It is arguable that the most brilliant single idea in wildlife conservation in the past quarter of a century has been the Red Data Books for endangered species. They are certainly the most widely known activity of IUCN, and were the brainchild of Sir Peter Scott, for many years Chairman of IUCN's Survival Service Commission and now, among many other distinctions, President of the ffPS. The first RDBs, compiled by Noel Simon for mammals and Jack Vincent for birds, were published in 1966. The amount of material available, together with the accelerating slide of so many animals towards extinction, soon made the original horse-and-buggy arrangements for compiling the RDBs out of date, and there was a serious possibility that they would cease to be regarded as the authoritative works of reference they had become. Fortunately there were sufficient concerned people to persuade WWF and IUCN into financing the Species Conservation Monitoring Unit at Cambridge (now part of the IUCN Conservation Monitoring Centre), and for the first time the RDB operation was properly housed, staffed and equipped.

The large blue butterfly Maculinea arion is probably extinct in Great Britain. Many other of Britain’s 56 butterfly species have declined since 1945, but no other species has become extinct. By contrast, no fewer than four of Britain’s 41 resident dragonfly species have almost certainly become extinct since that date, What are the causes and what lessons can be learnt from these losses?

Hopes that a viable population of orang-utans can be conserved in Malaysian Borneo have been given a big boost by the discovery that they are more widespread than had been expected. In August-November last year a research team, consisting of officers from the National Parks and Wildlife Office of the Sarawak Forest Department and five scientists sponsored by WWF Malaysia, surveyed the proposed Lanjak-Entimau Orang-Utan Sanctuary adjacent to the Indonesian frontier. Previous reports had led them to expect to find orangs in the southern part of the proposed sanctuary, where the terrain is mostrugged and there has been least human activity, but the development of anovel survey technique showed that the apes in habit the northern part as well.

Many governments of developing countries consider that croplands and pastures are more valuable than forest, so they harvest the most valuable timber, turn the smaller trees into charcoal, and burn the rest. Often the whole forest is razed to the ground and burned. Not only does the timber thus become a non-renewable resource, but many other valuable species are lost, for only a handful of scientists know what these valuable non-timber species are, and only rarely has the information been made available to governments.

The wildlife of the widely scattered islands that comprise the East Indonesian province of Maluku, formerly the Moluccas, is unique and immensely important scientifically. More than a quarter of the birds are endemic species, as well as nearly a fifth of the mammals, several reptiles and land snails and at least 25 butterflies. Seventy per cent of the islands is still untouched. But large-scale commercial logging is making increasing inroads on the forest of the north and central islands, and commercial overfishing and siltation due to the logging are affecting the sea. The Indonesian Directorate of Nature Conservation, assisted by FAO, is drawing up a conservation programme, in which the author is involved, which includes recommendations for a 180,000-ha national park on Seram Island and a 250,000-ha marine reserve in the Aru Islands.

The pied bare-face tamarin is found only in the vicinity of Manaus, the second largest city in Brazilian Amazonia, where rapid growth in recent years has resulted in much forest destruction. The authors’ studies show that this tamarin is now endangered and they suggest an action plan to ensure its survival.

In June last year a Customs officer at London Airport, suspicious of a cargo of 100 live royal pythons arriving from Ghana, checked the export permit with officials in Accra. They confirmed that the animals had been illegally exported from Ghana. The snakes were seized, and a difficult situation — what to do with 100 illegally imported live snakes? — was resolved by ffPS and the RSPCA jointly agreeing to pay the cost of returning the survivors to Ghana, where, under the guidance of ffPS Consultant, Dr Emmanuel Asibey, head of the Game and Wildlife Department, they were released in a national park. This incident highlights the important part the Customs Service plays in enforcing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, and also some of the problems. Ted Mouat, who is a senior Customs official, describes how they are learning and coping, and how voluntary societies such as ffPS can help.

The endemic proboscis monkeys in Borneo live along the rivers and coasts where people also tend to concentrate. Hitherto there has been room for both. But in Kalimantan, logging and wood-processing industries are expanding rapidly — Indonesia hopes to be self-sufficient in pulp and paper by 1984 — and this, together with the planned removal by the same date of 2½ million people from overcrowded Java, mostly to Kalimantan, could seriously affect the proboscis.

The Chinese regard conservation as important, more for economic than for aesthetic or moral reasons. An economic rationale is a persuasive tool in a developing country such as China. The trade in wild-animal products plus the potential of rare and endemic wildlife species to attract much-needed foreign exchange are important factors. Rational use of wildlife through domestication and sustained-yield harvesting can alleviate pressures on wild populations and help to ensure genetic diversity for the future. Rare and endemic species such as the giant panda attract foreign exchange through tourism and research, and conservation measures preserve a cultural heritage, something of increasing importance to the Chinese.

Several questions arise, however. How do economically unimportant species fit into this scheme? How can conflicts of interest created by economic incentives be resolved? Will the shortage of trained manpower undermine the conservation effort? Once these obstacles are resolved, China may become a leader i n wildlife conservation among the developing countries of the world, and show that conservation and development can co-exist.

Four rare Pseudemys felis were captured and eight more turtles seen in a two-day survey on Cat Island, Bahamas, in March, 1981. A breeding population of this species persists in an area of 2.5sqkm. Cat island turtles are captured for pets and food by local people and are threatened by potential road building and land development.

The northern race of the square-lipped rhinoceros Ceratotherium simum cottoni is disappearing in Africa and is now believed extinct in Uganda. Commonly called the white rhinoceros because of its wide (weit) square mouth, it differs from the black rhino in size, habits and disposition. The white rhino occurred naturally in three countries: the West Nile Province of Uganda, north-east Zaire, and the Bahr el Ghazal and Equatorian provinces of Sudan. The Nile limited its eastern spread, although fossils show that it existed in Tanzania some 400,000 years ago. Its extreme southern limit was the river Ora which enters the Nile opposite Wadelai, from where it extended northwards along the western bank of the Nile through to Shambe, and then north-west through the Bahr el Ghazal drainage to the borders of Chad, where in the 1890s it was abundant. Harper reported the collection of many rhino horns yearly in Abecher. At the beginning of this century Sidney described the species as numerous in the upper waters of the Bahr Azoum and the Bahr Aoule, plentiful in the Birao area, fairly numerous north of the Uele river in what is today in Zaire's Garamba National Park, and abundant in Okolo, Aringa and West Madi in Uganda.18Rhinos were so common in all these areas that in 1919 Theodore Roosevelt's headquarters for the Smithsonian African Expedition collecting rhino products was named Rhino Camp. Here in 1932 Captain Pitman encountered 30–40 groups of at least seven individuals each within a day's walk, and he could approach to within 7–8ft because they were unharried by hunters and poachers.