The Present State of the Natural Environment in Europe

Abstract

AbstractThe impact of industrialization and urbanization on the natural environment of Europe is analyzed and compared on the basis of regional reports submitted by 15 nations to the 1968 Unesco conference on the resources of the biosphere. For purposes of analysis, the nations of Europe have been grouped into capitalist countries, the socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and the USSR. All of them are found to be affected by the same problems of increasing volumes of industrial and municipal wastes, a drift of population to the cities and growing air and water pollution. But the socialist nations are said to be distinguished from the capitalist countries in implementing systematic government control over all forms of pollution, providing recreational zones for the population at large, expanding a network of natural areas with conservation and amelioration of flora and fauna, and carrying out a broad program of transformation of nature designed to make optimal use of resources and to conserve...