Waterfowl Hunting In Europe North America And Some African And Asian Countries In 1980 81

In 1984, a conference called Wildlife 2000: Modeling habitat relationships of terrestrial vertebrates, was held at Stanford Sierra Camp at Fallen Leaf Lake in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The conference was well-received, and the published volume (Verner, J. , M. L. Morrison, and C. J. Ralph, editors. 1986. Wildlife 2000: modeling habitat relationships of terrestrial vertebrates, University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin, USA) proved to be a landmark publication that received a book award by The Wildlife Society. Wildlife 2001: populations was a followup conference with emphasis on the other major biological field of wildlife conservation and management, populations. It was held on July 29-31, 1991, at the Oakland Airport Hilton Hotel in Oakland, California, in accordance with our intent that this conference have a much stronger international representation than did Wildlife 2000. The goal of the conference was to bring together an international group of specialists to address the state of the art in wildlife population dynamics, and set the agenda for future research and management on the threshold of the 21st century. The mix of specialists included workers in theoretical, as well as practical, aspects of wildlife conservation and management. Three general sessions covered methods, modelling, and conservation of threatened species.

The impetus for this volume was the 2nd International Wetlands Conference which was held in June, 1984 at Trebon, Czechoslovakia. An overview of the worlds wetlands was one of the themes of the conference and it was decided that a useful follow-up would be a publication on the same topic. The initial goal was to cover as many of the worlds wetlands as possible in one volume and to have an emphasis on wetland ecology, biota, classification, and management. Individuals who made presentations at the Trebon confer ence were asked to prepare chapters and the editors also solicited other contributions. For a variety of reasons, the initial goal has been difficult to reach, especially coverage of the entire globe, and it has been necessary to publish the contributions in more than one volume. Volume 1 represents the com pletion of the first phase of the project and it covers most of the Western Hemisphere, Australia, most of Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the Mediter ranean region, and Papua New Guinea. Volume 2 will contain chapters on Western Europe, Northern Europe, Central Europe, most of northern and It is our hope that Volume western Asia, the Middle East, and Indonesia. 2 will appear in the near future and, if possible, a third volume will be published if authors can be secured to cover areas such as the Far East, other parts of the Indo-Pacific region, and New Zealand.

The continuing degradation and loss of wetland habitats was reported in many papers, and serious declines of waterfowl populations were noted in various flyways. Perhaps the strongest message to emerge from the meeting was the urgent need to pursue monitoring, research and conservation actions at flyway level, if these actions are to be successful. As the political barriers between East and West continue to crumble, it can be hoped that the contacts made during the Astrakhan symposium will be seen in the future as a landmark in the collaborative efforts to conserve wetlands and their waterfowl populations, worldwide.

In Harvesting Wild Species Curtis Freese draws together a diverse group of authorities to discuss the conditions under which commercial use may serve as a conservation tool. Presenting fifteen case studies from around the world - in areas ranging from fisheries and forestry to non-timber forest products and trophy hunting - the authors explore the link between sustainable development and biodiversity conservation. Based on a study commissioned by the World Wide Fund for Nature, Harvesting Wild Species aims to raise among environmentalists, policy makers, funding agencies, students, and researchers an awareness of the role of economic incentives in conservation efforts.