Introduction

The Rio Summit 1992 (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development), reflected the extent of global consensus that biodiversity, the environment, and the biosphere are in a perilous state and that the current state of these natural systems has been caused by human activity. The urgency for altering the relationship between humanity and biodiversity ultimately follows from the realization that current processes threaten the integrity of human habitat. Ozone depletion, global climate change, species extinction, and destruction of ecological functions are each calamities of major consequence to the biosphere. Moreover, they are anthropogenic and foretell human disasters because the fate of humankind and that of nature are inextricably intertwined.

The extent of the peril to humanity is such that fundamental changes in the concepts and approaches of our technological society must take place to manage our life-support system if the human species is to sustain the social, political, economic, and cultural capacities essential for its existence. Adding to this challenge of averting catastrophe is perhaps the more temporal challenge of finding ways to support these human systems, achieve acceptable standards of living for a global population of 5.5 billion that is annually increasing by 100 million, while simultaneously sustaining essential natural systems. These dual challenges are the most critical that humanity has ever faced. In view of the precarious state of both natural and human ecosystems the piecemeal approaches of the past will undoubtedly fail to address these challenges.