Desert regions are increasingly being put into use for a variety of purposes. The California Desert may be subjected to a number of energy technologies—particularly those related to harnessing solar energy—in the near future. In conjunction with past or other current disturbances, the fragmentation and pollution impacts of energy development could pose serious threats to the desert's fragile ecosystems.

Land-intensive energy technologies, such as solar receivers and biomass crops, will mainly result in changes that disrupt natural habitats. If all feasible energy schemes came to fruition, we estimate that one-half of the California Desert's area would be devoted to energy production. Even for much lower estimates of energy development, most of the Desert's natural habitat would be fragmented in park areas. Based upon island geographic principles and conservation biology, loss of species would be inevitable. Some species are already threatened with extinction.

Research is required to determine ways in which the Desert's natural resources—solitude, scenic vistas, wildlife, and insolation—can best be used to meet energy, recreation, and conservation, needs. In particular, research is required to estimate how successive small habitat losses would stress desert ecosystems.

An international project is proposed to create a map showing the world subdivided into macroecosystem regions within each of which ecological conditions are relatively uniform but which show certain natural potentials and limitations. The map should tend to supplement the Dasmann-Udvardy system of biogeographical provinces, being of higher resolution and greater ecological relevance. The primary purpose of the map will be to serve as a reporting structure for information about global resources and environment, though it will be based largely on published information.

Maps based on classification of climatic types, vegetation formations, and soil groups, will be synthesized and generalized to delineate the areas to be shown on the ecoregion map. Its delineations will be refined through consultations with local experts, and through the interpretation of low-resolution remote-sensing imagery. The usefulness of the map is considered favourably in relation to national-level policy analysis, environmental monitoring, transfer of agricultural technology, compatibility with remote-sensing systems for monitoring environmental conditions, and agricultural activities, biomass estimation, macroreserve selection, and land management.

The Biosphere Reserve concept potentially appears to be an extremely important basis for enhancing global land protection—particularly, although not exclusively, in developing countries. Far more clarification and education will be required, however, to produce the level of public appreciation that will be necessary to make this concept an effective force for conservation. It may be argued that a clear delineation of the Biosphere Reserve concept is less important than an adequate public understanding of the values to be derived from this land protection strategy. While this distinction may be useful, it would seem that the potential benefits of the Biosphere Reserve would be considerably enhanced by far more precise public appreciation of the meaning and intent of this land designation category.

Expedition garbage is an unfortunate by-product of Himalayan mountaineering expeditions. High transport costs, lack of concern amongst climbers, and lack of direction by authorities, results in squalid garbage heaps around mountain campsites. Growth in numbers of expeditions, climbers, and trekkers, to the Himalaya necessitates prompt action to prevent despoliation of those areas.

Such despoliation of campsites by inadequate treatment or unsatisfactory disposal practices cannot be halted by reliance on improved climber behaviour alone. Host-country authorities must develop and enforce more comprehensive guidelines and policies for garbage disposal than currently prevail. A combination of burning and transport to pits off-site seems likely to be typically the best disposal practice to follow. A combination of change in expedition behaviour, provision of leadership in garbage disposal, and use of environmental protection levies, seems necessary to combat the problem of growing squalor at campsites and expanding desecration of surrounding areas.

Attempts to model ecosystems have increased in recent years through the application of systems theory and the improvement in computer capacity and speed. A major problem with these models is providing data for input or validation. A potential source of data is information collected by remote-sensing techniques. Remotely-sensed data can be used in natural resource simulation models to provide spatial and temporal measurements, data for model calibration or validation, and independent feedback to keep the model simulation on track with reality. Remote sensing can provide spatial and temporal measurements of many landscape parameters that could improve our ability to understand and model the spatial and temporal characteristics of landscapes.

The challenge for remote-sensing scientists, landscape ecologists, and natural resource modellers, is to determine the most effective way to interpret and use the data from remote sensors in natural resource management. Natural resource models that can fully utilize the spatial data which remote-sensing techniques can provide, will almost certainly improve our understanding of landscapes and our ability to simulate and manage them wisely.

To date, the principal constraint upon the implementation of a dust monitoring programme for desertification control in West Africa, is our limited knowledge of the dust processes to be monitored. A review of the state of dust research in Africa and over the Atlantic reveals a strong imbalance in favour of the latter, and resolves some misconceptions concerning dust source-areas and the relative importance of winter and summer dust. The results of Atlantic Ocean dust research are here brought together with the recent results of Harmattan dust research in Nigeria to demonstrate, at least tentatively, that the Harmattan and winter dust comprise a contiguous aeolian process system referred to as the Harmattan aeolian system.

The Harmattan aeolian system is used here as a conceptual framework for the dust monitoring programme. Three dust process-zones are identified, within which three basic aeolian processes operate: dust entrainment (primary and secondary), dust transport, and dust deposition (primary and secondary). Within each dust process-zone, standardized dust collection, measurement, and analysis techniques, are proposed for a network of monitoring sites. Entrainment and transport can be measured — directly using aerosol pump-samplers and indirectly by relating dust-aerosol concentration to solar radiation and visibility. The indirect approach has the advantage that it opens up a large body of historical data on dust and, therefore, desertification. Deposition can be measured using dust-traps. The importance of such aspects as site characteristics, measurement period, and laboratory methods, are also discussed. Finally, a minimal administrative structure is suggested, allowing for the possibility of UNEP or other major support.

A comparison of two island fishing communities in the Visayas, Philippines, shows significant differences in coral-reef habitat and in diversity of selected reef-fishes, as well as important differences in fishing customs and catch composition. During the sampling months of April–May 1985, fishermen on the 72-ha Apo Island, Negros, caught more than two-thirds of their total fish-catch on the reef, whereas fishermen on the 200-ha Pamilacan Island, Bohol, caught less than 20% of their total catch on the reef during the same period. This discrepancy may be attributable to reef quality or fishing customs, or to both these factors.

Black-and-white aerial photographs were used to map the lithology, land-use/forest types, and landslide zones (namely old, active, or potential) in a part of Central Himalaya. The landslide and land-use/forest type maps were simultaneously studied, and the frequency distribution of the landslide zones in different land-uses and forest types was estimated. The correlation between the maps indicated the following: In old landslide-affected sites, agriculture was the predominant land-use, followed by Pinus roxburghii forest (≤ 40% crown cover), scrub vegetation, and wasteland (including grassland). The presence of other forests (e.g. forests dominated by climax species such as Shorea robusta at low elevations and Quercus spp. at higher elevations) indicates a high potentiality of recovery of the ecosystems involved, provided biotic (especially anthropic) factors are not too intensive.

The active and potential landslide zones were concentrated along geologically active planes, namely thrusts and faults, and/or in the vicinity of toe-erosion of hill-slopes. These two were dominated by P.roxburghii forest (≤ 40% crown cover). The broadleaf forests showed minimal signs of active and potential landslides, perhaps because of their multistratal character which is conducive to minimizing soil-loss compared with the mostly single-storeyed Chir Pine forest. It is, therefore, suggested that the sites should be maintained under a multistratal broadleaf canopy to conserve the soil. Where, however, the Chir Pine forest is already developed, appropriate silvicultural measures may be taken to increase its crown cover to more than 40%.