The deterioration of the environment has become one of the most serious problems of the 20th century. We are faced with increasing global problems - hunger and desertification, depletion of natural resources and deficiency of energy, pollution and man-triggered changes of climate. Presenting many new facts and examples from environmental studies in East and West, part I analyzes the problems of conservation at all main levels of life: the molecular-genetic, the ontogenetic, the species-population, and the ecosystem level. After an appraisal of present conditions, the authors show which...