Jackson, Peter F. R.

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150 Environmental ConservationPoa bulbosa, and Fragaria vesca. There are also the follow-ing common grasses with foliage emerging in spring:Themeda anathera, Chrysopogon echinulatus, Stipa sibirica,Oryzopsis munroi, Poa angustifolia, and P. bulbosa.Summer (June to August): Saussurea albescens, Hera-cleum candicans, Dipsacus mitis, Geranium wallichianum,Nepata spicata, N. linearis, Lavatera kashmiriana, Phlomisspectabilis, Delphinium incanum, Agrimonia eupatoria,Geum urbanum, Cannabis sativa, Setaria viridis, andPennisetum flaccidum.Autumn (September to November): Artemisia vesdta,A. japonica, Themeda anathera, Chrysopogon echinulatus,Polygonum plebeium, Solanum nigrum, and Fagopyrumcymosum.Winter (December to February): There is not much palat-able vegetation available in Dachigam Sanctuary in winter,though a few species in leaf (useful as fodder) can be metwith. The list is in order of decreasing abundance—Plantagolanceolata, Viola odorata, V. sylvatica, V. falconeri, Gageaelegans, G. kashmirensis, Colchicum luteum (abundant inFebruary-March), Arabis amplexicaulis, A. auriculata,Drabopsis nuda, Poa annua, P. pratensis, Taraxacum offi-cinale, Capsella bursa-pastoris, Fragaria vesca, Carexsetigera var. schlagintweitiana, Bergenia ciliata, Corydalisdiphylla, and Fritillaria imperialis.The Dachigam Sanctuary and the adjacent valleys in theVale of Kashmir constitute the last reserve of the Hangul.To save this magnificient animal for posterity, Kashmir canstill boast an excellent habitat. Now that the ecologicalinventory of the characteristic floristic elements has beenmade, the hopes of the legion of Indian naturalists to savethe Hangul from its endangered status have brightenedconsiderably. The floristic elements of Dachigam have aclose relationship to the presence of the Hangul, whosehabitat consequently needs conservation. The undesirablehuman disturbances must cease.The author wishes to thank particularly Dr GurcharanSingh, formerly of Kashmir University but now at KhalsaCollege, New Delhi, for his kind help in the determinationof the plant species.G. M. OZAGeneral Education CentreMaharaja Sayajirao University of BarodaBaroda 390 002, India.Thailand Urged to Reconsider Dam ProjectThe World Wildlife Fund and the International Unionfor Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources haveurged the government of Thailand to reconsider plans forfour irrigation dams in the vicinity of the Khao YaiNational Park, 200 kilometres north-west of Bangkok,because of the inherent dangers to the environment.The two organizations indicated that, although technicalsurveys had been carried out, no environmental impact studyhad yet been undertaken. Theirjoint letter to the Governmentof Thailand said in part: 'We are greatly concerned that theconstruction of four irrigation dams at Khao Yai cannotbut have serious adverse effects on the National Park andthe surrounding areas. Large areas of rain-forest and decid-uous mountain forest will be flooded to the extent that theeastern part of the Park, containing the only significantrain-forest area left in Thailand, will lose its value as aconservation area.'The Khao Yai forest has an important natural function asa regulator of the water budget of the surrounding agricul-tural plains, and it is doubtful whether artificial lakes willprovide better regulation of water outflow than the naturalundisturbed forest. Furthermore, the run-off of water duringthe rainy season could be considerably accelerated by lossof the forest, causing an increased risk of flooding surround-ing farmland. In addition, artificial water reservoirs, andthe increased water-flow to be expected in wet seasons, maycause serious problems of erosion as some of the areasaffected are steep valleys.'The letter pointed out that the project had apparentlybeen abandoned four years ago after the attention of theGovernment had been drawn to the dangers involved, andthere was now 'considerable concern' at the revival of theproject. IUCN and WWF accordingly offered their assis-tance in obtaining an environmental impact study.PETER F. R. JACKSON, Director of InformationWorld Wildlife Fund1110 Morges, Switzerland.New Method of Monitoring Earth's Upper AtmosphereA new 'tool' which can routinely monitor the chemicalsand pollution-level f part of the Earth's atmosphere thatwas only intermittently observable before, has been develop-ed by astronomers from Harvard College Observatory andthe Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Using anearth-based radio telescope especially intrumented toobserve water vapour in remote parts of our Milky Waygalaxy, the astronomers reported that they have detectedand measured water vapour at high levels in the Earth'satmosphere, actually finding 'surprising amounts'—asmuch as 15 parts per million—at altitudes between 50 and80 kilometres (30 to 50 miles) in a region known as themesosphere. This is well above the 10-kilometres levelreached by conventional weather balloons.The discovery was made by a team of scientists thatincluded Dr Harrison E. Radford, Dr Marvin Litvak,Drs Carl and Elaine Gottlieb, Shoshana Rosenthal, andDr Edward Lilley. They reported their findings to theNational Science Foundation's Division of AtmosphericSciences, which funded part of the research. The scientists'observations, made with the 120-feet (ca 36.6-m) diameterradio telescope at the Haystack Observatory of the North-east Radio Observatory Corporation in Westford, Massa-chusetts, probed heights that otherwise would have re-quired expensive techniques such as rockets.'This new discovery should prove useful in keeping trackof an important constituent of the upper atmosphere',Dr Radford said: 'Using the techniques of radio astronomy,scientists should now be able to measure routinely theconcentration of water vapour, as well as other molecules,high in the atmosphere.'The new measurements indicate a water-vapour contentabout 50% higher than was expected from theoreticalmodels of the atmosphere. However, it appears that theconcentration of water at the high altitudes probed in theseobservations may vary from time to time, and furthermeasurements will be required to establish the pattern.Meanwhile, details of the research results have been publish-ed in the space physics issue of the Journal of GeophysicalResearch.RALPH KAZARIANNational Science Foundation1800 G Street, WashingtonD.C. 20550, U.S.A.https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892900025467Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 13:20:02, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at

Thailand Urged to Reconsider Dam Project

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