Nature Conservation in Poland is regulated by an Act of 7th April, 1949. This law reflects modern ideas of conservation and was, in fact, developed from two international nature congresses in which Poland took part—Brunnen, 1947, and Fontainebleau, 1948. The act contains a clear statement which can hardly be bettered of the purpose of nature conservation.

A long required and most urgent need in the education of the “Children of the Country” is being made possible by the generosity and far-sightedness of the Ndola Lottery Board Committee. They have made a grant of £5,000 to our Game Preservation and Hunting Association for the construction of a permanent camp in the Kafue National Park.

In October, 1959, Karl W. Kenyon, Research Biologist of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the writers, spent three weeks in North Borneo observing wild primates. During this brief period, we questioned both European and native residents of the Colony on the relative abundance of orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus) in various sectors, and we carefully recorded such indications as we ourselves noted. Although our own encounters with wild orang-utans were limited, we saw numerous nests, many of recent construction. The results of our inquiries and observations were encouraging enough for us to conclude that the orang in North Borneo is, for the present, in no danger of extinction and that it survives in moderate numbers wherever suitable habitat exists. This in itself should offer sufficient inducement to afford every possible sort of protection to the North Bornean survivors of a species that, elsewhere within its comparatively limited range, is becoming scarce or has already disappeared altogether.

The vicuña (Vicugna vicugna) family Camelidae, inhabits the high pastoral zone, or puna, of the central Andes for a distance of 1,300 miles, from latitude 10° S to 29° S. The puna consists of high, rolling, semi-arid grasslands, barren pampas, and volcanic peaks, above the limit of cultivated crops. Vicuñas occur from the upper limit of vegetation, at about 16,000 feet, down to 12,000 feet, but they are common only at sites above 14,000 feet.

On the 15th of September, 1835, a young naturalist landed on Chatham, the most easterly island of the Galapagos archipelago: he was none other than Charles Darwin, and it was there he first came into contact with the facts over which he pondered during the immortal voyage of the Beagle and which his genius translated into theories on evolution.