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This first issue of the biennial Global Environment
Outlook (GEO) is a snapshot of an ongoing worldwide environmental
assessment process. It was initiated in response to the environmental
reporting requirements of Agenda 21 and to a UNEP Governing Council
Decision of May 1995, which requested production of the first
in a new, comprehensive State of the Environment Report series
in time for the next UNEP Governing Council in January 1997. The
decision recognized the need to advance consensus on several essential
environmental issues and on the implementation of the recommendations
of Agenda 21.
A regional and participatory process was used to produce GEO-1. Input was solicited from an extensive array of sources throughout
the world: 20 regional Collaborating Centres, United Nations organizations,
and independent experts. Draft chapters benefited from discussions
and recommendations of participants in regional consultations
organized by the UNEP Regional Offices and were extensively amended
and reviewed thereafter. (See Figure 1.) Chapter 1 elaborates
on this region-based participatory process, and a GEO technical
report provides further details on the outcome of the regional
consultations.
Figure 1. Framework of the global environment outlook process.
The regional consultations provided valuable suggestions
for the improvement and future direction of the Global Environment
Outlook series. In later reports, the regional inputs will be
strengthened through the further development of the global network
of Collaborating Centres. These centres will be called upon to
draw more widely on the work of sectoral and national institutes
so that the most accurate and uptodate information is included
from the regional level. Analysis of environmental impacts of
alternative development scenarios and policy action will be included
in future GEO reports as well as more extensive analyses of current
policy responses, their impacts, and the reasons for their successes
and failures. The introduction of these elements in the continuous
GEO assessment process has already started.
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