It is my intention, in the following remarks, first to review briefly the present state of the environment as a world issue in relation to the other major issues which, today, bear upon the prospects for the human future. Secondly, I would like to advance the premise that it is possible to think positively about the human future and to point up some of the principal elements which I believe will be necessary to make that positive vision of the future a reality.

The environmental issue has evolved rapidly in the less-than-three years since the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which was held in Stockholm, Sweden, in June 1972. Most notably—and largely as a result of what we nowadays commonly refer to simply as ‘Stockholm’—it has become a truly global issue in the sense that virtually all governments and peoples throughout the world have now acknowledged it as an issue of importance to themselves, and have taken at least the first steps to establish national environmental policies and machinery to carry them out. In the developing countries in particular, there has been a literal explosion of interest based primarily on the larger concept of environment and its relationship to development which emerged from the Stockholm Conference.

Inland waterways provide more opportunities for the conservation and improvement of the environment and the provision of amenity, sports, and recreation, facilities than do any other means of transport. The demand for more space for leisure pursuits is world-wide, and is accompanied by a growing appreciation of the need for environmental quality and conservation of Nature in catering for this demand. Thus in seeking solutions to related leisure, environmental, energy, and transport problems, authorities everywhere are coming to recognize the unique potential of inland water in meeting the concerns and wishes of modern society.

Britain, with an unparalleled exclusively amenity waterways network, leads the world in the amenity development and utilization of inland waterways. The United States is broadening its objectives to encompass amenity development within the framework of traditional commercial-priority development of its waterways. Canada has launched the most sweeping and spectacular amenity waterway corridor development in history. France has begun actively to promote ‘tourisme fluvial’, while the Netherlands is progressing with integrated planning to harmonize the interests of commercial navigation with recreation and Nature conservation. The projected waterways link between the North and Black Seas has fostered amenity waterway development by all states along the Danube. Russia, too, is beginning to cater to the requirements of increasing numbers of water-oriented leisure seekers. Many other countries, including Portugal, are looking to the development of navigable waterways for leisure pursuits to help solve mounting national problems.

The general situation concerning the contribution that industrial development has made to the conservation of wildlife in Britain is reviewed. Two major types of site have been identified, namely discrete and linear, each being divided into a number of categories, with further subdivisions depending upon the nature of the site: for example, used or disused (canals, railways, etc.) or wet or dry (gravel pits, clay pits, etc.).

The wildlife value of a representative sample of sites of each type is described qualitatively. It is argued that industrial development produces areas which are often richer in wildlife than much of the remaining rural or urban environment. This results from the existence of ‘wilderness areas’ within industrial complexes, from the creation of new habitats, from the passage of time, and from the protection given against public access and against intensive agricultural, forestry, and landscape, management. The linear systems are seen as forming a network of ‘wildlife corridors’ linking together discrete sites, thus providing reservoirs for the colonization of new habitats and enabling wildlife to survive in close proximity to intensively used urban and rural land. Many ‘industrial sites’ provide facilities for field studies, environmental trails, and environmental education, as well as forming the basis of country or linear parks. They also enable many rare species to survive, and probably prevent many of the common species from becoming less frequent.

Australian rain-forests range from tropical to temperate types and offer a great variety of habitats for diverse life-forms. Early colonial descriptions of the rain-forests saw them as a source of timber and an indicator of fertile land. In the nineteenth century, rain-forests were cleared rapidly, without the true nature of their ecosystems being understood. However, at the peak of the period of rain-forest logging and clearance, the National Parks concept began to influence Australia, and National Parks were established in New South Wales and Queensland, starting in 1879. Much of the land cleared from rain-forest is now of little agricultural value, but the exploitation of the rain-forest continues. Forestry policies are directed primarily at increased timber production, and many local communities depend on continued access to rain-forest logging areas for their survival.

The debate on the future of Australia's rain-forests has been heightened by the April 1974 Forwood Conference on the development of forestry and wood-based industries. The Conference wisely recommended multiple-use of rain-forests, and the presservation of representative rain-forest sites, as standard forestry policy; but conservation groups are not satisfied that values other than timber production will be given sufficient weight. More thorough consideration of all the factors involved in environmental management is needed for the successful planning of the use of Australia's rain-forest lands.

Analyses of environmental impacts, and descriptions of methodologies for conducting them, have not always been explicitly cognizant of the subjective value-judgements that must be made in the process of collecting, refining, assessing, and presenting, objective scientific information. This paper has outlined the types of objective and subjective judgements that are made in each of the following major steps of the analysis: identifying major activities; selecting environmental components; selecting types of impacts; assessing the possibilities and/or probabilities of occurrences; determining the degree of the impacts; determining the time-frame of impacts; designating impacts as positive, neutral, or negative; and determining trade-offs among activities and impacts.

The subjective judgements that must be made are based on values, feelings, beliefs, and prejudices, and are functions of the personal, institutional, professional, and societal, contexts of the analyst. If great care is not taken in making these judgements, and in making very explicit the value-framework used, the effectiveness and credibility of the analyst may be sharply reduced. There is also the danger that society and its decision-makers will be presented with an analysis having so many built-in biases that the legitimate role of the decision-makers in assessing the analysis and then making important value trade-offs is seriously compromised. This paper has attempted to make the nature of the process of analysis explicit with respect to the introduction and treatment of values, so that these problems can be understood and, it is hoped, properly managed by both scientists and decision-makers.

Imported species of plants or animals tend either to fail or to flourish in a new environment, and it is nearly inevitable that ranch-fenced exotic ungulates will escape to the wild. Successful introduced species tend to spread into all suitable areas, and the likelihood that exotic species will be damaging is great. Prior study of prospective imported species cannot insure either a successful importation or a beneficial result. Yet a thorough preceding review by qualified ecologists and the effective regulation of ungulate importations by national and international agencies, are the only present safeguards against serious economic and environmental damage. Some general truths are proposed to serve as guiding principles for the future.

One major source of uncertainty in industrial planning is due to the conflicting uses of environmental components by the proponent of an action and the various ‘actors’ who share the proponent's environment. These actors may be government agencies, health authorities, conservancy organizations, or individual citizens. As they all share the environment with the proponent of the action, there should also be a sharing of the decision-making process.

Difficulties of identifying potential actors at the non-governmental level can be reduced by undertaking a rigorous analysis of the environmental components, of the uses which they serve, of the way in which the uses may be impaired by proposed activities, and hence of which users are most likely to be concerned.

The result of such an approach, which constitutes a new style of management ‘from the outside–in’ rather than ‘from the inside–out’, is that industry must involve itself in a broader-based and more imaginative planning process than hitherto. Failure by industry to do this will result in either a progressive erosion of the freedom of decision-making (by increased government interference) or in progressive blocking of industry's plans and consequently a reduction in its ability to achieve its corporate objectives of profit–growth–security in the face of conflict over its operations, its siting proposals, and its products.

Suitable realization by managements of the interdependence of their actions with those of others should lead to the addition of a truly environmental dimension to their traditional function—even without the governmental intervention and pressure-group counteractivity which have become increasingly evident with the growth of the environmental movement in recent years.

The Walking Catfish (Clarias batrachus), accidentally introduced into southeastern Florida in the mid-1960s, is currently distributed over more than 8,750 square km in ten counties of that State. The range of this exotic can reasonably be expected to extend over still further counties within the next few years. The present threat to fish farming interests, and the potential threat to native fishes, are thought to be serious.