One of the most important aspects of the conservation of nature is its relation to a world problem: that of producing food and raw material in quantities sufficient to balance increases in population. This problem may, of course, be considered from various points of view. I shall consider it mainly from the point of view of an ecologist, starting from the fact that because the amount of highly productive land under cultivation is diminishing rather than increasing, it will be necessary to turn to regions at present marginal or undeveloped in order to produce any considerable increase in production.

There was a story told sometime during the last century of an old and impoverished North American prospector, who was asked on his return, what he had to show for all the time he had spent out west. His answer was “I have seen the Rocky Mountains”. I myself have recently returned from a tour of some of the national parks of North America and the impression of wildness, grandeur and beauty remains.

When I first visited Ruaneliya Estate in the Bingiriya area, 75 miles from the heart of the city of Colombo, 200 of its 1,200 acres were under coconuts, the rest was jungle. In spite of occasional raids by elephants, the coconuts did well; but as surrounding areas were opened up, the elephants became isolated in Ruaneliya and the surrounding jungles and their visits to the coconut plantation became more and more frequent.

The many people who left India at the advent of Independence, especially those who knew her rivers and forests, must surely ponder over what “things” are like now. They may have read of the deforestation, the effects of the jeep and the shot-gun (although neither of these are really new), or they may just have heard, vaguely, that “things are not what they were”.

The 1957 dry season in the Luangwa Valley was an extended one and the rains were almost a month overdue, when at the end of November a visit was paid to a salt pan in the Nsefu Game Reserve. Because the pan provided the only water, over approximately 20 square miles of arid country, there should have been as in former seasons, a constant coming and going of various species, such as impala, hartebeeste, zebra and warthog. But although there were signs of these, only the larger animals such as buffalo, elephant and rhino appeared to be visiting the pan in their usual numbers. The reason for the lack of smaller ungulates was obvious: a pack of twenty-four hunting dogs was in residence—three adult females, four adult males and seventeen young—all of which were capable of hunting.

Roe deer have been called the “Fairies of the Woods” and their elfish charm and graceful movements certainly bear out this name. Even when found living in the proximity of man, they never lose their shyness in the same way as would the red or fallow under the same circumstances.

In spring and summer their coats are a foxy red unrelieved by any other colour except on the lips, which arc black with a white patch near the corners of the mouth and a patch of yellowish hair on the target (the rump). Although they actually have a tail, this is not visible; yet many old prints and some modern drawings as well, show them with tails which would not shame a fallow.

Problems of nature preservation in British territories of central America may be clearly divided between continental countries, British Honduras and British Guiana on the one hand, and the islands on the other; although the fauna of Trinidad and Tobago has much in common with that of the South American continent. The islands of the Greater and Lesser Antilles have been separated long enough from the mainland and from each other, for them to have developed their own plants and animals. Common to continental and island countries, however, are the migratory shore birds of the western hemisphere.