In May 1974 IUCN set up the Threatened Plants Committee (TPC) of the Survival Service Commission, with Professor J. Heslop-Harrison, Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, as Chairman, and Grenville Lucas, also of Kew, as Secretary. The need for a comprehensive survey had been highlighted by Dr Ronald Melville's pioneer work in compiling the Red Data Book for plants. The Committee's task is to prepare a world list of endangered and threatened (flowering) plant species so that action plans can be drawn up. The world's decision-makers must have the facts. The work is centred at Kew. Material is collected and action planned, either through regional groups (the European group has already produced a preliminary draft of rare, threatened and endangered plants), or through specialist groups (a world-wide palm group was the first to be appointed). A third approach is through institutions – most of the world's major botanic gardens sent representatives to a conference at Kew in September 1975. The following is a summary, with extracts, of Grenville Lucas's paper on the work of the TPC read at the IUCN meeting in Kinshasa.

This account of the national parks, reserves and other places worthy of protection in Mozambique gives some idea of the wealth of wildlife in this newly independent country. One special reserve has 25,000 buffaloes—the largest concentration in the world.

The first part of Dr Verschuren's survey of Zaïre's wildlife, which appeared in the last issue of Oryx, April 1975, surveyed the main wildlife areas and described the conservation policy of the Zaïre Government under President Mobutu Sese Seko, one of the most forward-looking and conservation-minded governments in Africa. This second article discusses the status of the major large mammals. The author concludes that, largely because Zaïre has maintained very large areas of forest intact, the wildlife situation on the whole is good. Most encouraging is the fact that the highest authorities in Zaïre appreciate the value of their wildlife heritage. The photographs in this article are by the author.

The growing trade in rare butterflies threatens some relatively common species as well as rare ones, notably the conspicuous Rajah Brooke's birdwing. The author describes some of the traders’ activities and asks for information.

After seven years' study, visiting islands scattered over more than a million square miles of the western Indian Ocean, where once hundreds of thousands of green turtles nested every year, the author?'s “optimistic estimate” of the number of females nesting today is 5500. Only eighty years ago 12,000 were taken in one year on Aldabra alone. Over-exploitation by man for food – both of nesting females and eggs – and destruction of nesting habitat, i.e. disturbance of the beaches, are the two factors that are destroying this immensely valuable resource. The author's study was assisted by FPS.

The author spent eleven months between 1970 and 1975 studying the wildlife of the high mountains in northern Pakistan, especially the large mammals that are endangered in Pakistan. He describes the status of nine, of which the brown bear is on the verge of extinction there (although commonly seen in the form of performing bears in city streets), while the Kashmir markhor, snow leopard and Marco Polo sheep are in serious danger. Despite the protection laws and new reserves, including a new national park, the rule is still too often ‘if it moves shoot it, if it doesn't chop it down’.

In Uganda chimpanzees and gorillas, two of the most spectacular living beings on earth, still survive in their natural state in some forests. Neither species can adapt for long to man-made changes in their environment; they will only survive if they are actively protected in untouched wilderness areas. In 1971–72, with the approval of the Uganda National Research Council, I made surveys in the Budongo and Bwindi forests to estimate chimpanzee numbers, and suggested two such areas, one of which, in the north-east Budongo forest, has since been created a nature reserve.

As a result of a count of elephant, giraffe, zebra and ostrich in the Kidepo Valley National Park, made in February 1975, the author, who is Director of the Uganda Institute of Ecology, concludes that, despite some fluctuations, especially among giraffes, the numbers were fairly typical for the dry season.

The author examines the age structure of captive orang-utans in zoos and institutions. He shows that, unless breeding success can be achieved with captive-born animals – which so far no zoo in the world has done – zoo numbers will continue to decline, with little hope of replacement from the wild now that the International Convention on Trade in Endangered Species is in operation. John Perry is Assistant Director for Conservation at the National Zoo in Washington, and a Vice-Chairman of the IUCN's Survival Service Commission.

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.

In Brazil the trade in spotted cat skins – mainly jaguar and ocelot – built up in the early 1960s and provoked the Government in 1967 to outlaw all commercial exploitation of wildlife. The author estimates that this cut the annual kill from 15,000 jaguars and 80,000 ocelots to about half, which he thinks both populations can stand without becoming endangered. Moreover, the programme of massive development and settlement on the forest margins along the new Transamazon highway has run into difficulties, and forest destruction has so far been much less than was expected.

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.

A questionnaire survey to investigate the grass snake's status in Britain showed that, while in some areas it was still abundant, in others it had declined and continued to do so, mainly through habitat destruction and collecting. The author concludes that, because of its special habitat requirements, this snake could easily become an endangered species in Britain, unlike the adder which can occupy many marginal habitats.

A Trustee of the Indian World Wildlife Fund Appeal, the author has been closely connected with the conservation of the tiger. She describes the Sundarbans tiger reserve where some tigers are man-eaters. Mrs Wright was also involved in the incident in 1974, described in the following article, when a tiger that had killed a woman was translocated from an inhabited area to the reserve – the first time this had been done – in an attempt to save it.