Reindeer milk is used by native peoples throughout the Soviet North. This article describes how different groups use, or have in the past used, the milk in raw and processed form. After summarizing the properties of reindeer milk, it outlines a neglected chapter in the history of domesticated animals: the attempt in the 1930s to set up a commercial reindeer dairy industry in the USSR. Lastly, it analyzes the decline of reindeer milking among peoples of the Soviet north in this century.

Activity patterns of native people in the Northwest Territories include a complex mixture of employment in the modern economy, full-time or part-time engagement in traditional pursuits, and leisure. This study identifies characteristics of participants in each activity which assist in interpreting the allocation of time among employment in the modern economy, the pursuit of traditional activities, and leisure. Three hypotheses—traditionalist, modernist and culturalist — were identified from current literature and tested statistically, using data collected in interviews held with 11,164 NWT residents in 1984. The hypotheses were: (1) engagement in the traditional sector is preferred to holding a job in the modem economy; thus, wage employment primarily facilitates pursuit of traditional activities; (2) engagement in the modern economy is preferred; those unable to work in it turn to traditional activities, which are easier to enter; (3) the traditional sector is an arena in which a cultural heritage can be maintained, a preferred sustenance obtained, or where one can demonstrate his prowess apart from any material gain that might be realized. The data do not unequivocally support any of the hypotheses, but this study suggests an alternative approach to the interpretation of activity patterns, based upon an analysis of individual preference functions.

Speed/distance meters were deployed on adeliée, gentoo and chinstrap penguins Pygoscelis adeliae, P. papua and P. antarctica, breeding near Anvers Island, Antarctica. Underwater speeds and distances travelled were interspecifically very similar (means of ca. 7–8 km h-1 and 15–45 km, respectively). These results are compared with published data on penguin behaviour at sea obtained by using identical methodology. A simple model, based on penguin activity at sea data, is developed to derive range limits for penguins. Derived range limits are substantially lower than previous estimates but accord well with distributional data obtained by transects.

This paper identifies improvements which can be made to management plans for environmentally sensitive areas in Antarctica, drawing attention to (a) the characteristics of the antarctic environmental planning hierarchy which set it apart from planning and management systems applied to most other regions of the world, (b) the effectiveness of plans covering Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), (c) practical measures to improve site management (especially co-operatively), and (d) ways of integrating site management with broader conservation goals.

The original Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, passed in 1971, gave Alaska Native corporations fee simple title to 18 million hectares of Alaskan land. Within a few years of its passage, however, Alaska Natives grew concerned that this land would be lost through mismanagement of the corporations or forced into development by property taxation. Because large numbers of Alaska Natives depend upon subsistence hunting and fishing, the loss of the land, or its use for activities incompatible with subsistence, could have been devastating. Amendments of 1987 (PL 100–241) protect Native corporation land by placing all undeveloped land in a land bank and allowing for the formation of ‘Settlement Trusts“. More importantly, Congress recognized that the Native subsistence economy and culture are significant factors in the management of Native lands.

Although at the time the zoological establishment had little interest in the smaller planktonic and benthic marine invertebrates, James Ross assisted by Joseph Hooker amassed a large collection of these animals during the Erebus and Terror voyage of 1839–43. These samples perished withoutRoss having carried out his intention of working on them. The only knownmaterial relating to them that survives today consists of a small number of drawings by Hooker in the British Museum (Natural History). These are evidently the remnants of a much larger collection which became dispersed among the experts preparing Challenger reports from 1876 onwards. Undoubtedly Ross and Hooker discovered many new species and genera (an example discussed being an apparently undescribed pycnogonid) which were left undescribed. Their finding of animal life at depths below 300 fathoms was not properly publicized so that Forbes' doctrine of the absence of life in the depths of the sea was able to persist for several more decades.

The struggle between Antarctic Treaty Parties and their UN critics regarding the management of Antarctica was resumed in November 1988 when, for the sixth successive year, the United Nations discussed the 'Question of Antarctica'. This year the UN adopted two further resolutions reaffirming demands of 1987 for wider participation in the minerals negotiations, the involvement of the UN Secretary-General in Antarctic Treaty System operations, and the exclusion of South Africa from treaty meetings. The Treaty Parties seem unlikely to heed these resolutions. Reforms within the Treaty System are the most likely means of progress for the critics, althoough Australia's critique of the Minerals Convention has introduced an element of uncertainty.

Between 15 and 29 March 1987 the Labrador Ice Margin Experiment(LIMEX), a major international field experiment, took place in the Grand Banks region of the Labrador Sea, off the New found land coast. First in a series of experiments to be conducted at the southern ice margin during early spring, the period of maximum ice extent, LIMEX'87 addressed questions on physical properties of the environment and the role of remotely sensed data, particularly microwave data, in providing information for monitoring and forecasting air-sea-ice properties and dynamics.

The development, background and nature of the Greenland model of home rule are discussed. Over a ten-year period this model has proved pragmatic and worked well, creating a high degree of autonomy and allowing considerable economic development. Contemporary problems and advantages are outlined and a draft strategy for the future is presented.