The Gir Forest in Kathiawar is the last home of the Asiatic lion. Up to the beginning of the last century the lion inhabited all suitable parts of north and central India, but the introduction of modern firearms and the spread of population led to its disappearance by 1884 from everywhere except Kathiawar. Even within Kathiawar the lions retired to the protection of the Gir Forest, except for irregular visits as far afield as the Barda Hills. This forest in southern Kathiawar in 1878 covered 1,200 square miles, but its area is now reduced by half. Much of it is thick forest of the mixed deciduous type, with teak predominating, but the undergrowth is fairly thin, allowing grazing of cattle and buffaloes throughout most of the area. In the eastern Gir there is grassland and scrubby bushes, including several kinds of acacia.

In their 1965 survey of dugongs on the north-east Australian coast, Dr. Colin and Dr. Kate Bertram made the welcome discovery that these aquatic mammals, whose numbers were seriously reduced throughout their range in the last century and the early decades of this, are now holding their own here and may even in a few places be increasing. Dugong meat and oil are highly valued by some Australian native people, and the animals fill an important ecological niche as consumers of aquatic plants in shallow water.

I think at this preliminary stage it would be appropriate if we set out the principles which will govern us in managing the National Parks on behalf of the public of the Protectorate. We, the Trustees, are not a tourist agency nor are we hotel keepers or a bus company. Our duty is to preserve the areas which have been set aside as National Parks as sanctuaries for wild life and as areas which in perpetuity can be preserved for the recreation primarily of the people of Uganda. The facilities which we may grant to tourists who wish to visit the Parks will be secondary to our main function. It should, however, be borne in mind that while these facilities are secondary they are important, as the tourist industry provides directly some of the revenue necessary for running the Parks and also brings money into the country and so provides revenue for the Protectorate Government, thus assisting it in making grants towards the upkeep of the Parks.

Early in 1971 the pygmy hog, widely believed by scientists to be extinct (though many people in the Himalayan foothills must have known otherwise) was ‘re-discovered’ in the Manas Sanctuary in north-west Assam (Oryx September 1971). Since then attempts to breed the species in captivity have been largely unsuccessful, and nothing has been done to protect them in the wild.

Although the nature conservation movement had its beginnings a century ago, there was a lull in activity between the two World Wars. Richard Fitter, former FFPS Honorary Secretary and Chairman and now a Vice-President, became involved in the middle of World War II, just as the movement really got off the ground. His account of wildlife conservation in the last 50 years reveals the tremendous changes that have occurred and gives us glimpses of his own deep commitment and contribution to the movement. This paper was originally delivered at a joint meeting of the British Ecological Society and the Society for the History of Natural History in London on 12 November 1988.

The progressive loss of marshes, bogs and others wetlands through drainage and “improvement” led the Executive Board and the Ecology Commission of the International Union for Conservation of Nature to undertake a special project—project MAR—on the conservation and management of temperate wetlands. As with their African Special Project, the work is divided into three stages. First came the collection of data on the status and importance of wetlands and the methods by which they might most profitably be conserved: also the compiling of an inventory of important wetland areas in Europe and north-west Africa.