Book excerpt: Ever since the industrial revolution, large numbers of environmentally hazardous materials are in troduced into the global environment annually; a list of all substances which are at present re garded as environmentally hazardous might contain thousands of compounds, and new substan ces are still being added. Several major activities are necessary of adequately ensure the protec tion of human health and the environment from the often subtle effects of these materials. These activities include toxicological and ecological research, control technology development, the pro mulgation of regulatory guidelines and standards, and the monitoring of environmental materials and specimen banking. In the absence of effective monitoring environmental materials and spe cimen banking, the detection of serious environmental contamination from pollutants may occur only after critical damage has been done. Environmental problems are independent of national boundaries and international collaborative programmes should be encouraged. Sponsoring organisations and other international and national bodies should encourage monitoring and specimen bank programmes and develop harmonised sy stems for data acquisition and evaluation. An international pilot programme of monitoring and specimen banking is needed and is technically feasible. The conclusions and recommendations, for both implementation and research, should be of inte rest to other international and national bodies in addition to the three organisation sponsoring this International Workshop. Nevertheless this joint sponsorship should help to assure that the re sulting conclusions and recommendations will have a worldwide audience and that effective coor dination of existing programmes will be possible.