Environment

Abstract

During the last few decades Poland's socio-economic development has relied heavily on an extensive exploitation of the country's resources of water, minerals, forests and soils. This has produced far-reaching environmental degradation and disruption of the ecological balance. Health standards have been critically jeopardized. Today, environmental awareness is increasing dramatically and it is widely accepted that the underlying cause of the current predicament is the one-dimensional development strategy aimed, over the postwar years, at accelerated industrialization. Radical policy shifts are badly needed but they must take place in extremely unfavourable conditions. In this chapter we discuss the current environmental crisis and outline basic policy options. -from Author