Material in this book has been used in undergraduate and postgraduate courses at several Australian universities, and now in the degrees of Master of Business and Technology and Master of Environmental Engineering Science in the School of Civil Engineering, University of New South Wales; and the degree of Master of Natural Resources Law, Faculty of Law, University of Wollongong.

The work reflects my experience of conducting over 50 public inquiries in New South Wales and Victoria into controversial planning, environmental, and heritage policies, plans, programs, and projects. It captures experience before 1980 in the assessment of environmental impact statements (EISs); the development of environmental planning instruments; the identification of regional administrative centres; the evolution of natural resource accounting; and the management of major pollution control programs, both in Australia and Britain.

The text has been reinforced by consultations overseas into environmental policy procedures in Asia and the Pacific, North America, and Europe. Of particular note are meetings: in Taiwan at the National Cheng-Kung University and the Environmental Protection Administration; in Seoul and Daejon organised by the Korean Office of the Environment and the Korean Institute of Energy and Resources; in Tokyo and Tsubuka with the Environment Agency and the National Institute for Environmental Studies, Japan; Environment Canada, Ottawa; the US Environmental Protection Agency, Washington; and the US East-West Center in Hawaii; the World Resources Institute, Washington; in Britain with the Department of the Environment and the universities of Oxford, Manchester, and Aberdeen, and several environmental agencies in mainland Europe and the Nordic countries.