The Devil's Advocate, who is a cynic, points to many international programmes which are related to The Biosphere, whether past or ongoing. He asks what a World Campaign for The Biosphere could do beyond attempting to coordinate the coordinators.

The Archangel answers by drawing attention to the success of such programmes in stimulating activity on many important subjects and fronts. But the critical situation of the world now demands more. He therefore hopes that all who have at heart the future health, wealth, and happiness, of mankind, which can only flourish in a healthy Biosphere—whether they be pessimists or optimists—will support the Campaign with all the means at their disposal.

For the purposes of the Campaign, The Biosphere can be defined in summary as ‘the peripheral envelope of the Earth in which living things exist naturally’. Thus it includes parts of the geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere—and, most important, it includes mankind as the pandominant member of the animal kingdom.

As to a starting-date for the Campaign, there is a case for deferment owing to the time necessary for preparing and approving a programme and then establishing a network organization for putting it into operation. However, considering the urgency of the problems at issue and the timing of related programmes, there is a stronger case for starting now, in 1982, and for including the preparatory phase within the Campaign, which would then commence with the second decade of UNEP.

Four aims are included in the Draft Declaration about the Campaign: (1) education and allied activities, (2) scientific understanding, (3) practical activities, and (4) accommodation of humanity to The Biosphere. The aims (1), (2), and (3), should go forward hand-in-hand in order to achieve (4). The main emphasis could be on (1); but as (2) is already the subject of several international programmes, (3), which provides good material for (1), should also receive emphasis. Meanwhile, much careful discussion will be needed in order to prepare a plan that will be acceptable to participating organizations.

Maps are presented of the desertification status and degree of hazard in Falcon State, Venezuela, comprising 24,750 sq. km of land, and the criteria employed for their compilation are described.

The information used for the compilation of the maps was obtained from the results of a regional survey recently conducted by the Authors. Degree of slope, landform, and soil texture, were employed to assess the physical fragility of the different landscapes, which were expressed as classes of inherent vulnerability. The classes of desertification hazard were obtained from the combination of degrees of plant cover and of inherent vulnerability.

The results show that more than 42% of the area of Falcon State has already undergone deterioration, and that 41% is under severe or very severe desertification hazard. The subhumid climatic zone is more critical than the semiarid, both because of inherent vulnerability and of its human occupation pattern.

The aim of the present paper is to get Falcon State incorporated in the world inventory of land under desertification hazard, and to call public and governmental attention to the seriousness and extent of the desertification threat—in Venezuela and also in other countries that face similar problems, whether or not they realize their danger.

A wide legislative base is available to conserve Environmentally Significant Areas in the vast Northwest Territories of Canada. However, existing conservation reserves have been designated in an ‘incremental’ fashion, without reference to a guiding plan. Intensive industrialization through hydrocarbon development and increased harvesting of renewable resources are threats to the integrity of many ESAs.

An anticipatory and comprehensive policy to conserve Environmentally Significant Areas (ESAs) in advance of industrialization is required, but developing such a policy will be difficult, owing to the complex political and jurisdictional ‘environments’ in northern Canada. Despite these problems, the recently announced Northern Landuse Planning Policy could be a vehicle for the implementation of a comprehensive conservation policy for ESAs, if only the institutional structures and processes that will accompany this policy are adequately designed.

Reafforestation, reclamation to agriculture, urbanization, and a variety of industrial activities—such as mineral extraction and the laying of gas and oil pipelines—cause loss or severe degradation of heather moorland and lowland heathland in Britain. In recent years the expansion of the gas and oil industries has involved installation of many major pipelines, some of which traverse areas of heather moorland. Heathland vegetation is very sensitive to disturbance, and natural regeneration of its plant communities is relatively slow. Three detailed examples are given of severe disturbance caused by the laying of pipelines, where the original heathland vegetation has not recovered. There have been irreversible changes in the vegetation, to grassland with Juncus spp., and these have been associated with considerable changes in soil properties across the pipeline easement.

Improved techniques have been developed for reinstatement of heather moorland and lowland heathland after pipeline installation. The techniques are based on fundamental ecological principles and have been tested during the installation of a pipeline for Scottish Gas (across the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh) and during the installation of an oil pipeline in Dorset. In both cases recovery of the heathland vegetation was satisfactory. Based on these experiences, recommendations are given for the alleviation of problems associated with the laying of pipelines through heather moorland and lowland heathland.

Large numbers of seabirds were killed by both acute and chronic oil pollution in the waters around the Northern Isles of Scotland in 1979. These mortalities closely coincided with the opening of the Sullom Voe Terminal in Shetland, the largest of Britain's North Sea oil-ports, and appeared to stem largely from the illegal discharge of ballast water or tank slops from tankers trading to Sullom Voe. By the middle of 1979, the seabird deaths around Orkney and Shetland had accounted for 85% of the British total of that year.

Public and political concern at these events forced the introduction of a number of non-statutory measures designed to eliminate or reduce chronic pollution offshore. In rapid and novel fashion the local authority and oil industry between them achieved a far greater degree of control than formerly over tanker traffic—through the introduction of such schemes as tanker routing, ‘areas of avoidance’, unscheduled aerial surveillance of all tankers, rigorous inspection of ballast quality and quantity, and the introduction through chartering contracts of the necessity for vessels to carry at least 35% ballast on arrival at the port (so providing a strong disincentive to deballast at sea).

Since the introduction of these measures, pollution, in the form of oil and oiled birds coming ashore, has decreased dramatically, and is now at a level which is tolerable, considering the scale of oil-related developments in and around Orkney and Shetland.

The concept of ‘biosphere reserve’ emerged from the programme of Man and the Biosphere (MAB) of which it constitutes an essential part. This paper describes how the concept has progressively evolved as the Programme was being implemented, and as the multiple objectives and characteristics of Biosphere Reserves were clearly identified.

The primary function of Biosphere Reserves remains the in situ long-term conservation of plant and animal genetic resources, together with research on ecosystem management and conservation, monitoring of changes in The Biosphere, training of specialists, and environmental education. They are being progressively integrated into a world-wide network of ‘representative ecological areas’ that is intended to cover all major representative natural and semi-natural ecosystems.

The paper stresses the flexibility and versatility of the new concept, and gives examples of how this concept is being implemented. It underlines current trends in the building-up of the international network, which now includes 214 Biosphere Reserves in 58 countries, and the future prospects for its full development. The paper also suggests that the direct involvement of the local population in the management of Biosphere Reserves, together with the maintenance of research and monitoring activities in them, constitute the best guarantee for long-term conservation of genetic resources on a world-wide basis. It announces the proposed ‘International Conference on Biosphere Reserves’, which it is hoped can be held in Minsk (USSR) in the autumn of 1983.

With some 8% of the world's land-surface occupied by absolute desert, and up to another 40% estimated to be covered or threatened by less-extreme deserts or semideserts, it is clear that still-increasing desertification imposes one of the most critical situations and hence important considerations for the future of Man and Nature. All the inhabited continents are involved to varying degrees, with Australia (80% desertified) the worst-hit areally. And yet the area of the world that is affected by desertification, soil-degradation, erosion, and/or recurrent droughts, continues to increase at a rate of 5–7 million hectares annually in the face of ever-increasing overall human population. This survey warns again of foreseeable dangers for the future.

Aridization and more advanced desertification of land result from the combined action of natural tendencies and ecological mistakes made by Man in the course of his manifold activities. Most alarmingly, the velocity of what is mainly anthropogenic aridization is commonly measured in terms of a few years or at most a single human generation. But help should come from the maintenance of rain-fed farming in less arid areas, and especially from the widespread establishment of irrigation systems which now involve some 250 millions of hectares. There are, however, very serious problems engendered by continuing irrigation, which is apt to be wasteful of fresh water. To begin with, river-water resources are becoming increasingly limited and artesian waters are too-easily depleted or become brackish. Worse still, with the high rate of evaporation in arid regions, salinization of the surface and the uppermost soil horizon commonly ensues, and gradually penetrates to lower strata in which plants mainly root. Most existing irrigation systems lack the piping or consistent lining of water-bringing canals and the deep (2.5–3 m) horizontal drainage-ducts that are needed to evacuate excessive soluble salts. The ultimate disposal of the salt, moreover, still causes problems when the sea cannot be used or salt-lakes be created for fish and waterfowl. Meanwhile, revegetation is becoming more and more widely practised and some success is attending efforts to develop salt-resistant crops in USA, India, and USSR.

Coastal habitat loss must be reduced either through conservation or mitigative efforts. Implementation of mitigation depends largely on accurate cost-assessment of the projects that are involved. We centre our discussion here on seagrass transplanting as an exemplary mitigative tool.

The technology of restoring seagrass communities has received increasing attention in recent years. However, the methods used have had varying degrees of success, a largely unknown factor being the cost of the technique that is used.

In this paper is presented a universal format that includes consideration of the essential factors in our costanalysis, such as planning, planting, and monitoring activities, geographic location, tidal influence, labour, and materials (both expendable and non-expendable). Cost per (successfully established) shoot or seed or fruit is recommended as the best indicator of cost effectiveness for a given technique. Incorporation and presentation of this information is urged in future projects to motivate wider application of seagrass and other essential plantcommunity restoration.

The United Nations General Assembly has instructed the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme to keep the world environmental situation under review. In 1982, 10 years after the UN Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm, the first comprehensive report on the state of the global environment is being published. The present paper, by the Editors of that Report, summarizes its main findings. It first reviews changes in the sectors of The Biosphere (while recognizing that the interlinkages between them have been stressed increasingly during the past decade), before turning to the human components of the total Man—environment system.

In the atmosphere, rising carbon dioxide concentrations, acidification of rain and snow in or by industrial regions, and stratospheric ozone depletion, remain the chief concerns, although the last has not yet been demonstrated instrumentally. In the oceans, pollution (including oil) has not been shown to have more than a local impact on ecosystems, and overall fishery yields have continued to rise slowly and erratically despite some overexploitation. The world's freshwater resources are better known than in 1970, and pollution control and the prevention of problems in irrigated agriculture have advanced; but the targets of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Decade appear less attainable as time passes. Mineral production rose without a concomitant increase in environmental damage. Changes in terrestrial life—especially loss of tropical forests—were the subject of widely varying estimates. Food production rose, but fell short of needs in many areas, while desertification, waterlogging, salinization, pest-resistance, post-harvest crop-losses, and the side-effects of agricultural chemicals, remained serious problems.

The dominance of the human element in the Manenvironment system was increasingly recognized during the decade. Human population growth slowed somewhat, except in Africa, although the world total passed 4,400 millions in 1980. The cities of the developing world expanded rapidly, outstripping public services and threatening new problems. In the Third World, infectious and parasitic diseases remained major killers, whereas hypertension, coronary heart disease, and cancers—some due to self-inflicted influence—dominated the statistics in developed nations: environmental factors remained important in both. The 1970s showed that industrial growth could occur without environmental damage or unacceptable cost. The energy crisis of 1974 had a serious impact on developing countries with strategies based on cheap oil, and firewood shortages led to severe environmental problems there also: in contrast, many developed countries were able to adjust their energy plans with only moderate difficulty.

Transport and international tourism grew dramatically during the decade, consuming energy and land, and inspiring countermeasures to curb pollution, increase safety, and avoid social and environmental disturbances in areas that were frequented by many visitors. Environmental education schemes expanded—especially in developed countries, where the coverage of environmental issues in popular media grew dramatically between 1960 and 1970, falling back subsequently. The environmental impact of past wars and increasing military preparations caused concern, and the arms race continued to absorb resources that developing countries could ill afford.

Reviewing the decade, four dominant trends can be recognized. First, scientific and popular interest in environmental protection have come together to form a new kind of conservation movement. Second, there has been a data explosion in the environmental field, but much of the information is of limited value in assessing trends or as a foundation for decisions and actions. Third, new understanding of the structure and functioning of environmental systems offers a prospect of more reliable planning. Fourth and finally, it has become apparent that the lack of social organization, education, training, and political will, are commonly the limiting factors in environmental improvement, rather than a shortage of scientific knowledge.

Small Hydropower Projects (SHPs), defined as including hydroelectric generating facilities with capacities of 1,000 kW or less, have great potential for elevating the standard of living and contributing to the economic growth of isolated rural communities especially in Third World countries. However, construction and operation of an SHP can result in adverse environmental impacts that should be assessed in the initial stages of site-selection and avoided in the development.

Environmental concerns can be factored into a site-selection process both at the screening and feasibility stages. The screening study is the process by which a large number of potential sites are reduced to a much smaller number of candidate sites based on coarsegrained engineering, socio-economic, and environmental, criteria. Although many of the factors determining the suitability of a given site at the screening stage involve basic engineering or economic questions, fundamental environmental issues that should be addressed include an appropriate resource-development strategy to accompany the SHPs, the quality and quantity of water available for all project needs, the presence of near-by protected areas, habitats, or important species, and the adequacy of local support for environmental protection requirements of the project.

The feasibility study is the final stage of site selection, where a relatively small number of candidate SHP sites are examined in proper detail and the best are selected for development. Potential environmental impacts of SHPs range from flow-disruption downstream to the spread of water-borne diseases and parasites, and are related to the design and size of the facility. We provide a check-list of environmental data that should be collected at this stage in order to judge the significance of projected impacts of candidate SHPs.

It is important that site selection and impact evaluation be conducted by competent individuals with formal training and experience in an appropriate environmental field. After compiling relevant information (e.g., through literature searches and contacts with government agencies or universities), the feasibility study team should visit the site of each at all likely-to-be chosen SHP. This will allow the interdisciplinary team's members to identify any previously unanticipated problems, to receive inputs from the local community, and to weigh the various benefits and consequences of SHP development before making their final selection.