Environmental trends and environmental governance in Canada

Since the 1960s, environmental stresses in the industrialized world have sh ifted from predominantly local to global scale, from separate to increasing ly tightly coupled stresses, and from readily observable acute stresses to subtle, chronic, and long-term ones. Central challenges in successful gover nance of the environment over the next few decades will involve developing more effective ways to integrate high quality, objective scientific and tec hnical assessment with key decision needs; learning more effective processe s for managing under uncertainty and responding adaptively to advances in k nowledge; and effectively coordinating inevitably shared authority and capa city across multiple levels of government and between diverse public and pr ivate actors.