Marine and terrestial animals have been shown to be particularly abundant in a wildlife community associated with a marine sewer outfall from the City of Vancouver. These same animals are contaminated with high levels of heavy-metals but are apparently protected from their poisonous effects by the production of a protein known as metallothionein. The amount of metallothionein and heavy-metal loading appears to depend primarily on the degree of pollution and secondly on the species of animal and its position in the food-web.

Mangroves play an important role in estuarine ecological systems as well as in shoreline protection. Such large areas of mangroves have been lost by dredging, land-filling, and other means, that it has become important to develop techniques for restoring or replacing them. Such techniques are needed both for the sake of restoring the mangroves as a valuable shoreline habitat and to estimate their monetary value, which must at least equal the restoration cost.

It is accordingly suggested that future destruction of mangroves be permitted only if they are subsequently replaced at the same site or at some appropriately developed alternative site.

Mangroves have been planted at several sites in Florida, and planting success has been evaluated. Mangroves of several sizes have been planted at a variety of sites that differed in shoreline energy, tidal depth, root-parasite prevalence, substrate type, salinity, and public access. Counts and measurements made after periods of up to 4 years indicated that shoreline energy, tidal depth, and vandalism, were the most important factors limiting mangrove establishment and survival.

Planting costs were estimated from collecting and planting by research assistants and from estimates of the price of larger (3-years-old) nursery-grown trees. Planting cost estimates were $462/acre ($1,140/ha) for unrooted Red Mangrove propagules spaced 3 feet (91 cm) apart, $1,017/acre ($2,500/ha) for established Red, Black, or White, Mangrove seedlings spaced 3 feet (91cm) apart; and $87,500/acre ($216,130/ha) for 3-years-old trees of Red, Black, or White, Mangroves spaced 4 feet (123 cm) apart.

The need to conserve representative samples of natural vegetation was recognized in Nigeria over thirty years ago. Before 1950 only two conservation areas had been laid down but at present there are seven in operation. Most of them are between 60 ha (ca 1/4 sq. mile) and 350 ha (ca 12/5 sq. miles) in area, and together they include at least one example of each major ecological type occurring in the country.

There are difficulties in constituting and safeguarding conservation areas, particularly outside State Forest Reserves. While it is to be hoped that legislation will soon be introduced to facilitate protection, a comprehensive survey has recently been carried out with a view to substantially increasing the number of conservation areas in Nigeria, and to make them more fully representative of the different vegetation zones of Nigeria.

Work is also proceeding towards determining the optimum size for each area within the different vegetation types. It is hoped to be able to establish up to 40 conservation areas within the next 2 years, and ultimately as many as 110 may be designated.

Wetlands represent significant reservoirs of wildlife and natural diversity, in addition to any role which they may play in underpinning the productivity of river, estuarine, and offshore, fisheries. Various campaigns have been mounted to publicize their value and plight, but it is argued that the pressures for development and economic growth are often such that the ecological issues are obscured.

The biology of the estuarine environment is discussed as a first step to evaluating the impact of pollution and land-use policies. The impacts of urban, agricultural, and recreational, uses of wetland areas are reviewed, with particular reference to wetland ecosystems in Third World countries.

The paper concludes by arguing that the estuarine environment needs to be considered as a single ecosystem, and that an understanding of the carrying capacity of a given environment is a necessary precondition for sound management policies. The destruction of natural resources in the process of development planning effectively inflates the costs of that development, emphasizing the need for an ecological basis for planning decisions. The importance of experiment in evaluating alternative land-use options (such as intensive fish-farming) is stressed, and a simple model for ecologically sound development is proposed which could apply to Lake Manzala, in the Arab Republic of Egypt's Northern Wetlands.

The good intentions of specialists involved in the onchocerciasis control project in the Volta Basin of West Africa have not been questioned. It is, however, questioned whether there was not too great a haste to implement the spraying phase of the programme. There is apprehension that the food-chain with Man as terminal link will be contaminated, and that the project will increase the socio-economic as well as political problems of participating countries and yet fail to control the disease.

In view of these considerations and of continuing ‘blind spots’ in human knowledge and especially of the problems involved, it is considered urgent that the spraying as it is now going on be modified or suspended until such time as the gaps in knowledge are reasonably closed.

An industrial energy-budget for a Rainbow Trout farm shows that 93% of the energy costs of production are incurred in feeding the fish, seven-tenths of which is due to fishnieal incorporated in the food pellets. Only one-tenth of the input energy is converted into fish, but the energy subsidy of the farming operation compares favourably with conventional fishing and is 423 input megajoules per kg of output fish protein (55 MJ per kg wet-weight of fish landed). However, if the Trout could be fed on a diet composed of suitable vegetable protein, this performance would be improved to an overall conversion efficiency of one-third, and a subsidy of about 160 MJ per kg. A smaller but similar improvement could result if the Peruvian anchovy fishery regained its former production level.

As these improved energy-costs are comparable with those of crops of potatoes, and with those of bread and milk production, a 2-men Rainbow Trout farm yielding 25 tonnes per year on one hectare would become an attractive protein-producing enterprise in localities where the necessary water-supply is available.

Very precise measurements of the movement of coarse-textured, unconsolidated materials may be meaningless. Therefore the study of individual processes operating on footpaths may require a different approach. However, for identification of changes of reasonable dimensions, methods such as those described above are inexpensive, quick, and require no technical expertise. It may be argued that, for path management, erosion that is too limited to be measured by these methods is too limited to be a problem. It can certainly be argued that the problem of spatial correlation implies a large number of measurements. What is lost in lack of precision may be more than compensated for by the gain in data from the larger area and wider variation in site-types that it is possible to monitor with such simple techniques.

To monitor the effects of recreation in mountain areas, it is desirable to be able to measure any change in path-state and relate this to recreation factors at different seasons and under different sit; -conditions. Three methods of measurement have been considered in this paper, corresponding to three time-scales. Aerial photography has been used to demonstrate trends over the long term, and has proved adequate to differentiate between path sections with differing resistance to erosion.

Short-term measurement has been carried out relative to known fixed positions. Two methods are suggested. One is less precise, but simple and widely applicable, and can be used for measurement intervals of six months to one year. The other is more detailed and can be used for measurement intervals of a few days, but is limited in its application by practical considerations.

It is suggested that simple techniques used at a large number of different types of site may be more effective than detailed measurements at a few sites.

The term ‘ecodisaster’ may be defined as ‘a global catastrophe of the human species’. Any ecodisasters occurring in the near future will, almost certainly, be caused, directly or indirectly, by the present overpopulation of the world, accompanied by unwise and irresponsible disregard of environmental deterioration.

The suggestion is made here that Man's first and, it is to be hoped, last, ecodisaster may already have begun. Although not dramatic, it is taking the form of a steady decline in the standard of living nearly everywhere, coupled with massive pollution, and widespread malnutrition in the under-developed countries of the world. It will persist until world population eventually becomes adjusted to environmental resources.

It is ironical that control of the pests and diseases which have inflicted so much misery on mankind in the past, should have helped to engender the present population explosion with all the hunger and privation that accompany it in the under-developed regions of the world.

A total of 2,816 questionnaires were completed in the Dalby Forest Area in the period from March 1975 to March 1976. The answers to six questions were combined into a wildlife interest index. These questions were concerned with: (1) the interviewees' commitments to a wildlife organization, (2) the interviewees’ activities in the Area, (3) the elements of the Area which increased the interviewees' enjoyment, (4) benefits that the interviewees felt from visiting the Area, (5) the wildlife that interviewees has seen or hoped to see, and (6) the interviewees' desire to use a hide.

The interviewees' interest in wildlife was made up of an appreciation of the aesthetic, emotive, and psychological, elements of wildlife, as well as a purely active pursuit in nature study. These attributes of wildlife are all aspects which should be taken into consideration when assessing the role of wildlife in the recreational qualities of an area.