13 - An overall perspective, or where to from here?

Summary

Introduction

This final chapter presents a brief resume of the rapidly evolving science of environmental toxicology and some opinions about the current state of the art and its future progression. It is hoped that the reader will use some of these ideas in formulating his or her own view of the subject and, perhaps, his or her own contribution to the discipline. The authors' careers have coincided with a period of extraordinarily rapid growth of the subject, involving several paradigm shifts, and as a conclusion to the text it may be useful at this point to consider how the science has matured, particularly over the last two decades, and how it might develop in this new millennium.

There are several areas of investigation that we judge to be particularly important for the progress of environmental toxicology in the near future. Our judgement is based on a perception of the need for intelligent and responsible environmental management and regulation of toxic substances, concomitant with the need for scientific progress. As we have stressed throughout this text, unless there is a sound scientific paradigm, environmental protection is unlikely to be successful or sustained. In essence then, in ecotoxicology, even though the need for protection and rehabilitation tends to direct the science, it is critically important that the science inform the decision making that forms the basis of environmental protection.