The world is threatened as never before by an insane buildup of nuclear weapons some five hundred times as strong in their explosive capacity as the latest estimate of all the chemical explosives that have ever been used throughout history. Leaders in major countries probably know the awful consequences of a nuclear war too well to start one, but the world has still to reckon with possible acts of aggression by other nations or flaring-up through technological failure, mechanical or other accident, malfunctioning or faulty feeding of computers, misinformation, neglect of machines or of constructional faults, terrorist or lunatic action, organized banditry, or the outcome of mere ‘acts of God’!

Planning for the best use of land and its resources should take fully into consideration the long-term consequences of each type of use in order to stretch out most beneficially the well-being of society in the future, and to protect the integrity of the land and its biota. Three kinds of land-use can be distinguished for planning purposes. Reversible land-use leaves the land, after use, essentially as it was before; little or no man-induced modification remains. An example of reversible use in the United States is the designation of certain public lands as Wilderness. Terminal land-use commits the land to a chosen particular use, and any attempt at reversal requires either time-scales that are long compared with the expected lifespan of the social and political institution, or a commitment of resources that is too high for society to consider worth bearing. Examples of terminal land-use are location of metropolises and sites of toxic and/or radioactive waste disposals; by its nature the list grows monotonically. A current source of some social tension arises from the fact that Wilderness designation appears to assign a terminal-use status by legislative fiat, whereas in fact the land is being used reversibly.

This paper reviews the legislation, the government institutions, and some recent developments, in landscape conservation and planning in Belgium. The overall effects of the recent constitutional and institutional reforms on the achievement of sound landscape planning and management strategies in the broader context of environmental conservation will be beneficial. This is because the decade-long disputes between Flanders and Wallonia over different orientations to landscape planning policies can now be resolved independently, suiting each region's specific environmental and socio-economic conditions. There is also scope to improve on, and to integrate, various government agencies and departmental environmental policies through the reconciliation of the exigencies of independently evolved and sometimes inherently conflicting laws and regulations. Thus, a great number of laws and regulations on scenic and heritage landscapes, the protection of woods and forests, the conservation of historic buildings and landscapes, the management of rivers and polders, town and physical planning, Nature conservation, and the re-allotment of land, contributed to the need to coordinate policies and to reconcile bodies of the public taking an interest in the promotion of the goals of these laws and regulations.

Birds are a serious threat to aircraft, particularly near airports. For civil aircraft about 75% of all bird-strikes occur near airports. Gulls and small flocking-birds provide the greatest threat to aircraft near airports. Birds are attracted to airports because they become habituated to the noise and traffic, and are attracted by the presence of areas for roosting, loafing, and feeding. Serious bird-strikes can be reduced around airports by reducing the number of birds, by making the birds get out of the way of airplanes, by having planes avoid birds, by adding physical protection to the airplanes, and by switching to new types of aircraft which are safer with respect to bird-strikes. The first two solutions involve bird control, while the last three involve modification of aircraft or aircraft routes. Airport personnel are usually involved only in controlling bird numbers or in dispersing them from the airport.

The value of protein from wild animals (‘bushmeat’) in Nigeria was examined, especially with respect to the consumer market. Surveys were made of roadside sales, meat prices in markets, and bushmeat consumption by the general public. The results showed that, in the 1970s, over 50% of the population ate bushmeat regularly, and that bushmeat was popular with all income-groups. The results have wide environmental implications.

The case is made for investigating in more detail than hitherto the potential for domestication and game-cropping. In addition to economic advantages resulting from careful management of animal wildlife as a renewable resource, there appear to be others—including major environmental ones through the maintenance of large-scale reserves.

Environmental education has shown lamentable inertia in scarcely capitalizing on the growth of interest in environmental issues since the 1960s. The present paper explores the general factors contributing to this, which include the failure of environmentalism as a movement to act as a catalyst for environmental education, and the problems of attempting to appeal to a wide audience of both specialists and non-specialists who each expect different things of environmental education. To date, education about the environment and education from the environment have been dominant, at the expense of education for the environment; and further problems arise in establishing both an educational niche and disciplinary horizons for the subject in order to increase its appeal to educational planners.

In Amazonia, land-uses requiring large inputs of labour and other resources per hectare, such as annual and perennial crops, can be expected to decrease in relative importance as compared with uses such as cattle ranching and forest cutting for timber and charcoal. Cattle ranching has already claimed the largest share of cleared areas in the region, even in comparatively fertile areas including Rondônia in southwestern Amazonia where crops such as cacao account for most credit disbursement and official fanfare. The trend to cattle pasture includes expansion within small-farmer settlement zones—a process spurred by turnover in the colonist population. In other areas of the region, the trend to ranching stems from continued proliferation and expansion of large concerns which profit both from speculative gains and various governmental subsidies.

Recent ‘bleaching’ and death of hermatypic (reef-building) corals has occurred extensively in Pacific Ocean waters of Panamá (Gulf of Chiriquí), near the Panamá-Costa Rica border. All hydrocorals (Millepora spp.) and scleractinian corals (5 genera) have been affected to some degree in the non-upwelling environment of Chiriquí. No other members of the macrobenthos showed signs of stress (lowered activities, morbidity) or reduced abundance. The affected area, including the mainland, nearshore and offshore islands, and adjacent waters, is about 10,000 km2. Further surveys in the Gulf of Chiriquí may reveal even more extensive mortality.

This disturbance began in the dry season (January–April 1983), during a period of clear skies, low rainfall, and minimal river drainage. I first observed large, ‘bleached’ coral patches (up to 100 m2 in area) in mid-March, and observations by others indicate that coral ‘bleaching’ occurred in February and possibly as early as mid-January. Normal and ‘bleached’ corals observed in mid-March were ‘bleached’ and dead, respectively, by the end of April, suggesting that the disturbance is protracted. By the end of the dry season, 80 to 95% of all corals in the affected areas were severely ‘bleached’ or dead.