IUCN is a unique, international but independent, organization which promotes and carries on scientifically-based action for conservation throughout the world. Founded originally for the ‘Protection of Nature’, it has evolved greatly in the intervening nearly 35 years in response to current needs, and now occupies a very prominent position in the environmental/conservational movement to withstand ever-increasing human population-pressures through rational use of resources and seeking to assure that development is environmentally sound.

In order to ensure that the full range of species and natural ecosystems continue to form part of the human habitat, national parks and other types of protected areas must be better designed and managed than is usually the case at present. While IUCN has a long history of involvement in protected areas, often in cooperation with UNESCO, the World Wildlife Fund, and UNEP, the World National Parks Congress (held in Bali, Indonesia, during 11–22 October 1982) marked a major turning-point in promoting protected areas as part of the social and economic development process. In this approach, the Congress provided ways and means for the philosophy of the World Conservation Strategy (1980) to be put into action on the ground.

The increasing popularity of national parks and other wilderness areas has focused attention on the need for effective wilderness management policies. In many cases active management programmes are required to assure that naturally functioning ecosystems are preserved. External influences such as air pollution, exotic species, and impacts from visitor-use, must be understood and controlled. This paper reviews a case-example of management strategies that were utilized to minimize visitor use-impacts in the backcountry wilderness of Kings Canyon National Park in the southern Sierra Nevada of California.

Marine genetic variability has been studied at all levels within the hierarchy of biological systems, and some major findings to date are briefly reviewed in this paper. Important conclusions are that many marine populations may be quite variable genetically, and that this variability is particularly high in species-rich communities such as those of coral reefs. It is generally thought that variability does change in relation to ecological variables, and thus must contribute to adaptation to environment. At the community level there are marked geographical differences not only in the composition of marine biota, but also in their richness. While the importance of threats to genetic resources cannot be quantified in relation either to one another and to other areas of environmental concern, it is clear that long-term measures such as the establishment of protected areas must be planned with genetic considerations in mind, as these resources are related to the survival of valuable species, and to the important theme of biotic diversity.

The World Conservation Strategy aims to foster ‘sustainable development through the conservation of living resources’. While this is an admirable goal, the definition of conservation given in the Strategy document seems too imprecise to be operational.

The framers of the Strategy hope to convince developers and others that conservation is needed if development is to be sustained, contending that in the absence of conservation, development may be short-lived and uncertain. Possibly in order to give it greater political appeal, the Strategy takes a Man-centred approach to conservation. Nevertheless little attention is given to the ultimate ends of Mankind, that is, the type of issues raised by Daly (1980).

However, even if more immediate goals of mankind are considered, there is a strong case for conservation. In order to achieve living-resource conservation, the World Conservation Strategy suggests that it is necessary: (1) to maintain essential ecological processes and life-support systems; (2) to preserve genetic diversity; and (3) to ensure the sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems. Detailed recommendations are made for achieving each of these three conditions.

Acidification processes in western North America will probably increase in scope and visibility over the foreseeable future. Localized acidification seems more probable for the next few decades than does a generalized acidified deposition over the western States. At least part of current acid deposition downwind of urban areas is associated with automobile emissions. However, increases in coal combustion for power generation might be expected to increase sulphur dioxide concentrations, along with several related acidifying agents. Interactions of air pollutants with orographic precipitation and snowmelt may bring some areas to public attention much earlier than others, depending upon site-specific matters of climate, topography, soils, water-bodies, and biota. Lakes and streams on windward slopes facing large urban or industrial sources of sulphur and nitrogen oxides may be most seriously at risk.