keep the world environmental situation under review. In 1982, 10 years after the UN Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm, the first comprehensive report on the state of the global environment is being published. The present paper, by the Editors of that Report, summarizes its main findings. It first reviews changes in the sectors of The Biosphere (while recognizing that the interlinkages between them have been stressed increasingly during the past decade), before turning to the human components of the total Man—environment system.

In the atmosphere, rising carbon dioxide concentrations, acidification of rain and snow in or by industrial regions, and stratospheric ozone depletion, remain the chief concerns, although the last has not yet been demonstrated instrumentally. In the oceans, pollution (including oil) has not been shown to have more than a local impact on ecosystems, and overall fishery yields have continued to rise slowly and erratically despite some overexploitation. The world's freshwater resources are better known than in 1970, and pollution control and the prevention of problems in irrigated agriculture have advanced; but the targets of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Decade appear less attainable as time passes. Mineral production rose without a concomitant increase in environmental damage. Changes in terrestrial life—especially loss of tropical forests—were the subject of widely varying estimates. Food production rose, but fell short of needs in many areas, while desertification, waterlogging, salinization, pest-resistance, post-harvest crop-losses, and the side-effects of agricultural chemicals, remained serious problems.

The dominance of the human element in the Manenvironment system was increasingly recognized during the decade. Human population growth slowed somewhat, except in Africa, although the world total passed 4,400 millions in 1980. The cities of the developing world expanded rapidly, outstripping public services and threatening new problems. In the Third World, infectious and parasitic diseases remained major killers, whereas hypertension, coronary heart disease, and cancers—some due to self-inflicted influence—dominated the statistics in developed nations: environmental factors remained important in both. The 1970s showed that industrial growth could occur without environmental damage or unacceptable cost. The energy crisis of 1974 had a serious impact on developing countries with strategies based on cheap oil, and firewood shortages led to severe environmental problems there also: in contrast, many developed countries were able to adjust their energy plans with only moderate difficulty.

Transport and international tourism grew dramatically during the decade, consuming energy and land, and inspiring countermeasures to curb pollution, increase safety, and avoid social and environmental disturbances in areas that were frequented by many visitors. Environmental education schemes expanded—especially in developed countries, where the coverage of environmental issues in popular media grew dramatically between 1960 and 1970, falling back subsequently. The environmental impact of past wars and increasing military preparations caused concern, and the arms race continued to absorb resources that developing countries could ill afford.

Reviewing the decade, four dominant trends can be recognized. First, scientific and popular interest in environmental protection have come together to form a new kind of conservation movement. Second, there has been a data explosion in the environmental field, but much of the information is of limited value in assessing trends or as a foundation for decisions and actions. Third, new understanding of the structure and functioning of environmental systems offers a prospect of more reliable planning. Fourth and finally, it has become apparent that the lack of social organization, education, training, and political will, are commonly the limiting factors in environmental improvement, rather than a shortage of scientific knowledge.

The Global Environment Monitoring System (GEMS) is a collective effort of the world community to acquire, through monitoring, the data needed for rational management of the environment, and arose from recommendations of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment which was held in Stockholm in 1972. The GEMS Programme Activity Centre (PAC) at UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, coordinates all that it can of the various environmental monitoring activities which are carried on throughout the world—particularly those within the United Nations System.

Great care is taken to ensure that data gathered by GEMS are of the highest attainable quality, and that data collected from different parts of a particular monitoring network are both comparable and compatible. The GEMS Programme Activity Centre (PAC), in the manner of UNEP itself, is not operational but works mainly through the intermediary of the Specialized Agencies of the United Nations System—most notably FAO, ILO, UNESCO, WHO, and WMO—together with appropriate intergovernmental organizations such as IUCN.

The GEMS monitoring system consists of five closelyinterrelated programmes which have built-in provision for training and for rendering technical assistance to ensure the participation of countries that are inadequately provided with personnel and equipment. The five are:

1. Climate-related monitoring;

2. Monitoring of long-range transport of pollutants;

3. Health-related monitoring (concerned with pollutional effects);

4. Ocean monitoring; and

5. Terrestrial renewable-resource monitoring.

Each of these broad areas contains at least five distinct world-wide monitoring networks. Examples of these latter are the World Glacier Inventory, Background Air Pollution Monitoring Network, Urban Air Pollution Monitoring Network, Global Water Quality Monitoring Network, Tropical Forest Monitoring Network, Species Conservation Monitoring Network, etc.

Monitored data are gathered at suitable coordinating centres for each network at which appropriate data-bases have been, or are being, established. Data are analyzed to produce periodic regional and global assessments which are reported at intervals that are appropriate to the variable which is being considered.

Regional marine programmes are by no means a new phenomenon, the first such activity (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, ICES) having been in operation since 1902. While in most cases early regional activities began as research programmes, they frequently provided a foundation for the management of marine living resources and, approaching the 1970s, for the control of marine pollution.

The 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm) outlined a ‘master-plan’ for protecting the world's environment which linked environmental assessment, environmental management, and supporting measures, as basic and inseparable elements—also recognizing the advantages of a regional approach in contributing to the solution of global problems. The development of UNEP's Regional Seas Programme, since the Action Plan for the Mediterranean was adopted in 1975, demonstrates that the basic concepts formulated at Stockholm can effectively foster regional cooperation among interested States, and that such cooperation can and does benefit greatly from the support of the United Nations system as a whole.

The viability of any long-term regional programme lies with the political and financial commitment of the Governments concerned. Within the UNEP Regional Seas Programme this commitment is usually formalized through binding regional legal agreements, and is manifested concretely through an agreed set of activities that are revised periodically by the Governments involved. It is expected that these activities will be adequately supported by financial resources put at the disposal of each of the regional programmes primarily by the Governments concerned.

Although the degree of coordination and cooperation achieved generally within the regional programmes reviewed in this paper appears to be satisfactory, it would be surprising if some difficulties did not arise. This is especially true because of the complexity of the venture and the fact that, in many cases, an entirely new type of cooperation is called for and new activities are required in geographical areas with often little experience, limited facilities, and weak infrastructures. For the most part the Governments, their national institutions, and the international, intergovernmental, and regional, organizations involved, are doing their best to work together effectively. Their resources are, however, often very limited, and so it is essential that they be utilized to the best possible advantage.

UNEP, as the major financial contributor to the initial phases of the action plans developed in the framework of the Regional Seas Programme, and as their overall coordinator, has a difficult task to perform if it is to see its early successes in the Mediterranean Region matched elsewhere with real action and positive results.