Neglecting the ecosystemic dimension of life hinders efficient environmental protection from radiation and other hazards

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Acknowledgements

The author warmly thanks many worldwide scientists for their continuous support through many years of collaborative brainstorming, and especially during two decades of work conducted by the IUR “Ecosystem approach” task group that has forged the emergence of many findings expressed in this paper.

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François Bréchignac

François Bréchignac currently works as Executive Director of Scientific Assessment at the Institute for Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) in France. Engineer in agronomy, he also holds a PhD (Doctorat d'Etat es-sciences) in Plant physiology. He started off his career in fundamental research on photosynthesis and spent the next 7 years at the European Space Agency developing research on space biology with emphasis on artificial ecosystem concepts for human life support in space. For almost the next three décades, he has aimed at reorienting radioecology to grasp the issue of environmental protection against radiation. Member of ICRP C5 which had been designed to tackle this issue, he also served at the International Union of Radioecology through various leading positions where he particularly promoted an ecosystem approach for environment protection.