Among the prerequisites to building an effective environmental institutional framework for the twenty-first century, our current thinking singles out the following eight for prior consideration:

1) Improvement of coordination — after due strengthening where necessary — of the existing global monitoring and environmental assessment facilities both within and outside the United Nations system.

Generally speaking, the fragile and highly-coveted coastal regions of the world badly need integrated land-and water-use planning to reconcile their multiple functions, including that of terrestrial and marine conservation. Properly designed and managed, coastal Biosphere Reserves could constitute a most useful tool for this purpose. Ideally, they would pay equal attention to conservation requirements on the land side and on the marine side, keeping particularly in mind the impact of land-based activities on the marine side. On the land side, consideration should be given not only to the type of ecosystems to be included, but also to land-use in coastal plains and to coastal landscapes. On the marine side the precise place of traditional activities, such as various forms of fishing, will have to be appreciated. Fig. 5 suggests a very idealized zonation pattern for a hypothetical Biosphere Reserve where the above considerations have been kept in mind.

The major anthropogenic sources of heat pollution in 1989 have been identified, and the ultimate heat generated has been calculated. Those sources include the combustion of fossil fuels and of biomass, nuclear fission, and the burning of forests. The total rate of heat generated from such sources for the world as a whole, 16 to 26 TW, is compared with a very approximate estimate of the heat retained at the Earth's surface, 291 TW, resulting from decreased radiative heat-loss due to increased concentration of atmospheric CO2. However, heat pollution may be more important than the ratio of about 5 to 9% would appear to indicate. It is a direct process producing heat at the surface of the globe, not subject to moderating feedback mechanisms, and is expected to be most pronounced at land-based sites marking centres of high industrial and other human developments. On the other hand, global warming due to increased atmospheric CO2 is an indirect process that is dependent on many factors, not all of which are known or measured — such as the extensive smoke-clouds resulting from the forest fires in Amazonia. Compared with preindustrial times, the rate of heat pollution has grown by a factor of more than forty.

This analysis of population growth and environmental changes in Central and Eastern Kenya illustrates two models of the interactions of population and resources: (1) the classical neo-Malthusian model that relates population growth to conservation of natural resources but ultimate degradation, and (2) the proposition that population growth induces intensified agricultural production and environmental conservation.

The indicators and the sampling process worked out well at Ranthambhore, and they are probably appropriate for comparable areas elsewhere. However, significant human pressure is not always limited to cutting and grazing. Collecting of certain minor forest products may be a problem in some places, and a suitable indicator must then be found.

Nature-based tourism is one of the few economic uses of natural areas that is compatible with protection of the environment and its wildlife. With more than 100 national parks and other conservation areas in Thailand, and a diverse tropical fauna and flora, Nature tourism has tremendous potential for expansion. Although seldom designed to do so, Nature tourism can provide significant income to targeted villages near the borders of national parks, and hence help to reduce illegal exploitation of park resources by local inhabitants.

The relative potentials of six grass cultivars for reclamation of the north-facing 30° slope of a limestone quarry spoil-heap in Yorkshire, UK, were assessed.

An Eelgrass (Zostera marina L.) bed in a very shallow subtidal habitat adjacent to a busy port in southwestern British Columbia, Canada, was the site of experimental transplants. Eelgrass populations were successfully established, using a variety of transplanting techniques, namely cores (plants with the sediment retained around the rhizomes and roots), sprigs (plants from which the sediment had been washed), and sprigs anchored to buried lengths of iron rod. Transplants took place in two sites — (1) a shallow channel that had eroded from the sea into the Eelgrass bed, and (2) at the landward edge of the existing vegetation.