The three species of lion tamarins face extinction as the last remnants of Brazil's coastal forests are whittled away. The Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust has been directly involved in captive breeding of the golden lion tamarin and its Zoological Director is an elected member of the seven-person International Management Committee for the species. He visited Brazil in 1983 to see the conservation work being carried out and describes attempts that have been and are being made to save these spectacular New World primates.

The major obstacle to snake conservation in India, and probably in other countries too, is human fear. The author visited the Madras Snake Park in 1980 and describes the fear of snake bite that pervades the country and how the Park is seeking to overcome the problem by a programme of public education.

Two species of iguana inhabit the islands of the Fiji goup: one, the crested iguana, was discovered as recently as 1979 and the other, the banded iguana, once common enough to be an important source of food for humans, is now listed in the IUCN Red Data Book. The author, in his three-year study, discovered that both species still exist in relatively dense populations on a few, small uninhabited islands, although they have disappeared from those that are developed. He discusses the threats to their survival and the conservation efforts being made.

Numbers of Humboldt penguins Spheniscus humboldti, which live on the coast and islands of Chile and Peru, have been declining since the mid-1800s. Extracting guano for fertiliser has damaged their breeding sites; they have been exploited for food and skins and captured for pets or zoos; they are incidentally caught in fishing nets and recent over-fishing may have caused a food shortage. The author surveyed the Humboldt penguins in Peru in 1981 and here discusses the conservation measures that are being taken.

Only a small percentage of tropical forests are legally protected and so, if we are to conserve tropical forest species we must encourage sustainable exploitation of unprotected forest areas. Selective timber harvesting is frequently cited as a sustainable use of tropical forests and the authors studied the effects of this kind of exploitation on natural treefall rates, an important regulative process, in the Kibale Forest, Uganda. Their results indicate that levels of destruction typical of capital intensive mechanised timber harvesting seriously disrupt the dynamic balance of the forest. They discuss alternative methods for selective timber harvesting that would be less disruptive and present an objective method which may help rain forest managers determine which multiple-use options are compatible with rain forest conservation.

The 1984 International Whaling Commission meeting approaches and, as has often been the case in the past, there may be some surprises in store. Conservationists await with particular concern the stand that the Member nations take as the moratorium on commercial whaling draws nearer. The author has been a consultant on whales and whaling to many international organisations, including the UN Environment Programme, WWF, Greenpeace, IUCN, International Fund for Animal Welfare, as well as to ffPS. He has been since 1979 Scientific Adviser, and since 1983 Alternate Commissioner, to the delegation of the Republic of Seychelles to the IWC. He has followed the proceedings of the IWC since 1958, mainly as Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN. Here he is writing in his personal capacity, and what he has written should not be taken as representing the position of the Seychelles Government or of any organisation with which he has been associated.