Gilles Gauthier's (1995) treatment of ‘The Linear City’ was very incomplete, as he made no attempt to acknowledge even cursorily an obvious debt to earlier architects, especially those professionals who clearly predate Gauthier's thinking on the subject.

Sky & Stone (1976) devoted five text pages to exactly the same idea, namely the 1910 ‘Roadtown’ by Edgar Chambless, who died in 1936, and, more significantly, the 1964–66 ‘Linear City’ by Michael Graves. Like Gauthier, several architects have seemed to crystallize an attitude and an approach which, for better or worse, had been in the air for some time without them actually realizing it until they saw it so crystallized. ‘Roadtown’ was evidently to be a continuous, serpent-shaped building which would be self-extending because of the railroad enclosed within it. Both buildings, along with Gauthier's, are representative of ‘Megastructural Architecture’. The term ‘megastructure’ was first used for this kind of building in the vocabulary of ‘Urbatecture’ in approximately 1964. The latter was the visible Earth-crust superficial architecture, as opposed to LaNier's (1970) invisible subterranean architecture called ‘Geotecture’.

The Republic of Belarus lies in between Russia and Poland, and to the north of Ukraine. It has a population of 10 million and a complicated history; parts of Belarus were in Poland and parts in Russia. When within the USSR, policies were adopted, especially in the 1980s, that were at the expense of member parts of the Union. The Chernobyl power plant was built in the Ukraine, near the southern border of Belarus. When the Chernobyl disaster happened on 26 April 1986 (Mould 1988; Park 1989), for three days running the wind blew in the direction of Belarus and we received about 60% of the total fallout. It was not the fault of the Ukraine, but ultimately that of a bureacratized society of over-confident technocrats. About one-fifth of Belarus, as a region which acquired autonomy in July 1991 upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, has been affected to the extent that we have had to organize large resettlements of people, and we now have 300 km2 of land seriously affected and unfit for human habitation, surrounded by a wider circle of about 10 000 km2 which is taken to be endangered, and this within a country of 220 000 km2. Both before and after independence, Belarus' resources have been enormously drained by this disaster.

The following corrections are made to the article ‘The effect of reunification of Germany on the water chemistry and ecology of selected rivers’ by M.S. Adams et al., which was published in 1996 in Environmental Conservation23 (1): 35–43.

Understanding the effects of forest fragmentation on biodiversity is essential for successful and efficient forest conservation. Four factors may cause loss of biodiversity in forest fragments: the effect of non-random sampling of the original forest, reduced forest size, isolation and edge effects. A review of 58 papers on effects of forest fragmentation reveals that general conclusions from fragmentation research are biased due to a focus on birds, on size-effects rather than isolation, and on species presence rather than population sizes. Perhaps the most important finding is that current knowledge on fragmentation effects is based mainly on studies in small fragments (<10 ha). These are dominated by edge effects, can not contain viable populations for many species and are rarely the focus of conservation programmes. Studies of small fragments can not be extrapolated to larger-sized, protected areas, and do not necessarily support the case for needing extremely large, protected areas. Conservation of medium-sized, strategically-located areas may be a more efficient option for biodiversity conservation, given financial, social and logistic limitations. More research is needed on forest fragments that arc representative of the sizes of real-world protected areas (i.e. >10 000–100 000 ha) and should focus on the biological and human-induced processes which determine species persistence.

Plastics are the fastest-growing component of municipal solid waste in the USA, and over the past decade there has been increasing public demand for plastics recycling. However, the necessity to separate the various plastic resins to make their recycling possible, combined with the low cost of virgin resins, make this technically difficult and expensive.

Most sorting of plastic waste is done manually, and this method has been constrained to the diversion of only one or two types of plastics, because human sorters are incapable of distinguishing different plastics. A number of technologies are being developed in order to address this problem. Use of these technologies requires considerable capital investment and this makes many of them economically unfeasible at present. The federal, state, and local governments in the USA have continued to explore demand-side policy measures in an effort to promote market formation and operation. Where they have been successful, in the establishment of markets for recycled polyethylene terepthalate (PET), and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) resins, demand has outpaced supply, highlighting the need to find more effective methods to sort and divert different plastic resins. Even with these supply shortages, and with prices for virgin PET and HDPE at historic highs, however, most plastics recycling remains only marginally profitable. This demonstrates the need for continued policy support for the still-developing plastics recycling industry and recycled-plastics market.

An analysis of the factors driving the recycling of PET, HDPE and polypropylene indicates that, as long as manual sorting is used, it would make sense for supply- and demand-side policies to focus on the recycling of particular plastic products that are easy to recognize, rather than resins that are not. Appropriate policies can help make specific products easily recognizable sources of specific resins. Such policies, implemented in conjunction with measures designed to facilitate capital investments and promote the establishment and operation of markets for all resins, are necessary to increase significantly the recycling of plastic waste above present levels.

International forest law remains an undeveloped area of law. It consists of a multitude of treaties and non-treaty instruments dealing in a rather unprincipled and uncoordinated manner with such issues as biodiversity in forests; protection of forests as sinks of carbon dioxide; protection of endangered tree species; and trade in timber. However, in the face of mounting pressure on the world's tropical and other forests, in recent years there have been attempts to clarify and articulate the values and objectives underlying international forest policy that may induce a further development of the law.

A tension exists between the firmly-rooted claims of sovereignty over forests and the emerging, increasingly-accepted legal principles which could guide international forest law: the principles of common concern, inter-generational equity and precaution. This shift has begun to influence the development of international forest law in critical international initiatives, including the Biodiversity Convention, the Climate Change Convention and, particularly, through the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests. The various layers of dialogue which have emerged to address different aspects of the forest issue (including legal, trade, and ecological issues) promote a gradual convergence of expectations and interests and thus ultimately may further normative development. Despite the diversity of forests and forest concerns between regions and continents, there is an important role for a set of general legal principles, objectives and procedures defining the parameters and establishing the ground rules of global forest law.

Although forest removal has been well documented at a global level, knowledge of how major forest processes such as photosynthesis have been affected remains poor. Global forest change between 1986 and 1993 was assessed using the NOAA/AVHRR satellite data converted to terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP). Forest loss was a dominant feature in tropical regions, with the most severe destruction in Latin America followed by southeast Asia and Africa. Loss of high-productivity forests over wide areas was observed for countries such as Brazil and Bolivia. Further analysis showed that approximately 12% (9100999 km2) and 19% (2 600000 km2) of the low-NPP regions (<500 g m−2yr−1, e.g., deserts, tundra) and the high-NPP regions (> 2000 g m−2yr−1, e.g., tropical rain forests), respectively, were transformed to intermediate-NPP regions (500–1500 g m−2yr−1, e.g., savanna, grassland, or cultivated land), between 1986 and 1993. The extent of global forest degradation or fragmentation may be more severe than the deforestation itself. Low-latitude ecosystems were more prone to decline in NPP than mid- and high-latitude ecosystems. The NPP method offers insight into global forest change in a timely, practical and consistent manner.

South Africa contains an extensive, well-managed protected area network which generates considerable economic benefits from tourism, but the extensive land and financial resources required by the parks and reserves are difficult to reconcile with the acute social and economic development needs of poor rural people with very limited access to any kind of resources. Local communities have incurred substantial costs from the establishment of these parks while receiving few benefits in return. National and provincial governments, as well as the conservation authorities, have now recognized that the long-term future of parks and reserves depends on taking effective steps to redress the local imbalance of benefits and costs. Integrated conservation-development projects (ICDPs) are beginning to test a range of specific measures to increase local community participation in the benefits from protected areas. Parks have considerable resources and expertise which they can use to support local development through ICDPs, although it would be unrealistic to expect parks to solve widespread rural poverty amongst their neighbours. Instead, park authorities should take the lead in forming partnerships to mobilize the combined resources and expertise of other national and provincial government agencies, NGOs and the private sector, as well as the local communities themselves. Community participation in wildlife tourism may best be achievable through joint ventures with the private sector or park management authorities.

Many factors influence the dynamics of fisheries and feedback mechanisms amongst these factors are poorly understood. The ecological systems are too large and complex to conduct controlled experiments and economic adjustments to changes in fish populations defy traditional equilibrium analysis. New modelling approaches are required to identify the driving forces behind the dynamics of exploited fish populations, assess likely consequences of alternative management measures, and achieve consensus among stakeholders.

We present an interdisciplinary modelling approach that can be used easily to assess dynamic consequences of alternative assumptions for certain key biological and economic parameters, and incorporates the input of various stakeholder groups in the fishery. Contributions of scientists, economists and managers to the model can be augmented with contributions from the fisherfolk.

Our approach is illustrated by a dynamic computer model capturing the interactions of three demersal fish species on Georges Bank, namely Atlantic Cod (Gadus morhua), Haddock (Melanogramus aeglefimts) and Pollack (Pollachius virens), population sizes of which are assumed to be density-dependent for the purposes of the model and are significantly affected by management decisions. The model addresses how management measures for one species influence the population dynamics of other commercially exploited species. Various scenarios are run to explore the implications of viable management strategies under alternative assumptions on the driving forces behind complex ecological-economic processes. The analyses indicate that neither small reductions in effort nor mesh size increases are likely to prevent the further demise of the Georges Bank ground fisheries, and, in fact, stocks of the three targeted species may decline. Alternative management measures seem to be necessary to prevent collapse, and might include various strategies, such as effort controls and mesh size reductions, in conjunction with a dramatic change in fishing technology. The assessment and viability of alternative management measures in turn require that consensus is generated among stakeholders about data and models.

Rural people in most of the developing countries are facing an acute shortage of domestic fuel which has led to many socio-economic and environmental problems. In an attempt to examine the nature and extent of the household energy problem, and to suggest certain measures to alleviate it, 432 sample households from eight sample villages in Haryana, north-western India, were surveyed using structured questionnaires during 1995. We find that there has been widespread switching over to low quality fuels (crop residue and dung cake), more time and effort are now spent in fetching fuelwood, biomass fuels have been monetized, and that severe degradation of vegetation cover has occurred. All these changes reflect the acute shortage of household energy in rural areas of Haryana State. It has almost become a crisis, particularly in the Eastern Haryana Region and in poor households. The common lands still provide a significant proportion of household fuel, especially to landless and marginal farming households. Hence, energy plantation on common lands is an immediate, feasible and sustainable solution to the rural energy problem. There is also an urgent need to prevent the wastage of energy by increasing end-use efficiency.

National Parks have become the most widely-used category of protected areas in developing countries, including sub-Saharan Africa. Several studies have shown that local-community support for National Parks is based mainly on perceptions of benefits and costs against the background of social, cultural, political and economic considerations. This paper examines the experience in the Cross River National Park (CRNP) in southeast Nigeria using data collected through rapid rural appraisal techniques, household questionnaire surveys, focus group discussions and guided interviews. The results show that in spite of a high level of community awareness of the need to conserve the forests of the study area, there is a low level of local support for the CRNP forest conservation initiative. Four main factors are identified as the main influences on the support extended to the project, namely: reality and expectations of socio-economic development, the pace of project implementation, the relationship between park staff and communities, and the historical rights of local people to the forest of the study area. The implications of the findings relate to the long-term sustainability of the CRNP as a protected forest area.

Many years of waterfowl hunting have added thousands of tonnes of lead shot to European wetlands. Effective and non-toxic substitutes for lead shot have been developed and are commercially available throughout Europe, but few nations (Denmark, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands) have statutory requirements for their use. Governments can induce hunters to use non-toxic shot by regulatory measures and/or non-regulatory steps, but economic incentives to increase the affordability of lead-free shot have never been used by any nation and might be politically inappropriate. Educational programmes to increase the hunting public's understanding of the poisoning problem, and to provide accurate information on the non-toxic shot, are the best long-term way for governments to focus their spending and induce change, whether on a voluntary or regulated basis. Each of the six nations which has moved to end lead poisoning of waterfowl has adopted a regulatory approach, but these nations have acted independently of each other, and yet the use of non-toxic shot should apply to all countries of a flyway.

Several European treaty and policy precedents could form the basis of a pan-European regulation requiring the use of non-toxic shot. A proposal to eliminate the use of lead shot in wetlands has been made under the Bonn and Bern Conventions. An European Union-USA proposal to reduce the use of different categories of lead under an Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development Council Act has been made, but has deleted an earlier recommendation that lead shot be included. The substitution of lead shot by nontoxic alternatives is also consistent with the European Council Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds of 1979. The passing of a European Council regulation, stipulating the minimal acceptable standards for shot used for waterfowl hunting, is seen as the most effective way to remediate this transboundary toxic problem. This type of action by the European Union, while recognizing the Principle of Subsidiarity, would still allow other member states to enact more rigorous legislation pertaining to the use of lead shot within their jurisdiction, as have Denmark and the Netherlands. Although responsibility to enact and enforce a European Council regulation is the prerogative of each member state, a single regulation would promote consistency of action amongst all states.