The Biosphere Conference was organized by UNESCO and took place in September 1968, which was the first time that the word Biosphere became part of common, non-scientific language, and was the first intergovernmental conference on environmental problems. It sought to combine, effectively, conservation and the wise use of natural resources — thus advocating for the first time publicly the concept of ‘sustainable development’.

Not only the direct effects of wars harm the planet. Also devastating can be the covert, indirect and often legitimized, actions of nations in securing their national sovereignty — silent-war actions ranging from secret nuclear installations, storage of chemical and biological weapons, militarized economic policy, biases in development expenditures, and ranging up to ethnocide and genocide. New ways of looking at warfare, national sovereignty, and the environment, take on urgency if only because the relationship between war-proneness, nation-building, and national sovereignty, appears to be an enduring one.

(Environmental Conservation, Vol. 20, Nr 1, pp. 65–73, Spring 1993)

Table I, p. 69.

(i) In column 4: for 1.2* substitute 0.82*§.

(ii) In penultimate column: substitute 1.48 for 0.148.

(iii) In last column: for 2.5§ substitute 0.85*§.

(iv) Last line should begin: * = published data from Watt (1981);

§ = calculated from PO4 given.

p. 70

In last paragraph of ‘Derived Data…’ substitute 2.5 for 2.9.

Today's polarization of society ‘for’ or ‘against’ big hydro-projects relates to environmental costs, which are borne particularly by vulnerable ethnic minorities and the poor; such costs include species extinctions and tropical deforestation. This counter-productive polarization can be reconciled by transparency and mutuality of planning, by pluralism involving the local populace and especially all affected people, and by engendering national consensus on the best project that is available and practicable.

Taking the various values ascribed to biodiversity as its point of departure rather many years ago, the present study aims at deriving a conservation strategy for Uttara Kannada. This hilly district, with the highest proportion of its area under forests in South India, is divided into five ecological zones: coastal, northern evergreen, southern evergreen, moist deciduous, and dry deciduous. The heavily-populated coastal zone includes mangrove forests and estuarine wetlands. The evergreen forests are particularly rich in the diversity of plant species which they support — including wild relatives of a number of cultivated plants. They also serve a vital function in watershed conservation. The moist deciduous forests are rich in bird species; both moist and dry deciduous forests include a number of freshwater ponds and lakes that support a high diversity of aquatic birds.

Reviewing the overall distribution of biodiversity, we identify specific localities — including estuaries, evergreen forests, and moist deciduous forests — which should be set aside as Nature reserves. These larger reserves must be complemented by a network of traditionally-protected sacred groves and sacred trees that are distributed throughout the district and that protect today, for instance, the finest surviving stand of dipterocarp trees.

We also spell out the necessary policy-changes in overall development strategy that should stem the ongoing decimation of biodiversity. These include (1) revitalizing community-based systems of sustainable management of village forests and protection of sacred groves and trees; (2) reorienting the usage-pattern of reserve forests from production of a limited variety of timber and softwood species for industrial consumers, to production of a larger diversity of non-wood forest produce of commercial value to support the rural economy; (3) utilizing marginal lands under private ownership for generating industrial wood supplies; and (4) provision of incentives for in situ maintenance of land-races of cultivated plants — especially evergreen, fruit-yielding trees — by the local people.

It is proposed that this broad framework be now taken to the local communities, and that an action-plan be developed on the basis of inputs provided — and initiatives taken — by them.

It has been increasingly accepted that park management policies in some countries should allow for limited access to park resources by the local people to meet their subsistence and cultural needs. However, too much access to the natural resources of a park may simply cause people to rely on the park resource and manage their own lands less intensively than hitherto.

The issue of illegal livestock-grazing and fodder-cutting in Royal Chitwan National Park (RCNP) by local people is examined. The study area was comprised of 16 village units having an estimated population of 148, 404 people in 21, 621 households. Despite the presence of a large number of armed guards, the data from interviews with farmers indicated that illegal livestock-grazing and fodder-cutting in RCNP were prevalent. In the spring season, grazing intensity on the Park was higher than in other seasons, whereas cutting of fodder was intense in both winter and spring seasons.

The actual monitoring of 11 patches (totalling 365 ha) of grasslands or savanna for a calendar year inside the Park but near its boundary, indicated that illegal grazing averaged 4.1 head per ha (3.0 cattle, 0.9 buffalo, and 0.2 sheep/goats). In addition, the livestock biomass was found to be increasing by 2.36% per annum in Park-adjoining villages. There is some evidence that villagers adapt their livestock practices in response to the availability (illegal) of grazing in, and fodder-removal from, the Park.

The pressures for illegal access to park resources will continue to grow and eventually will exceed the capacity of the resource to recover from harvest. The best approach to resolve this illegal livestock grazing issue is neither strict protection nor widely-expanded access. The Park should consistently work to induce a gradual behavioural change, on the part of the farmers, to stall-feed livestock from fodder originating from their own farms and/or from community plantation.

An investigation is in progress in Formentera, Balearic Islands, to see whether satisfactory growth-rates can be achieved for trees of certain species — using small quantities of highly saline irrigation water, but relying on winter rainfall alone for leaching, and at the same time avoiding detrimental long-term environmental effects. Climate and soils in Formentera are similar to those of many semi-arid portions of the Mediterranean region. Two species, Eucalyptus gomphocephala and Acacia saligna, were tested with four irrigation treatments: no water, best available water (less than IdS/m), and waters of 5 and 10 dS/m. At Site 1, sea-salt water was mixed with BAW to achieve the desired conductivities, and at Site 2, highly saline ground-water was used for mixing. Sodium absorption ratios (SARs) were 84.8 for 5dS/m mixes and 152.1 for 10dS/m mixes at Site 1, and 13.06 for 5dS/m and 23.2 for 10dS/m at Site 2.

Trees were raised from seed in a local nursery, and were planted out in a grid pattern at 1.5 × 2 m spacings. Water requirement was calculated from a balance between pan-evaporation and tensiometer readings. Soil samples were taken at the beginning and end of each irrigation season. Trees were watered by hand-held hosepipe for two seasons. Irrigation was then withdrawn from half of the sample-trees. The remaining half were watered for two further seasons. Thus it was possible to compare the performances of trees receiving two years and four years of irrigation. In the first two years the three irrigated classes did significantly better than the trees which had received no water, but there was no significant difference between the classes due to salinity. At four years of age, the trees receiving continuing irrigation had grown more than those which received only two years of irrigation, although the latter continued to grow at a slower rate. However, where soils were extremely shallow (Site 2), withdrawal of irrigation affected survival rates, especially among the eucalypt.

The Acacia survived better than the Eucalyptus, even on extremely shallow soils. At the end of the second season it was clear that the establishment and vigorous early growth of the trees had been successfully achieved. At the end of the fourth year, it was also clear that trees would continue to grow without continuing irrigation — with the proviso that, on extremely shallow soils (20 cm or less), the Acacia survived significantly better than the Eucalyptus.

Analyses show that the winter rain appears to be effectively leaching the soil. Exchangeable sodium percentages (ESPs) rise during the irrigation season and fall during the winter. All ESPs have fallen off considerably when irrigation has been withdrawn. It appears that satisfactory growth can be achieved, and environmental protection established, with these small quantities of water at a purely temporary environmental cost (the short-lived increase in soil salinity). So far, the experiment demonstrates a low cost and effective technique for rapid tree establishment with low-quality water. Monitoring continues of soil nutrients, organic matter, litter, and soil fauna, to determine the sustainability of benefits.

The management of many ocean wildlife species is left in an institutional void, yet certain species command considerable public attention and have burgeoning management problems. In this paper the non-consumptive recreational use of Killer Whales (Orcinus orca) on Canada's Pacific Ocean coast is used as an example of management difficulties that are associated with oceanic species. Problems associated with jurisdiction and institutional arrangements are coupled to significant levels of biological uncertainty and restricted management options, as well as to management concerns associated with the human domain. The case is conceptualized as an interaction between the human and more general ecological spheres, mediated by the history of the relationship between humans and the species in question. Two routes to regulation are presented, dealing respectively with the human and ecological aspects. Of particular significance is the idea that both types of information are necessary to maximize utility to both the human user and the Whales.

Results from an ongoing study of recreational use are presented to indicate some of the variables that have emerged. These are to be interpreted within current resource management infrastructure to create a tenuous situation. The unfortunate logic that results from this study is that if Killer Whales (a high-profile species) in Canada (a well-endowed nation) have not warranted more substantial protection, then the outlook for less well-known marine species in areas of the world where resource management priorities involve more direct survival concerns, is not optimistic.

The protracted dispute over the fate of the Endau-Rompin rain-forest in southern Peninsular Malaysia is outlined. Attention is focused on why a proposal to create an Endau-Rompin national park was eventually abandoned, on what has been done of late to protect the wilderness region, and on what has been learned from the dispute. The main points are as follows:

1. Endau-Rompin is one of the last-remaining extensive tracts of largely undisturbed rain-forest in southern Peninsular Malaysia.

2. The Third Malaysia Plan 1976–1980 incorporated an earlier proposal to create a national park in the Endau-Rompin region.

3. A controversy erupted in 1977 when the state govern ment of Pahang approved a logging concession in the core area of the proposed park.

4. Logging ceased in 1978, but in spite of the preparation of a preliminary management plan and the passage of the National Parks Act (both in 1980), a national park was not created.

5. The 1985–6 ‘Malaysian Heritage and Scientific Expedition’ to Endau—Rompin focused a great deal of public attention on the wilderness region, but still a national park was not created.

6. In mid-1987 it was announced that there would be two adjoining state parks, not a national park, in the Endau-Rompin region.

7. The proposal to create a national park came to nothing because Pahang and Johor were unwilling to surrender their jurisdiction over their respective components of the required land to the Federal Government, and because the latter made no attempt to acquire the land in the national interest.

8. A state park has been established in the Johor part of the wilderness region, but the promised adjoining state park in Pahang has yet to be established. It would appear that the two parts of the protected area will be managed separately, with eco-tourism as an important focus.

9. For more than fifteen years the Malayan Nature Society has played a key role in the struggle to save the wilderness region.

10. The Endau-Rompin dispute revealed that NGOs such as the Malayan Nature Society can play a key role in the environmental arena, that ever-increasing competition for scarce natural resources makes it increasingly unlikely that new protected areas will be established, and that the protection and management of Malaysia's natural heritage is greatly confounded by the constitutional division of powers between the Federal and state governments.