1973 iucn yearbook

and Comparative Anatomy at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland,
and President Emeritus of the International Biological Programme (IBP).
When IUCN was founded 25 years ago under the name of
IUPN (International Union for the Protection of Nature), the
World was just beginning to realize that the most destructive war
ever witnessed by mankind had finally come to an end, and that
the time had arrived at last to clear the ashes of human folly in
order to rebuild an environment worth living in.
The idea of setting up an international organization responsible
for protecting particularly interesting natural sites, for preventing
animal species from dying out and, in a general way, for protecting
nature from destruction and misuse by man, fitted exceptionally
well into the world plan for reconstruction. No wonder therefore
that UNESCO was the first UN agency to encourage and to
sponsor the founding of IUPN in 1948.
Objectively speaking, the activities of the Union from the very
beginning have been beneficial in spite of the chronic lack of
adequate funding. But what is even more important is the fact
that it has succeeded in enlisting the active cooperation of an ever
increasing number of scientists in preparing reports and in
publishing carefully documented results in the field of conservation.
IUCN enjoys a consultative status with the UN and its principal
agencies, which stresses the fact that the Union initiates projects
but does not carry them through although contributing with its
experience and scientific manpower.
One of the most successful of such projects and which has had
a long lasting effect upon the principles of conservation in
Africa, was the African Special Project initiated in 1960, in cooperation
with CCTA (the Commission for Technical Cooperation
in Africa South of the Sahara), FAO and UNESCO, and culminating
in 1961 in the Arusha Conference. The latter was
attended by representatives from 21 African states and 6 non-
African countries and 5 international organizations. The Prime
Minister, J. K. Nyerere, of the host Government of Tanganyika
presented a statement later to be known as the Arusha Manifesto,
which expressed the tone of the discussions and is to be considered
as being the turning point for conservation and development
of wildlife and wildland resources in Africa by the modern
African states. A follow-up of this Conference was the successful
establishment of the College of African Wildlife Management at
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