Biodiversity Conservation 18 August 1998 Wen Lian Hsu and philosophy of psychology August 1998 Wen Lian Hsu and Ming Yang Kao Program Co chairs COCOON’98 Organization COCOON’98 is organized by the Institute of Information Science innovations in weaponry forestry and flshenes ThiS volume reports some of the more pohcy onented work carned out under the programme 1 The broad aim of the programme IS to further our understandmg of the causes and consequences of blOdlverslty loss and to Identlfy the optlOns for addressmg the problem The results have turned out to be surpnsmg to those who see blOdlverslty loss pnmarlly III terms of the eroslOn of the genetlc hbrary In vanous ways the work carned out under the programme has already begun to alter our perceptlOn of where the problem m blOdlverslty loss hes and what pohcy optlOns are aVailable to deal with It Indeed