Nature preserves are lands which are protected in order to provide hoped-for perpetuation of natural features within the context of a relatively unmodified natural environment. Nature preserves are typically justified on the basis of benefits to communities of plants or animals (biocentric benefits) or to Mankind (anthropocentric benefits). Anthropocentric benefits are usually described in terms of on-site uses of nature preserves for recreation, quiet enjoyment, scientific research, education, and/or resource-banking. These benefits are not, however, by any means the only effects which accrue to humans because of nature preserves; indeed some of them include the potential to damage the natural integrity of the preserves.

The majority of benefits which accrue to humans from nature preserves are in absentia benefits, or benefits which do not require the presence of the beneficiaries on the site. In absentia benefits include residual benefits, or benefits which persist or develop after visiting a preserve, vicarious benefits, or benefits which exist for one or more people (or society) because of someone else's visit to a preserve, and non-use benefits, or benefits which exist for people without anyone necessarily having visited the preserve. In addition there are ecosystem services, maintaining vital gene-pools and natural nutrient and hydrological cycles, as the most important category of non-use benefits. Of these four categories of in absentia benefits, non-use benefits are, by far, the largest. Non-use benefits provide the majority of anthropocentric values accruing from nature preserves.

Ecological monitoring is the purposeful observation, over time, of ecological processes in relation to stress. It differs from biological monitoring in that ecological monitoring does not consider the biota to be a surrogate filter to be analysed for contaminants, but rather has changes in the biotic processes as its focal point for observation of response to stress. Ecological monitoring methods aimed at detecting subtle or slow changes in ecological structure or function usually cannot be based on simple repetition of an arbitrarily chosen field measurement. An optimum method should be deliberately designed to be ecologically appropriate, statistically credible, and cost-efficient.

Ecologically appropriate methods should consider the ecological processes that are most likely to respond to the stress of concern, so that relatively simple and well-defined measurements can be used. Statistical credibility requires that both Type I and Type II errors be addressed; Type I error (a false declaration of impact when none exists) and Type II error (a false declaration that no change has taken place or that an observed change is random) are about equally important in a monitoring context. Therefore, these error rates should probably be equal. Furthermore, the error rates should reflect the large inherent variability in undomesticated situations; the optimum may be 10%, rather than the traditional 5% or 1% for controlled experiments and observations.

‘Three-inch [7.5 cm] crusher-run’ limestone proved entirely suitable as a substratum for the rapid establishment of pioneer vegetation on a quarry floor, but only with the addition of fertilizers. A manure derived from sewage and an NPK fertilizer mixture proved suitable additives. A grass variety (Festuca rubra var. fallax Hack.) was sown, and became established on the substratum treated with either additive. Immigrant mosses soon became dominant in a grass/moss community on the manured substratum, whilst F. rubra retained its ascendancy on the NPK-treated material. The moss-dominated community was not attractive to Rabbits, whereas the grass-dominated community proved attractive to these animals which are accepted as beneficial for conservation in this particular context.

Further observations are required to assess (a) whether the by-passing of a cryptogamic stage in the prisere encouraged by the NPK mixture is a worthwhile objective, (b) whether the observed dominance of mosses encouraged by manure will be broken by F. rubra, and (c) whether the establishment of desirable immigrant species occurs differentially between the treatments. Meanwhile a perceptible degree of rehabilitation within three years may be claimed as a result of treatments producing a total plant cover of between 40% and 70%.

An historical reconstruction of how key decisions were taken on Nature-conservation issues provides a context for appraising contemporary initiatives, both on a national and an international basis. This paper has been focused on one of the most important landmarks in the development of Nature conservation in Britain, namely the establishment of the Nature Conservancy in 1949. It recounts how the advocacy of pressure-groups, and the appointment of ad hoc inquiries, ensured that Nature conservation had a place in the Government's post-war reconstruction programme, and how it came to be regarded primarily as a scientific rather than a planning issue.

There was nothing inevitable about the steps that were taken in the 1940s. They owed much to the way in which key personalities perceived shifts in public opinion towards the role of central government, and exploited the opportunities thrown up by the national parks movement. Despite the projection of the Nature Conservancy as a body that was modest in status and resources, its potential proved to be enormous. It had the responsibility not only for acquiring and managing Nature reserves, and for disseminating advice on wildlife conservation generally, but also for carrying out the research which was and always will be relevant to those functions. It is, however, doubtful whether the personnel who were responsible for the main initiatives in the 1940s fully appreciated the implications of what they were striving to achieve.

Environmental consequences of economic growth and development became an area of major national concern primarily in industrialized countries during the nineteen-sixties. Undesirable side-effects of development became highly visible in terms of air, water, land, and noise, pollution, and people in such countries became concerned with the continuing environmental degradation and impacts on their health and life-style. The emphasis, however, was primarily on the physical environment.

Two problems received much attention: the constantly increasing resource-use in the developed countries, and population explosion in the less-developed countries. Many doomsday scenarios were put forward, and there was a clamour for ‘no-growth’ in the West. This created much apprehension in the less-developed countries, because development was urgently needed to improve the living-standards of their citizens. Thus, ‘pollution of poverty’ became an important issue at the UN Conference on the Human Environment, which was held at Stockholm in 1972.

The primary occupation of 90% of the rural population of the hilly regions of the Central Himalaya is agriculture. The cultivated land is the nucleus of village settlements and also a factor which leads to increases in the human and livestock populations in a positive feedback manner, taking over land from forests at an ever-increasing rate. These village anthropobiomes are centres of massive energy-consumption.

A detailed study was conducted on three villages, Khurpatal, Bhalutia, and Mehragaon, with a view to investigate (a) the energy efficiency of agriculture, (b) the viability of their agro-ecosystems, and (c) the viability of forest ecosystems at the current level of agricultural activity. The cropping systems are divisible into vegetable and wheat-based systems. Among different crop-combinations, wheat-soybean is characterized by the minimum energy input and potato-cabbage-potato by the maximum energy input in Khurpatal. Thus from an energetic point of view, wheat-soybean is the most efficient (output: input ratio = 12.03) cropping pattern. Among alternatives practised in the remaining two villages, the wheat—paddy combination of Bhalutia is the most efficient, having an output: input ratio of 1.35, and the wheat-maize and fallow-pulses systems of Mehragaon are the most inefficient, with an output: input ratio of, respectively, 0.55 and 0.18.

The vegetation cover and species richness of seven sites in mature West Himalayan moist temperate (mainly deciduous) forest were investigated. Both the percentage cover and the species richness of the shrub layer were found to have a strong negative correlation with human disturbance, as measured by distance from the nearest habitation. Ground vegetation, on the other hand, was little affected. Reduction of the shrub cover and of the number of shrub species is likely to have an adverse effect on wildlife, and casual observations suggested that this was indeed the case.

The possible effects of human activities (such as the release of pollutants, exploitation, and disturbance) on the reproductive performance of pinniped populations (especially of certain seals) are discussed. While there are documented cases of reproductive rates increasing in exploited seal populations, the effects of disturbance on reproduction have only been suggested on the basis of rather incidental observations.

In a number of cases the decline of a pinniped population has coincided with an elevation in the level of various contaminants. In some animals, reproductive failure has been associated with high levels of contaminants in their tissues; but even in these cases, no cause-and effect relation between pollutants and altered physiological processes has been established. Clearly, far more research will be needed to elucidate these problems.