The protection of the public and the environment

This paper briefly examines the frameworks and issues that have evolved with respect to the protection of the general public and the natural environment. The former has a very long history, although steps have been made recently to ensure that the framework is fully comprehensive with regard to all actual and potential exposure situations, and in line with current ethical and moral views with regard to human values. The latter, however, has only recently begun to be addressed in a structured manner, driven primarily by a need to ensure that protection of the environment can be explicitly demonstrated where necessary, or that any potential damage can be quantitatively estimated. This is still and evolving subject, but nevertheless needs to be centred around some form of parallel framework to that which has evolved for the protection of human beings, although clearly on a different scale. (Author) 6 refs.