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Following the report by the World Commission on Environment and Development, research efforts devoted to sustainable development were promoted by the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research (FRN).
With its fifteen essays by Swedish scholars on different aspects of society -- environment interface, giving various analyses of and prospects for the concept of sustainable development -- this book is a result of those efforts. The authors represent a spectrum of inter- and multidisciplinary approaches in the field of ecology, economy and environment. They are economists, ecologists, engineers, anthropologists, physicists, geographers, political scientists, science theorists and educationalists discussing sustainable development and the future of society and the environment.
The question is also raised whether there is a special Swedisch `touch' -- with a `responsibility for the world' ethos -- to the approach to environmental issues, especially as seen through the efforts of the research community.
List of contents
I Perspectives On Sustainability.- 1. Our Common Future and Beyond: Interpretations of Sustainable Development.- 2. The Global and the Local.- 3. Designing Resource Systems for Sustainability: Safe-Fail versus Fail-Safe Strategiesl.- 4. Local Models, Global Change: Community Impacts and Sustainability Visions.- II Instruments Of Understanding.- 5. The Emergence of an Ecological Economics Paradigm: Examples from Fisheries and Aquaculture.- 6. On Designing Socio-Ecological Indicators.- 7. Towards an Ecologically Sustainable Economy: The Perspective of an Economist.- 8. Economic and Environmental Policies for Sustainability.- 9. GIS for the Territorial Concern: Supporting Local Sustainable Development with Modern Information Technology.- III The Shaping Of Minds.- 10. Woodland Polyphony.- 11. Towards Drastic Societal Changes: Historical Experiences about the Pace in which Societies Can Turn.- 12. The Role of Organizations in the Establishment of Ecological Consensus in Industrialized Countries.- 13. Conceptions of Future Threats and Developments: Psychological Starting Points and Educational Possibilities.- 14. The Interplay of Research and Politics: The Case of Antarctica.- IV Concluding Remarks.- 15. The Challenge of the Societal Dimension to Environmental Issues: A Swedish Research Response.- Notes on the Contributors.
Summary
Following the report by the World Commission on Environment and Development, research efforts devoted to sustainable development were promoted by the Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research (FRN).
Report
` The book, an outcome of the effort of a transdisciplinary team of Swedish researchers is a welcome contribution to the global debate on sustainable development. The book will be of immense value to scholars, administrators, policy makers and NGOs. '
Tropical Ecology, Vol.34 No.2, 1993
