Zaïre is one of the foremost African countries in thefieldof wildlife conservation, with large areas of wild country still almost untouched, a magnificent range of wildlife, large well managed national parks, and the will and intention to conserve and extend these, as President Mobutu Sese Seko has made clear. This year conservationists from all over the world will be able to see a little of how this vast country is conserving its wildlife when they meet there for the IUCN General Assembly. In this article the former Director General of Zaïre's Institut National pour la Conservation de la Nature, who has worked there as a biologist since 1948, surveys the main wildlife areas. A second article, in the next Oryx, will describe the status of the major mammals.

In May 1974 Ghana created its first high forest national park. This is a forest reserve in the Bia tributaries area of the Western Region, comprising 118 square miles of some of the highest forest in West Africa, including primary unlogged forest, with an annual rainfall of 57 inches spread over ten to eleven months. The area was chosen partly for the large numbers of elephants and monkeys. The possibility of a forest national park in this region has been under consideration for at least five years; success was achieved after lengthy negotiations under the keen direction of the Chief Game and Wildlife Officer, Dr E. O. A. Asibey.

The Peruvian yellow-tailed woolly monkey, last seen by scientists in 1926 and feared extinct, was rediscovered by the authors in the area of the lower Andes where it was last seen. They were able to bring back a live juvenile that was being kept as a pet, and also four skins and three skulls which they got from a hunter who had shot the animals for meat. The authors urge the need to create a reserve for this rare endemic monkey in Peru and plan further exploratory trips to decide the best area.

The natterjack toad is decreasing rapidly in Britain. This is particularly true of its largest population on the dunes of south-west Lancashire, where developments in the form of houses, roads and a holiday camp have deprived it of habitat. Even more serious, say the authors, who have made a survey of this toad in Britain for WWF, is the drying out of the dune slacks, the freshwater pools where the natterjacks breed, as a result of the lowering of the water table by drainage and abstraction. The artificial substitutes provided so far are not adqeuate and the authors urge the need to create large and suitable breeding pools for the toads.

In December 1974 I was privileged to make a fifteen-day journey in the northern reaches of the vast Ouadi Rimé–Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve in the sub-saharan belt of the Republic of Chad. In size this reserve is comparable with Scotland and it has received much less attention than is its due. Created in 1969 to protect ostrich Struthio camelus, cheetah Acinonyx jubatus, addax Addax nasomaculatus and scimitar-horned oryx, Oryx dammah, it is of particular significance to the oryx, harbouring one of the few viable wild breeding populations. My guide to the reserve was John E. Newby, a British ecologist who has been studying its wildlife for the past three years; he helped me to appreciate the enormous difficulties involved in protecting its endangered species.

This abstract of a paper read at the 10th International Symposium on the Biology of Amphibians and Reptiles, in Frankfurt last year, points to the endangered status of three of Britain's six reptiles, the lack of knowledge about them, and suggests measures that should be taken to protect them.

Found in only one small area in north-east Kenya, the Tana mangabey is both seriously depleted and highly endangered. Numbers are estimated at under 1500. The author, who spent two years on a field study in the Tana River area, shows how the combination of increased pressure from the growing human population and the long-term effects of new hydroelectric and irrigation schemes will affect especially the food supply of this monkey, which has adapted itself to a complicated river regime that may now be destroyed.

Management in a national park is the art of maintaining harmony between living things; it must work with nature, not against, if only because that is so much easier. The author suggests a three-point plan, and shows how it is applied in the Arusha National Park.

Trade in the highly endangered orang utan still goes on despite total protection in its entire range – Indonesia and East Malaysia. The authors spent three years studying orang utans in North Sumatra, trying to get the protection law enforced, and running a rehabilitation station for confiscated animals. The aim was to return the animals to the wild, but the station's real importance was that it made the confiscation of illegally held animals possible, and was thus some deterrent to hunters and traders. Much more damaging than the orang utan trade, however, is the forest destruction that is going on, and it is vital to ensure that large areas of lowland primary forest are preserved from the huge timberlogging operations that are fast destroying the orang utan's habitat.

National parks are no luxury today, but an essential tool in every country, on every continent, and in the sea if man is to understand his environment and avert destruction. The author, who is Senior Adviser to the UN Environmental Programme, explains why the selection of the right areas is important, and what the criteria should be to avoid past mistakes.