Hamann, Ole

Synge, Hugh M.

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Conferences & Meetings 89most populous ones, India and China. As a general rule,legislation is not the critical factor for environmental man-agement in developing countries, as it is often made out tobe, but rather due to inadequacy of implementation andenforcement of legal measures already available, and tolack of standards and controls for maintaining and/orenhancing environmental quality.Many other aspects of international environmental lawswere discussed in the Workshop, among which were envi-ronmental law and State sovereignty, the future of endan-gered species, balancing the equities in international envi-ronmental law, pending problems of international law ofthe environment, environmental protection and the law ofinternational trade, environmental law of war and thefuture of Mankind, and international law: common patri-mony and intergenerational equity.In a world where the subjects of specialization arebecoming smaller and smaller with time, it is essential totake a broader view of problems in order to ensure thelong-term sustainability of the development process. Onemeans by which specialists can broaden their perspectives,is by interactions with specialists from other disciplinesand fields than their own. This well-organized Workshopprovided an ideal opportunity for international expertsfrom different backgrounds to discuss various issues hav-ing a common focus—international environmental law.The resulting discussions were authoritative, compre-hensive, and stimulating. It is a great pity that these types ofhigh-level interdisciplinary meetings are so few and farbetween. The papers discussed during this workshop arebeing published, and the book is bound to be welcomed byevery person interested in international environmentallaw- ASIT K. BISWAS, PresidentInternational Society for Ecological Modelling76 Woodstock CloseOxford OX2 8DDEngland, UK.MAB REGIONAL SEMINAR 'MAN'S IMPACT ON COAST-AL AND ESTUARINE ECOSYSTEMS', HELD AT, SHIBA-YAYOI-KAIKAN IN TOKYO, JAPAN, DURING 13-16 N O -VEMBER 1984This Seminar was organized by the MAB CoordinatingCommittee of Japan in relation to MAB Project No 5, onthe Ecological Effects of Human Activities on the Valueand Resources of Lakes, Marshes, Rivers, Deltas, Estuar-ies, and Coastal Zones. The 26 overseas participants weremainly from Asian or Australasian countries, includingAustralia, China, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Micronesia,New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore,and Thailand. In addition there were 56 Japanese partici-pants.The sessions were (1) Overviews: Inventory of coastaland estuarine ecosystems, (2) Problems of coastal andestuarine ecosystems, (3) Problems of mangrove ecosys-tems, (4) Management of coastal ecosystems, and (5) Eco-logical and socio-economic aspects of coastal zones. Therewas also a scientific cruise in Tokyo Bay on the last day.Among the topics, human impacts on mangrove forestsand coral reefs were particularly stressed as creating urgentand serious environmental problems.MAKOTO NUMATA, Director-GeneralNature Conservation Society of Japanc/o Laboratory of EcologyFaculty of ScienceChiba UniversityYayoi-choChiba, Japan.FIRST MEETING OF THE WORKING GROUP FOR THEWESTERN PALAEARCTIC, MIGRATORY BIRDS COMMIS-SION, INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL FOR GAME AND WILD-LIFE CONSERVATION, HELD AT 15 RUE DE TEHERAN,75008 PARIS, FRANCE, ON 7 DECEMBER 1984This Meeting was the result of 5 years of discussions todefine the bases of a strategy for inventorizing the humidzones and their faunas, in order to protect and to conservethem.The President of Honour of the Meeting was ProfessorErik Dahl, President of the Migratory Birds Commission.The Meeting was 'animated' by Mr Raymond Pouget, Pres-ident of the Working Group, while Mrs Huguette Bouchar-deau, French Minister of the Environment, participated.The Meeting brought together representatives of 22 Euro-pean and African countries, national organizations, hunt-ers, biologists, and other scientists, as well as representa-tives of the International Bureau for Research on WaterBirds, the Federation of the Associations of Hunters, andthe European Economic Community.Two main steps were taken during the Meeting:-The start of an inventory of African humid zones andnumbers bagged in all countries through which migratorybirds pass.-The creation of an international fund, administered by theInternational Council for Game and Wildlife Conserva-tion, with inputs from organizations of European hunters,in order to ensure substantial support to countries of Northand West Africa to implement this inventory, and for theconservation of those fragile habitats.Several projects of assistance are under study, which willemphasize the solidarity between European hunters andAfrican administrators. These projects, some of which arespectacular, will be officially announced during the SecondMeeting of the Working Group, to be held in DAKAR,Senegal, in April 1985, on the occasion of the next GeneralAssembly of the International Council for Game and Wild-life Conservation.SAMIR I. GHABBOURDepartment of Natural ResourcesInstitute of African Research & StudiesCairo UniversityGiza, Egypt.IUCN-WWF PLANT ADVISORY GROUP, FIRST MEET-ING, HELD IN THE MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN, STLOUIS, MISSOURI, USA, DURING 17-18 DECEMBER1984In March 1984, the International Union for Conserva-tion of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) and theWorld Wildlife Fund (WWF) started a US$ 4 millionsprogramme to promote plant conservation more effec-tively than hitherto around the world {see the review, byDr F. Raymond Fosberg, in Environmental Conservation,11(2), pp. 285-6, 1984, of our introductory booklet). Mostof the programme which is designed and fostered by IUCN,is being financed from a special WWF campaign onplants.To guide their efforts, IUCN and WWF have establisheda small Advisory Group of leading botanists. Scientificadvice is especially needed in this case because what is nowcalled the 'Plants Programme' is very novel and breaksmuch new ground in conservation thinking; until now thesubject of plant conservation has lacked a clear conceptualframework free from zoological bias.It is a matter of considerable satisfaction to both of themain sponsoring organizations that Peter H. Raven, Engel-https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892900015381Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 12:47:34, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at90 Environmental Conservationmann Professor and Director of the renowned MissouriBotanical Garden, has agreed to be the Chairman, and thatall the other botanists approached so far have agreed toserve in the Advisory Group. The members are: P.S. Ash-ton* (UK), L. Ake Assi* (Ivory Coast), R.W. Boden* (Aus-tralia), J.A. Duke* (USA), E. Forero* (Colombia),A. Gomez-Pompa* (Mexico), V.H. Heywood* (UK),K. Kartawinata* (Indonesia), T.N. Khoshoo (India),G.T. Prance*(USA), A. Quezel (France), Peter H. Raven*(USA), R.E. Schultes* (USA), and A. Takhtajan (USSR).[The asterisks indicate those members who were able toattend the first meeting.] The meeting was possible thanksto a generous donation from the Ernest Kleinwort Charit-able Trust, to whom IUCN and WWF are most grateful.At its First Meeting, the Plant Advisory Group prepareda 16-points set of conclusions, which IUCN and WWF willdistribute widely, as well as many internal recommenda-tions and suggestions to guide the activities of IUCN andWWF. The preamble to the conclusion, which outlines inconcise form why conservationists should give far moreattention than they currently do to plants, reads:'Plants are a primary resource of fundamental importance forhuman life. Rapid population growth, together with the exces-sive and increasing demands that are placed on the world'sresources by our societies, are threatening the destruction of amajor portion of our common heritage of plants. This threat isespecially evident in the tropics and subtropics, where at leasttwo-thirds of the [species of] plants of the world occur, andwhere the process of deforestation is proceeding at an alarmingrate. Widespread poverty, famine, and instability, for examplein Africa, are manifestations of the same processes that aredriving plants to extinction and, by doing so, seriously limitingour future resource options.All human beings depend upon plants, directly or indirectly, fortheir lives, as do most other forms of life: at least four milliondifferent kinds of organisms depend on about 250,000 kinds ofplants. Unless we begin immediately to take drastic and innov-ative measures to preserve them, it is likely that tens of thou-sands of plant species will disappear for ever during our lives orthose of our children. Their loss would amount to a fundamentaland permanent change in the character of life on Earth—a lifethat is characterized by great diversity.Some 20 kinds of plants provide more than 85% of our food, andonly a few hundred are cultivated widely. Most plant specieshave never been examined to see if they might have propertiesthat would make them useful as food or for other purposes in ourmodern industrial age, and thousands of species have not evenbeen described scientifically or given a name.'The recommendations cover, among other topics, theneed for increased attention to be given to tropical andsubtropical plants, and the need for plant inventories forthese regions—so that adequate information would beavailable to take effective conservation action. Otherwise itwill be impossible to develop meaningful plans for conser-vation of tropical plants. The Advisory Group proposedthat, when natural and semi-natural areas are converted toMan-made ecosystems, a reasonable proportion of theland—they suggested 10%—be set aside as germ-plasmreserves, and called for more botanists to be involved inland-use planning teams.The Group stressed the need for greatly increased train-ing in plant conservation, and considered how this could beachieved. They felt that conservation bodies should also domore than at present to extend their network of supportersbeyond the audiences of developed countries, and urgedthat essential materials be made widely available in manylanguages. They wanted IUCN to involve even more closethan at present its extensive network of NGOs, and todevelop more links with the botanical community.The role of botanic gardens in plant conservation wasalso considered; here the Group urged IUCN to prepare astrategy outlining this important and often neglected partof botanic gardens' work, as a way both to help gardens toget more resources themselves, and to encourage them tosee conservation as one of their principal aims. This stra-tegy will be described in one of 15 books and major reportsthat are being prepared under the Plants Programme—products that IUCN and WWF hope will provide the con-ceptual and practical basis for plant conservation world-wide.The Advisory Group will meet once or twice a year, toprovide a continuing intellectual input to the activities ofIUCN and WWF on plants. It is intended that this advicefrom a distinguished group of the world's leading botanistswould also be available to governments, developmentagencies, and conservation organisations, in both indus-trialized and Third World countries. While the group waspleased that about US$ 1.6 m had been committed to 35projects under the IUCN-WWF International Plants Pro-gramme by the end of 1984, they felt very strongly thatconservationists had been remiss in neglecting plants untilnow and that the initial momentum launched by IUCNand WWF must be continued and built upon by otherorganizations as well. They also supported IUCN's andWWF's approach in addressing the major issues in plantconservation, so that, with the help of the Group, the sisterorganizations should soon be in a position to outline whathas to be done by the world community to ensure that theessential diversity of the plant kingdom survives into thenext century and beyond.OLE HAMANN, Plants OfficerIUCN Programme and Policy DivisionWorld Conservation CentreAvenue du Mont-Blanc1196 Gland, Switzerland,&HUGU M. SYNGE, HeadThreatened Plants UnitIUCN Conservation Monitoring CentreThe Herbarium, Royal Botanic GardensKew, RichmondSurrey TW9 3AE, England, UK.Important Prospect:ARCTIC HERITAGE SYMPOSIUM, TO BE HELD AT THEBANFF CENTRE, BANFF, ALBERTA, CANADA, DURING24-28 AUGUST 1985The Association of Canadian Universities for NorthernStudies (ACUNS)* is in the process of planning its thirdinternational conference—an Arctic Heritage Symposium.Co-sponsored by the International Union for Conserva-tion of Nature and Natural Resources, through its Com-mission on Ecology (COE) and Commission on NationalParks and Protected Areas (CNPAA), this Symposium willbe held at The Banff Centre in Banff, Alberta, Canada,during 24-28 August 1985. The two previous ACUNS con-ferences were on Renewable Resources and the Economyof the North, and on Resources and Dynamics of the BorealForest Zone.The Arctic Heritage Symposium is an attempt to bringtogether members of the international arctic community todiscuss the current knowledge of arctic systems, andresearch and management needs, from the standpoint ofnatural and cultural heritage. A central aim is to help tofind the proper balance between resource use and conser-* The origin and establishment of which are described by thethen Director of the Centre for Northern Studies and Research,McGill University, Professor Trevor Lloyd, in EnvironmentalConservation, 4(2), p. 114, 1977.-Ed.(Concluded on page 36)https:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0376892900015381Downloaded from https:/www.cambridge.org/core. University of Basel Library, on 11 Jul 2017 at 12:47:34, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at

IUCN—WWF Plant Advisory Group, First Meeting, held in the Missouri Botanical Garden, St Louis, Missouri, USA, during 17-18 December 1984

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