The attempt is made here to provide an approximation of the number of people that the world can support in the light of three constraints: (a) provision for a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of everyone, (b) consideration for wildlife and Nature, and (c) reliance on existing levels of technology and politics. In fact, two alternative standards of living are suggested, ‘affluent’ (based on the standard of the 27 richest nations in the world) and ‘austere’ (based on the standard of the 43 next most wealthy nations in the world).

Human fertility in the less-developed countries has declined substantially in aggregate over the past fifteen years. Although the declines have not occurred evenly—many countries, according to the best statistical information that is currently available, have yet to be affected—they have been felt in the major population centres of the poor world. Delays in the recognition of fertility decline are often more than a decade in less-developed countries, owing to the state of the art of collecting social statistics; analyses of the present condition, therefore, are necessarily tentative.

In the 1960s, the ‘taxonomy’ of fertility decline in the less-developed countries was simple: those nations ‘suffering’ fertility decline were either undergoing rapid development, were geographically distinct as islands, or were ethnically distinct as largely Chinese populations. Such a simple categorization no longer holds up; in fact, it is hard to make any ‘big picture’ generalizations about the nations that are now experiencing a decrease in family size. Future research workers should take this as a cue to look more closely at the ‘micro’ aspects of fertility—those incentives which affect couples directly in their decisions about children—for in the final analysis it is couples and not nations which decide to become parents.

Research workers might also with advantage pay closer attention to the connection between economic development and fertility, for the vast array of societies and economies that are now found to have declining fertility rates, would seem to call into question many of the assumptions about the so-called ‘demographic transition’, with which we have lived so comfortably for more than a generation.

The policy of the Japanese Government is to bring the island of Hakkaido further into the National polity—by constructing the ‘Bullet Train’ line from Tokyo to Sapporo by 1985, and by carrying out a ten-years' comprehensive development plan for Hokkaido. This plan aims at high rates of economic and population growth. At the same time, increased interest in conservation is being shown at all levels, and the Prefectural Government is putting forward a comprehensive nature conservation plan for Hokkaido, as well as requiring an Environmental Impact Assessment for all new developments above a particular set of thresholds.

The pursuit of ‘progress’ in the developed and less-developed countries ran about parallel in the 1950s and 1960s, but doubts clouded both their horizons in the 1970s in the form of disappointing material advance in the less-developed countries and the surge of environmental consciousness in the industrialized world. The focus of this paper is on the tensions which the combined development—conservation problem is creating in two basic institutions, the commercial corporation in the industrialized countries and the school in the less-developed countries, together with their roles in the search for solutions.

In the case of the industrial countries, the developmental and environmental impact of the corporation is described, together with its role in the allocation and use of resources. The market mechanism and its failure in guiding corporate actions is outlined, as are the supplemental roles of legislation, protest, and the concept of corporate social responsibility.

In the context of the less-developed countries, the conventional role ascribed to education in development is described in its record of failure. The article proceeds to report attempts at reform via changes in curriculum and institutions, and the continuing search for functional school systems now that the desire for development is tempered by a growing awareness that environmental—conservational problems are not unique to the ‘over-developed’ North, but that the South also needs developmentand conservation.

The paper concludes by asserting the importance of both the corporation and the school in the search for ‘development and conservation’, and the scope and need for both research and concomitant action.

At the very general level, the aim of this paper is to compare the interaction of national parks and native peoples in Northern Canada (Yukon Territory), Alaska, and the Northern Territory of Australia. Currently these areas are subject to increasing land-use pressures from mining, industrial development, the creation of national parks and related reserves, and native attempts to maintain traditional wildlife and renewable resource use. The study focuses on the interactions between national parks and native peoples on the premise that experiences can be compared and problems encountered in one area but possibly avoided in another.

The study begins by briefly describing native land-use issues, land-rights arrangements, and organizations, in the Yukon Territory, central Alaska, and Northern Australia. The national park agencies are described, compared, and shown to differ considerably in institutional character, field of management, control of land, and external links with interest groups such as native peoples. Case-studies of the national parks etc. named Kluane (Yukon), Gates of the Arctic (Alaska), and Kakadu (Northern Territory of Australia), are presented to provide more details on similarities and differences in planning, types of tenure, native subsistence activities, and other factors.

In the Yukon Territory, neither the national parks agency nor the native people are highly motivated to interact. In contrast, the park agencies and native people in Alaska and the Northern Territory of Australia recognize mutual benefits from interaction—largely as a result of legislation and policies which encourage cooperation. Native involvement officers now facilitate coordination in the Yukon and Alaska. Park agency native employment programmes are proceeding in all three ‘hinterlands’, while native people can own land on which national parks are established in Alaska and the Australian Northern Territory. Only in Australia are native people known to be directly involved in upperlevel national park management. Potential limitations on native subsistence and associated use of national parks range from moderate to severe, and are only defined clearly in Alaska. Lack of definition leads to confusion in deciding upon native use, while exceedingly precise definition precludes flexibility at the park level.

A number of aids to a more mutually satisfactory interaction can be identified. One is motivation, or recognition by both parties that there are advantages to consultation and cooperation. Another, not yet achieved in the Yukon, is a land-claims settlement, stating the legislated rights of native peoples in the ‘hinterlands’ and giving them a land-holding and bargaining status which is comparable with that of government agencies. A third aid is comprehensive systematic and regional planning efforts involving opportunities for informed input from all affected parties. Such planning would provide a forum for consideration of a variety of interests, including national parks and native peoples. Finally, satisfactory interaction on the park site could be assisted by clear yet flexible means of deciding upon acceptable native use of parkland, the conservation of wildlife, and associated economic and cultural factors.

Drought conditions in Northern California during 1975–77 caused widespread mortality in conifer forests mainly from attacks by disease organisms—including dwarf mistletoes and Fungi—and from epidemic outbreaks of various bark beetles. A federal survey has estimated the volume losses sustained through the affected four years (1975–79) as 9.6 thousand million board feet (45.3 million cubic metres) on 6.3 million acres (2.55 million ha) of national forest. As the dominant host species in afflicted forests is Pinus ponderosa, the most destructive agents have been the parasites of this species—primarily the Western Pine Beetle (Dendroctonus brevicomis) and the Western Dwarf Mistletoe (Arceuthobium campylopodum). However, interrelationships between many stress-inducing factors may be of more significance than the direct attack by any single parasitic species on a host.

Three approaches to the reduction of conifer losses have been studied. The first involves the use of silvicultural practices based on the elimination of susceptible, or high-risk, trees. This is most applicable in countering bark beetles which have the mobility and selectivity to reach potential hosts over large areas.

The second approach is direct control, or the physical removal or destruction of parasites. The steady spread of dwarf mistletoe, formerly contained by natural fire, can only be slowed through pruning, logging, or burning. Bark beetles can be directly controlled if the work is done before new broods hatch and mature. Toxic pesticides such as Lindane have proven ineffective—mainly for economic reasons, but also due to serious reservations among some foresters about detrimental effects on the forest ecosystem. Sex attractants have been used to draw bark beetles into trees of which the removal is planned.

The third approach, applicable to bark beetles, is biological control, or reliance on organisms—such as lizards, woodpeckers, predaceous beetles and their larvae, parasitic hymenopterans, and various Fungi, which in some cases the forester has options to encourage or discourage. At the very least these controls suppress bark beetle populations when normal precipitation patterns return.

Unfortunately, the ideal of a natural equilibrium being reached solely with the use of biological controls is unrealistic. The most fundamental stress on the commercial forests of California is human use, in spite of occasional drought-accelerated epidemic losses to parasites. Salvage must continue to be aggressively pushed upon a reluctant industry, but, above all, more flexible and immediate responses to the first signs of increasing bark-beetle activity, coupled with indirect, pre-epidemic silvicultural practices based on the broader lessons of forest parasitology, must be developed.

Four samples of water were taken for analysis from Kala Shah Kaku Industrial Estate, near Lahore, Pakistan. These were:

I) ‘Pure’ water of the channel Dek Nullah,

II) Wastewater of Ravi Rayon Limited,

III) Wastewater of Ittehad Chemicals, and

IV) Dek Nullah ‘polluted’ water after the discharge into it of wastewater from two industries, namely Ravi Rayon Limited and Ittehad Chemicals.

The analysis of these waters showed that sample I was the best in quality (medium-salinity and low-sodium water: C2-S1), sample II was of the quality class C3-S1 (high-salinity and low-sodium water), sample III was found to be of the poorest quality (very-high-salinity and very-high-sodium water: C4-S4), while sample IV was of relatively bad quality (high-salinity and mediumsodium water: C3-S2). Only the wastewater of Ittehad Chemicals had some sediment in it, the qualitative analysis of which showed the presence of oxalates, sodium, iron, and magnesium.

The study of planktonic biota in Dek Nullah ‘pure’ and ‘polluted’ waters showed that they were more diverse in the former than in the latter; indeed, unless Bacteria are classed as fauna, there was no representative of these last in the ‘polluted’ water.

The industrial wastewater effluents are being discharged into Dek Nullah, and this ‘polluted’ water is being used for irrigation by the farmers operating along its downstream course. The effects of this water on Rice germination were studied, and it was found that such germination was significantly greater in Dek Nullah ‘pure’ water than in its ‘polluted’ water.

Dek Nullah ‘polluted’ water may deteriorate further with time, as more and more wastes are added to it, and it may have deleterious effects on soils when used for irrigation purposes—causing salinity and sodicity problems unless proper management techniques are adopted.