Policy Framework Issues for Protecting Biological Diversity

For the purposes of this paper, I define policy as the setting of a course of action, i.e., a decision in regard to choices among possible actions. We think of “policy” commonly in terms of the foreign policy considerations of many countries; we hear of it often in energy policy, and occasionally it is the subject of a public welfare concern such as the protection of biological diversity. Framework indicates concern about the scope of the problems to be considered in formulating policy—local, national, or international. In the protection of biological diversity, we are examining a relatively new aspect of public welfare, concern about the variety of species in nature, many of them important for the services they perform for direct or indirect human benefit. A policy framework for protecting biological diversity, therefore, must address the array of interests—from scientific to social, ethical, and international—that bear on decisions affecting the risk of losing or impoverishing species due to the effects of air pollution.