In spite of the prominence that conservation of biodiversity has achieved in the world (McNeely 1992), the rate of decline of species with high commercial value is still increasing. The limited arable land and human demand for materials have become major factors contributing to declines in biological resources (Ma et al. 1997). Musk deer have long been famous for the musk that only the male produces. Due to the limited supply of natural musk, musk has been a major item of international trade and the object of smuggling from this region over a long period of time (Sheng 1987, 1992; Liu 1996). The population of wild musk deer has suffered heavy pressure, and the species is on the brink of extinction.

Transboundary protected areas (PAs) currently represent nearly 10% of the world's network of PAs. The protection of their biological wealth poses special challenges because of the need for cooperation among sovereign states. Adaptive management strategies offer hope for a more accurate assessment of ecological conditions within PAs, and have the potential for furthering one of the major objectives of these PAs, namely enhancing environmental cooperation between countries across whose boundaries the protected area complex is situated. This paper examines the implications of adaptive management for transboundary PAs by using the Polish/Belarusian Bialowieza PAs as a case study. Managers of PAs have conventionally aimed at accurate predictions and short-term system equilibrium through ‘top-down’ policies of control and exclusion. In the case of PAs, these objectives have meant limiting use and employing models of linear growth. Adaptive management strategies rely instead on long-term experience, assessment of experimental interventions, and collection of greater amounts of information to assess future outcomes. They aim at the satisfaction of objectives that may include equilibrium changes. These features of adaptive management imply attention over time to the interactions between different key species, greater involvement of local populations in the collection of information about the resources, and experimenting with different levels of use to infer the most suitable protection strategies.

Reedbeds of the Rhône river delta, southern France, constitute an important breeding habitat for purple herons (Ardea purpurea) in Europe. However, the area of reed harvested commercially has increased in recent years and, since 1997, a European Union agri-environmental policy has been implemented to reconcile economic development with conservation goals for harvested reedbeds. Here, we investigate trends in breeding numbers of purple herons and the effect of reed harvesting on reedbed occupancy by herons. A regression model indicates that reedbed use by breeding herons was negatively affected by the reed harvesting pressure. An increase of nearly 50% in the harvested area following the implementation of the policy was probably caused by subsidies (from 67 to 100 US$/ha/year) proposed to reed harvesters, although associated with harvesting constraints intended to conserve heron colonies. The difference between the payments with and without colonies does not appear to have been sufficient to convince reed harvesters to conserve colonies. A case study showed that one heron colony located in a reserve area persisted, while another split into smaller colonies following modifications of reedbeds for future reed harvesting. Results suggest that the agri-environmental policy in its present form has failed to accomplish its primary objective of improving conditions for breeding purple herons in the Camargue. Potential breeding habitat for purple herons have decreased and urgent action is needed to protect some reedbeds from intense reed cutting.

The Community Baboon Sanctuary is held by the Belizean government to be a model for participatory ecotourism development. Membership in the Sanctuary is voluntary and involves a commitment to protect riverine resources as habitat for black howler monkeys (Alouatta nigra). While most local residents understand the intrinsic, aesthetic and material values of this important resource and recognize that protection of it can provide opportunities for promoting ecotourism activities in their communities, some members are dissatisfied with the project and threaten to withdraw their membership. This study aimed to define residents’ feelings about resource protection in their communities and their attitudes toward management of the sanctuary. Member and non-member households were surveyed, representing three of the eight villages located within the sanctuary boundaries; 74% of the sample were member households and 26% were non-member. Although the howlers had increased in number since the Sanctuary's establishment, many residents felt that neither their households nor themselves were benefiting. Some Sanctuary members argued that management was not well organized and that benefits to communities and individuals were not evenly distributed. Key issues included the extent and nature of benefits to local residents, perceptions regarding management capabilities, and how management is responding to these issues. While these problems existed, the majority of residents did not want the Sanctuary abolished and strongly supported maintaining Sanctuary status. They might not be reaping benefits directly, but they admitted their lives were no worse off than before and they recognized that some members were benefiting. They had hope that they, too, would be able to eventually take part in some type of tourism business. For long-term local support to be assured, management must orient its work to more directly address those factors that influence residents’ attitudes about the project, namely, the extent of local participation, representative organization, sound management structure, effective management capabilities, fair employment allocation, and education opportunities for community residents regarding the howlers, protection of their habitat, and the value of resource conservation.

Eutrophication of waterways, expressed as excess growth of cyanobacteria, is frequently caused by excessive inputs of phosphorus. Human activities are often the origin of such nutrient enrichment and so many governments have addressed the issue by implementing a range of technological, legislative and biological measures. By contrast, Australia has taken a different approach and also relied heavily on public education. This paper compares the success of two of these ‘Phoswatch’ public education programmes. One campaign occurred within the Murray-Darling Basin in a country town called Albury-Wodonga. The other occurred within the Hawkesbury-Nepean Basin in the western suburbs of Sydney. The campaigns were evaluated using a series of community surveys and by monitoring phosphorus loads at a sewage treatment plant. The Albury-Wodonga campaign was the most effective of the two campaigns with increases in the number of people reporting a range of behaviours and these resulted in a decrease in phosphorus loads entering the local treatment plant. The comparison suggests that clear simple messages, a diversity of media exposure, and some form of feedback are critical to programme success. It is concluded that campaigns such as Phoswatch can provide a long term, cost effective way of addressing eutrophication by focusing on the problem at source and creating community support for an integrated strategy.

Sustainable coastal resource management requires the safeguarding and transmission to future generations of a level and quality of natural resources that will provide an ongoing yield of economic and environmental services. All maritime nations are approaching this goal with different issues in mind. The UK, which has a long history of development and flood protection in coastal areas, has chosen to adopt shoreline management, rather than coastal management, so placing coastal defence above all else as its primary and statutory objective. This paper aims to provide a geomorphological perspective of long-term coastal evolution and seeks to compare the UK approach with wider interpretations of coastal management. Based on a literature review, it is argued that coastal management (CM) and shoreline management, as a subset of CM, should share the same ultimate objectives, which are defined by many authorities as sustainable use. The objectives, both strategic and pragmatic, which follow from such an aim may appear to conflict with a reading of many of the texts for international and national CM or designated area management which emphasizes stability rather than sustainability. The result is that coastal defence is seen not merely as a means to an end but as an end in itself. It is argued within this paper that sustainable use of the coast, however, demands both spatial and temporal flexibility of its component systems, and management for change must therefore be the primary objective. Response of the natural system to independent forcing factors must be encouraged under this objective, whether such forces are natural or anthropogenic. In achieving such an objective the concept of shoreline vulnerability may prove useful. A simple and preliminary Vulnerability Index is proposed, relating disturbance event frequency to relaxation time (the time taken for the coastal feature to recover its form). This index provides a first order approximation of the temporal variability that may be expected in landform components of the shoreline system, so allowing management to provide more realistic objectives for long-term sustainability in response to both natural and artificial forces.

The grass cutting programme (GCP) of Royal Chitwan National Park (RCNP) has been very successful in gaining local people's acceptance of RCNP. The GCP is recognized internationally as a model for park-people conflict resolution, but has seemingly become a spent force. The aim of the present study was to assess the extent to which the GCP is a form of ‘community-based conservation’ on the one hand, or ‘nature-based development’ on the other. During the ten days of open access in 1999, almost 50 000 tonnes of biomass were removed from the Park; the total gross economic value of the GCP in 1999 was more than US$ 1 million. Illegal fuelwood was the single most important product extracted from RCNP and accounted for half of the total quantity and economic value of all resources collected. It is argued that the GCP does not, in its present form, comply with the concept of community-based conservation, but is rather an example of nature-based development, where important natural core areas are exploited in the name of development. This study suggests a two-fold approach to reappraise the importance of the GCP in solving park-people conflicts without ignoring nature conservation. Firstly, access should be provided in different areas at different times instead of opening the whole Park at the same time. Secondly, since for the last 10–15 years buffer-zone community forestry has not been able to substitute fuelwood from RCNP, other ways to address local people's energy demand should be considered. It is argued that park-people conflicts in RCNP have not been solved, but only postponed, especially by compromising forest conservation and the possibility of the GCP to supply villagers with essential products in the future.

Tropical marine protected areas (MPAs) may promote conditions that are attractive to dive tourists, but a systematic basis for assessing their effectiveness in this regard is currently lacking. We therefore interviewed 195 dive tourists in Jamaica to determine which reef attributes they most preferred to see on dives. Attributes relating to fishes and other large animals (‘big fishes’, ‘other large animals’, ‘variety of fishes’, ‘abundance of fishes’, and ‘unusual fishes’) were more appreciated than those relating to reef structure and benthos (‘reef structure e.g., drop-offs’, ‘variety of corals’, ‘large corals’, ‘coral cover’, ‘unusual corals’, ‘sponges’, ‘unusual algae’, ‘lobsters, crabs etc.’). We then surveyed reef condition with regard to those aspects (abundance and variety of fishes, number of ‘unusual’, and number of ‘large’ fish) at four Caribbean MPAs and reference areas. In two cases, Hol Chan Marine Reserve in Belize and Parque Nacional Punta Frances in Cuba, these fish attributes were more pronounced in the MPAs than in the reference areas. Differences between the Montego Bay Marine Park in Jamaica (MBMP) and adjacent reference areas were mainly restricted to shallow sites (<6m), while at Grand Cayman no differences between fully protected and partially protected areas were detected. Management had not been fully effective in the MBMP in the preceding months, while fishing pressure in the partially protected areas on Grand Cayman was very light. We conclude that, if fishing restrictions are well enforced, western Caribbean MPAs can be expected to be effective in ways appreciated by dive tourists.

The world is in the midst of a substantial urban transition, but the impacts of this on the environment and human societies are not fully understood. Very little attention has been paid to urbanization processes in developing countries with smaller populations, despite the evident problems associated with urbanization. There are both biophysical and social vulnerabilities associated with urbanization in the South Pacific and these vulnerabilities affect human security. The biophysical vulnerabilities include the fragile environments of the island nations, limited land resources, shortages of basic resources, and the risks associated with global warming. The ability to respond to these problems is constrained by social vulnerabilities, notably weak economies, difficulties associated with land ownership, and institutional limitations. There is a need for institutional reform, improved planning, better urban resource management, and greater regional cooperation, if Pacific island nations are to respond effectively to rapid urbanization and global change.

Which species will be intentionally preserved depends on societal perspectives regarding nature and species, but these have been little studied. In this study, it was hypothesized that in species-specific conservation, aesthetical perspectives, notably the appreciation of species characteristics as embodied in taxa, are important. However, this importance is changing due to variation in ecological (in particular, knowledge of species’ populations) and ethical perspectives (in particular regarding specific human-species relationships). The hypothesis was approached by assessing the relative involvement of different taxa in species-specific legislation on wild animals in the Netherlands over the period 1857–1995. Three objectives in this legislation were defined namely, ‘control’, ‘use’ and ‘protection’, based on purposes and potential levels of legally allowable taking. Over time, the number of species protected increased, whereas the numbers subject to ‘use’ and ‘control’ reached a peak and decreased again. The taxa included birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fishes, bivalves, gastropods, cephalopods, insects, crustaceans and asteroids. Persistent differences were found in the relative involvement of taxa in the objectives as well as in the relative extent to which taxa were affected by long-term trends in numbers of species subject to the objectives. The results also show that species of one-and-the-same taxon were not regarded equally over time. It is concluded that the long-term changes in species’ legal status probably resulted from the combined effects of both the appreciation of species characteristics embodied in taxa and, in particular, changes in ethical perspectives regarding human-species relationships.