THE BEST ENVIRONMENT OF 1993

1 Solar Power Soars. Tapping energy directly from the sun and converting it into electricity has long been a dream of ecovisionaries. Falling costs for equipment and steadily rising efficiency have finally brought solar power into the realm of the practical. The most solid indication that the technology is here to stay: 68 utilities, serving 40% of the nation's electricity consumers, formed a consortium to buy $500 million worth of solar-energy panels during the next six years. That promises to be just the jump-start solar manufacturers need to hold their own with the big boys in the oil and gas industries.

2 Ending the Free Ride For decades, ranchers and miners could count on the U.S. government to provide cheap access to public lands. No more. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt bucked opposition from Western politicians and persuaded the President and Congress to boost low grazing and mining fees.

3 German Recycling Many nations are starting to recycle things that are easy to get out of the waste stream, such as paper and glass, but the Germans have gone much further. In 1993 Germany expanded its recycling program to include all product packaging -- from gum wrappers to yogurt cups. A glut of recyclables has hampered the program, but the Germans are committed to making it work.

4 New Forest Service Boss Biologist Jack Ward Thomas once headed a scientific team that called for banning timber cutting in some federal forests in the Northwest to protect the spotted owl. Environmentalists were thus delighted when the President named Thomas chief of the U.S. Forest Service, which regulates logging in national forests.

5 Taj Mahal Saved When Shah Jahan finished the gleaming white Taj Mahal in 1648, he never dreamed that iron foundries and other factories would someday cause the monument to become yellowed and pitted. In 1993 the Indian Supreme Court ordered 230 of the facilities shut down until they install pollution controls.

...And the Worst

1 Midwestern Floods. Every spring the Mississippi River overflows its banks, more or less gently. This year the floods were devastating -- not just because of heavy rains but also because levees have constricted the river. Without its historic escape valves, the river burst some levees and roared over levee-less stretches. The toll: 20 million acres waterlogged, 50 lives lost and $12 billion in damage.

2 Oil Spills The breakup of the tanker Braer near Britain's Shetland Islands did a lot less damage than one might expect from 26 million gal. of escaped crude oil. But after another major spill near the Strait of Malacca, off Sumatra, Britain's Transport Secretary concluded that the number of substandard tankers on the seas was an ''international disgrace.'' A Shell International Petroleum report claimed that 20% of the world's fleet was unfit for duty.

3 Tigers on the Brink About 100,000 tigers roamed Asia at the turn of the century; fewer than 5,000 are left, thanks to loss of habitat and the demand for body parts used as folk remedies and exotic foods (example: tiger-penis soup, popular in Taiwan). The South China tiger is ''biologically unrecoverable,'' say experts, and the number of India's Bengal tigers, the world's most populous subspecies, has declined 26% since 1989, to fewer than 4,000.

4 Whaling Is Back After a seven-year hiatus, and in defiance of world opinion, Norway hoisted its harpoons and went back into the commercial whaling business last summer, taking 160 minke whales for their meat and fat. The Norwegians say they will do it again next year too, though the hunt violates a moratorium decreed by the International Whaling Commission.

5 Ice for Antarctica Environmentalists were angry enough when Chile towed an Antarctic iceberg to Spain for Expo '92 in Seville; they said removing even a token chunk of the all but pristine continent was a bad precedent. Chile's ill-conceived response was to haul the 85-ton ice cube back this year, burning enormous amounts of fuel and generating clouds of pollution along the way.