The successful breeding of hawksbill turtles on experimental farms on islands in the Torres Strait, north of Australia, has persuaded the islanders to leave the turtle eggs (formerly taken for food) for the farms. The author argues the case for using eggs from the wild in these particular areas, and also urges the importance of allowing a turtle industry that will bring profit to the islanders—and no one else.

Schemes for the preservation of fauna in Kenya, Tanganyika, and Uganda are much to the fore at the present time, and quite rightly so, but we would like to advance the claims of N'gamiland as being one of the finest places of them all where the wild life of Africa may yet be found in its almost pristine state, rivalling that of N'gorongoza, the Serengeti Plains and the Ngorongoro Crater. We plead also the urgent need for the formation of a society dedicated to the protection of the fauna in support of an understaffed and overworked Game Department.

Overfishing, wasteful fishing and destructive fishing take a large toll of the fish and all other life in the sea: more than half the important commercial fish species have been overfished; every year several million tonnes offish and other animals are caught incidentally and discarded, and modern equipment such as bottom trawls and indestructible nylon nets which, lost overboard, become permanent fish traps, spread devastation. Coral reef exploitation, oil exploration, land erosion, dams on major rivers all affect the seas, while much of the agricultural pesticides and the industrial toxic wastes end up there too. Fish provide much-needed animal protein for humans. As more than half the marine productivity is within 200 miles of the shore, which is where 98 per cent of the world’s fish catches are made, the need for good management is clearly urgent.

During a survey in Dana Nature Reserve (southwestern Jordan) carried out between November 1994 and January 1995, Nubian ibexes Capra nubiana were sighted twice on a cliff at Jebel Um-Suwwana in the Wadi Araba area. The low number of sightings and an assessment of range conditions throughout the study area suggest that the population is reduced to a low density and suffers from severe competition for food and range with goats. Further research needs are discussed in a conservation perspective.