1973 iucn yearbook

since the Union has usually taken on the responsibility for publishing
Proceedings. Perhaps only two more meetings deserve special mention
here: the First World Conference on National Parks, held at Seattle
(USA) in 1962, and the Second World Conference on National Parks
(1972), held at Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks in conjunction
with the USA observance of the Centennial of its national parks.
Commissions
The basic organizational structure of IUCN was established at Fontainebleau
and has varied little since then. The number of Vice-Presidents
and Executive Board members has been increased, reflecting the greatly
expanded workload of the Union, and, of course, the Secretariat has
been changed from time to time in line with the programme and available
funds. The Commissions, however, have undergone quite a metamorphosis
in 25 years.
In the somewhat heady hours following the signing of the Constitutive
Act on 5 October 1948, a number of Technical Commissions were
appointed to examine various aspects of the new programme. Some of
these could be regarded as ad hoc groups, but three were retained by
decision of the Executive Board at its meeting in March 1949. These were
the Education Commission, with William Vogt as its first Chairman, the
Nomenclature Commission under J. Ramsbottom, and a Publication
Commission under Charles J. Bernard.
Of these three only the Education Commission was active in any real
sense and is, of course, still active today. The Nomenclature Commission
was concerned with limited objectives in attempting to secure some
uniformity of terminology, in which it was not wholly successful, and
the Publication Commission was concerned chiefly with producing
official publications, of which there were several of major importance
in the early period. Both of these groups have gone out of existence.
In 1951 a fourth Commission was created to handle Public Information.
Richard W. Westwood, President of the American Nature Association,
was its Chairman. This group was dissolved at Athens in 1958.
Of the Commissions which still feature in IUCN's organization, next
in order of age after the Education Commission comes the Commission
on Ecology, established in 1954 at the Copenhagen General Assembly
as a result of a symposium on the subject held during the course of the
proceedings. John Berry of Great Britain was its first Chairman and it
had nine members. The aim was to provide an international body of
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