Glossary Complex Systems SMI

A Handtaste of Complex Systems

ENVIRONMENT
The term ‘environment’ appears after WW2, in the context of the creation of the IUCN, International Union for Conservation of Nature, first named International Union for the Protection of Nature (IUPN). First meetings were held in Brunnen, Switzerland, in 1946, and the international organization was set in 1948 in Fontainebleau, Paris, under the umbrella of the new UNESCO and chaired by its first director, the biologist Julian Huxley.
Its preamble starts like this: “WHEREAS the term ‘Protection of Nature’ may be defined as the preservation of the entire world biotic community, or man's natural environment, which includes the earth's renewable natural resources of which it is composed, and on which rests the foundation of human civilization;”