Pitfalls in Environmental Policy

“Environmental Policy in a Market Economy” was the theme of a congress recently organised in Wageningen, the Netherlands. At this meeting a number of participants elaborated on various fundamental aspects of the problem. The papers given have been brought together in this volume under the title “Principles of Environmental Policy”. In the field of environmental policy there are many pitfalls, some of which are found in the way the subject is approached. An illustration of the basic complexity of this can be seen in the following contradiction in the explanation of the phenomenon of social economic development.