THE FUTURE OF ECOLOGICAL RISK ASSESSMENT

Risk assessment has become a popular tool to help solve ecological problems. The basic concept is not new and has been applied to diverse decision problems. The application to ecological problems, especially complex ecological problems, is fairly recent and controversial. The fundamental and most important elements of the controversy revolve around two key points: (1) a person's implicit ''worldview;'' and (2) the assumption of who (or what) receives the benefits and who (or what) pays the costs for ecological ''decisions.'' A person's attitude toward risk assessment is, at least implicitly, defined by a worldview. It is the worldview which defines how each of us react to risk assessment applied to ecological problems. How the question of benefits and costs is defined also defines the appropriate use, if any, of ecological risk assessment. The future of ecological risk assessment will almost certainly follow the course of other analytical tools-enthusiastic support, rapid, widespread adoption and use, then disillusionment and rapid replacement with newer approaches, hut with continued use for a greatly constrained set of ecological issues.