Policy and management options for the mitigation of environmental change

Mitigation involves the development and implementation of new or improved technologies to reduce the extent of human-induced environmental change. Awareness of the detrimental environmental effects of human activity and the consequent need for mitigation has increased progressively sinde the 1960s. Rachel Carson's seminal publication Silent Spring highlighted the need to minimise the adverse environmental effects of human activity noting that 'the rapidity of change and the speed with which new situations are created follow the impetuous and heedless pace of man rather than the deliberate pace of nature' (Carson, 1962:6). Since that time, there has been increasing scientific interest in the environmnent and the links between human activity and environmental change. Over recent decades, the attention of scientists and governments shifted from the national to the international arena as global effects of human activity began to manifest. Acid rain, ozone depletion and climate change respected no boundary and accordingly, demanded global action through cooperation among nations. There have been successes; acid deposition in North America and Europe has been reduced and the rate of ozone depletion has been arrested due to international cooperation, for example.