The Mountain Gorilla Project started with four main programmes for the conservation of the gorilla in Rwanda's Pare National des Volcans: the Training and Equipping of a Park Guard Force (AWLF/PTES responsibility); Conservation Education (FPS/PTES); Tourism Development (FPS/PTES); and a Building Programme of offices and housing for the park guards (AWLF/WWF). Thanks largely to Bill Weber and Amy Vedder of the University of Wisconsin, two of these, the Conservation Education and Tourism Development Programmes, have been as successful as we could ever have hoped. Progress on the others has been distressingly slow due to probably almost inevitable bureaucratic delays. Nevertheless, the training and equipping programme is now under way, and only the building project remains to be started.

For the past six years the Ministry of Agriculture has been tackling the problem of TB in badgers in a few areas in south-west England by gassing all infected sets and those in immediately adjoining territories as dangerous contact, with the expectation of eliminating all the infected badgers. The author points out that because TB is a stress disease, and because it is impossible to gas every badger in a group simultaneously, gassing may be driving infected individual badgers to join other groups and infect them, thus actually spreading the disease.

Coral reefs are being destroyed world-wide by fishermen and shell collectors, by developers and above all by direct extraction for building materials. In numbers of plants and animals the coral ecosystem is one of the richest in the world, but it is also extremely fragile. The author, who is Chairman of the Coral Group set up by the IUCN Survival Service and Ecology Commissions, describes the methods used to extract coral and the disastrous effects on the reefs. As a result of the Group's recommendations French Polynesia has decided to stop coral extraction from March 1981.

Bali's endemic white starling, Rothschild's starling, is one of Indonesia's most endangered animals, along with the Javan and Sumatran rhinos. It is almost entirely confined to one reserve, in the north-west of the island, which has been severely reduced and disturbed in the 30 years since it was created. Only 13,000ha of the original 20,000ha of monsoon forest now survives, and estimates of starling numbers are 200 birds or even fewer. Capture for sale has also contributed to the bird's decline. The author urges the need for proper management of the reserve.

With numbers down to under ten birds and no evidence of successful breeding since 1975, the endemic echo parakeet in Mauritius seems doomed to extinction very soon. The main reasons are the destruction and degradation of the native forest on which these fruit-eating parrots depend and competition with introduced macaque monkeys and another parakeet, aided by cyclones that have defoliated and stripped trees of their fruit. All attempts at captive breeding have failed and numbers are now too low to consider translocation.

Three small elephant populations have survived in South Africa despite near extermination in the recent past. In Tongaland a group of fewer than 30 bulls survives by keeping contact with the population in a nearby reserve; in the Knysna, where there were 13 in 1920, there are now 12; and in the Addo Bush 11 survivors in 1931 had increased to only 18 in 1953, but to 102 in 1979. The author tells the story of each group, discusses the reasons for the different status of each, and describes what is being done to conserve them.

Carved ivory objects are widely sold in India, and up to 90 per cent to foreigners, either in exports or tourists’ accompanied luggage, which is a loophole in the government's otherwise complete ban on exports made from Indian ivory. Partly because of this ban, which has probably reduced elephant poaching in India, the ivory trade depends on imported African ivory, and the rise in price in recent years has been so steep that most carvers cannot affort to buy it. As a result the larger traders are turning to other crafts, and carvers are being re-trained to work in wood. This sad decline of an ancient skilled craft may, however, ease some of the pressure on both Indian and African elephants.

Thirteen forest bird species are seriously threatened in East Africa – one, a bush shrike, may already be extinct. But the very small surviving area of forest is being rapidly destroyed, and soil eroded. If the tree-felling can be stopped it could both save the rare birds and stop the erosion. The author's study of these forest birds was aided by the FPS Oryx 100% Fund.

The state of Borno, in Nigeria, is trying to increase its dwindling crocodile populations. In 1976 the State wildlife authorities confiscated fifteen crocodiles that were being illegally kept, and used them to augment a low population in a game reserve. This proved successful, and in 1979 they followed it with another successful translocation, this time of 20 crocodiles born and bred in Kyarimi Park Zoo of which the author was Curator. The latest news is that a third translocation is planned from a record batch of 112 bred in the Kyarimi Park Zoo.

Appalled by the continuing decline of manatees everywhere and the hunting and killing that is the chief cause, the author started an investigation of his own on an inland lake in Guatemala where he believed he had a good chance of observing them. He hoped to build up a case for their protection that the authorities would listen to and act on. He found that the manatees were so scared of man that when they had to surface to breathe they came up in the surface vegetation, hoping to escape notice. But the high point of his watching was the day when two manatees allowed him to swim with them in the lagoon.

During a field expedition in eastern Brazil the authors found a new population of the endangered buffy-headed marmoset Callithrix flaviceps in the state of Tinas Gerais where it was not previously known. This was in a privately protected forest that also has an important population of the endangered woolly spider monkey Brachyteles arachnoides and other monkeys.

Hunting in modern vehicles has seriously reduced the Libyan gazelle populations. The author, who has been studying them, believes that the future for the three species is gravely threatened unless the Government takes strong measures to enforce the protection laws.

After spending five months in Peru on the first field study of this rare monkey, which until 1974 was thought to be extinct (Oryx 13,1), the author believes that habitat destruction is the greatest threat to its survival, and that action to protect it now and provide refuges is urgent.