In any country the basic need for wild life preservation the education of the masses; and this is perhaps especially true of Africa, which has a shorter history of civilization than other continents. Vast sums are spent annually in West Africa on furthering general education, in building new schools and in improving and extending old ones. New universities spring up on all sides, which, like the schools, are full to overflowing with young students eager for knowledge; but though there are lessons in Nature Study, Zoology and Botany, these matters are all too often treated as mere exercises in learning with view to examination, and tend to concern themselves with the more obscure anatomical features of animals rather than their mode of life. Little emphasis is laid upon bringing home to the boys and girls, the young men and young women, the beauty and cultural value of the living scene around them: the animals, the birds, the trees, the flowers, and the importance of ensuring that the brave new world they are creating is not established in a dull and lifeless countryside. These boys and girls are the teachers and legislators of the not very distant future; ten years at the most will see them persons of considerable influence. It is they who in the States now coming into being will set the tune and engender the spirit which will colour the life of many generations to come. They should be made well-informed and interested in the natural world around them.

The Queen Elizabeth National Park includes more than half the Uganda coastline of the great lakes Edward and George, as well as the 20-mile-long Kazinga Channel which connects the two. Large schools of hippo are present throughout the length of this coast, and they graze inland each night to a steadily increasing degree. The land area of the park is some 760 square miles, of which at the most 400 can be utilized by the hippo. A careful and conservative estimate gives the population of these animals at not less than 14,000, so that each is restricted to a maximum of 16 acres of grazing. In fact, of course, the hippos graze as near as possible to the waters in which they spend the day, making the actual concentration near the lake shore much higher than this. And there is a large number of other grass-eating animals competing for the same grazing: buffalo, kob, waterbuck and other ungulates as well as elephants, all in large numbers. These, however, are not tied to one particular habitat as are the hippos, and are therefore less likely to be the cause of the overgrazing and beginnings of erosion which are evident.

The present rhinoceros areas of Nepal, in fact the whole of that country, have been up till recent times a closed book to foreigners. Visits by outsiders were discouraged, even forbidden. Perhaps the first foreigner to tour in the Nawalpur, Chita wan, and Reu Valley areas was Mr. E. A. Smythies, who during World War II, was Forest Adviser to the Nepal Government. In the course of his duties Smythies visited almost all the submontane tracts along the 500 mile sal belts of the Nepal terai.

The lake damming the Zambezi river at Kariba will eventually be 175 miles long and 2,000 square miles in extent. Much of the flooded land was rich in wild animals. As the country either side of the Zambezi is not a gentle slope, but very hilly, the animals that lived in the inundated areas were not gradually driven away by an advancing tide line, but on the contrary, found the water advancing on them from every side. They were accustomed to floods and merely sought higher ground, but when that in its turn was inundated or remained above the lake only as an island, the marooned animals—if they were not rescued—would either drown or run out of food and starve.

Topographically Ceylon is a detached portion of the South Indian peninsula. It divides into two climatic regions, known as the Dry and Wet Zones; the latter occupies approximately the south-western quarter of the island. By African standards, dry and wet are relative terms and there may be over 80 inches of rain in the Dry Zone. Even so, rainfall tends to be concentrated and long periods without rain occur. The Wet Zone receives rain during both monsoons, the Dry Zone during the north-east monsoon only. Monsoons sometimes fail and serious droughts are not uncommon.

The Game Policy Committee of Kenya was given the following terms of reference:—

1. To consider and make recommendations as to the policy to be adopted for the long-term preservation of game, having regard to the interests of human population in game areas and to the economic development of the country;

2. In view of the urgency of a solution of the conflict in the Amboseli National Reserve between game and human interests which is rapidly reducing the value of this area as a game reserve, to make interim recommendations for the preservation of the game interest, having due regard to the considerations in (1) above;

The present rhinoceros area comprising the valleys of the rivers Naranyi, its tributary the Rapti, and the Rapti's tributary the Reu, is often loosely spoken of as part of the Nepal terai. Terai in northern India and Nepal is, strictly speaking, moist country a few miles from the base of the Himalayas, below the bhabar, which is dry country with a subsoil of boulders right at the foot of the Himalayas. Chitawan, or the Rapti Valley, is a dun—a plateau or flat valley inside the foothills of the Himalayas ; its altitude is between 900 and 1,000 feet above sea level, and it has most of the typical vegetation of the terai which is usually at 350 to 600 feet.

In August, 1949, the International Union for the Protection of Nature held a conference at Lake Success, U.S.A., under the good offices of UNESCO. The conference was attended by representatives from thirty-two countries and from all the continents. The first subject to be studied was education in nature protection. The second was ecology and this was divided into sections of which Section f, under the chairmanship of Mr. Harold J. Coolidge, was devoted to “Emergency Action for preserving vanishing species of flora and fauna”. The deliberations of this section resulted in Resolution No. 15 of the main conference which reads: “That the International Union for the Protection of Nature should establish a ‘Survival Service’ for the assembling, evaluation, and dissemination of information on and the study of, all species of fauna and flora that appear to be threatened with extinction, in order to assist governments and appropriate agencies in assuring their survival.”

Administration will be considered only as far as the rhinoceros and its preservation are concerned. Three different divisions of the Forest Department are involved. The Rapti Valley is under the Divisional Forest Officer of Chitawan residing at Hitaura; the Nawalpur area (west of the Narayani river) is under the D.F.O. of that district residing at Parasi, a journey of some distance from the rhinoceros area with no roads for travelling; the Reu Valley is under the D.F.O. of Birganj. From the rhinoceros preservation aspect it is unfortunate that this area of Nepal should fall under the jurisdiction of three different D.F.O.s, under two separate Circle Conservators, with no means of communication between them except via Katmandu. The D.F.O., Chitawan, residing at Hitaura, is in charge of the whole Rhinoceros Protection Department which operates in all the three areas ; but he is unable officially to visit the Nawalpur or the Reu Valley areas except by arrangement with the D.F.O. of the district concerned. All this is not a criticism of the Forest Department: it merely states the position as it happens to be to-day. The Narayani river is possibly too great a physical barrier for both sides of it to be under one D.F.O.

After a brief halt in Calcutta to discuss with Dr. Roonwal {Director of the Zoological Survey of India and Secretary-General of the Indian Board for Wild Life) ways of assisting Nepal to stop any possible traffic of rhinoceros produce through India, I arrived at Katmandu by air on 15th March. There I spent six days before going into camp in the rhinoceros areas, which are a day's journey by road. This period was very usefully employed in making contact with officials and non-officials, and in obtaining information of every description. These contacts included : General Kiran, S.J.B.R. (Shumshere Jung Bahadur Rana), who is the present authoritative and acknowledged leader in all matters pertaining to sport and wild life in Nepal; Field Marshal Kaiser, S.J.B.R., who, though he has not visited the rhinoceros area since 1933, has a vast store of knowledge of shikar and natural history; Mr. Balarama Paul Baidya, Chief Forest Officer; Major Lok Bikram, in charge of elephants (Government and others); Captain Tej Jung Thapa, Circle Conservator; Colonel and Mrs. Proud of the British Embassy; Mr. N. Pal, Adviser on Forests, India Aid Mission ; and Mr. Boris Lissanevitch, of the Hotel Royal, who knows the rhinoceros area.