septième réunion technique seventh technical meeting ... - IUCN

SUMMARY OF THEME I
SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION
BY
EDWARD H. GRAHAM
Director, Plant Technology Division
Soil Conservation Service, U.S.D.A.
Washington, D.C.
The importance attached to soil and water conservation by the
International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources
was conspicuously illustrated by the prominence of this subject on
the agenda of the Seventh Technical Meeting at Athens. The papers
submitted, from more than 30 countries representing all the continents,
attest a lively concern with soil and water conservation throughout
the world. That the subject was approached on a broad front is
shown by the sub-divisions of the primary theme, which range from
technical considerations of run-off and evaporation, through use of
vegetation for erosion control, effects of dams on habitat and landscape,
and influence of land and water use on aquatic resources, to
solution of soil and water conservation problems on an ecological
basis.
While it is not feasible to comment on all of the papers, nor even
to cite all of the outstanding contributions that have been made to
the meeting, I shall point to what seem to me to be significant areas
of agreement, issues at stake, and conclusions.
A general impression from the meeting is that no great field of
controversy exists in soil and water conservation. By and large, the
participants seemed to assume, and this meeting may be considered as
endorsing, the conclusion that soil must be studied and used without
waste and that water must be understood and managed intelligently if
communities and nations are to prosper. This unchallenged conclusion
no doubt comes from the fact that we have considered our subject
almost solely from the standpoint of the natural scientist — the
biologist and to a lesser extent the physical scientist. G. V. Jacks,
however, furnished a notable exception, for he contended that a
society's socio-economic state determines whether it is fertilitydestroying
or fertility-creating. Noting the relative scarcity of large
cities in the Mediterranean, Jacks maintained that «... the capacity
of the world for food production is limited not by land of by soil
infertility, but by the productive capacity of its urban industries...
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