G. Wesley Burnett

Conflicting attitudes toward state wildlife conservation programs in Kenya

We present a case study of the social issues of wildlife conservation in Kenya based on field work in and near Nairobi and Tsavo National Parks. Surveys of small‐scale cultivators and pastoralists (157) and local park officials (44) reveal that there are widespread negative feelings and perceptions of local people toward state policies and programs of wildlife conservation. For instance, 84% of the local people reported that there is a bad relationship between the national park management and the local community; only 10% stated that the park is an asset to them; and 57% asserted that the park should be abolished. Moreover, perceptions and attitudes of local people and park officials are greatly disparate with regard to the benefits the parks provide for local people, the level of conflict between local people and wildlife, and the future of the parks.

Parrot conservation in the lesser antilles with some comparison to the Puerto Rican efforts

There are four endemic species of Amazona parrots in the Lesser Antilles, namely the imperial or Sisserou parrot Amazona imperialis and the red-necked or Jaco parrot A. arausiaca of the Commonwealth of Dominica, the St Lucia parrot A. versicolor of St Lucia, and the St Vincent parrot A. guildingii of St Vincent and The Grenadines. Seven other endemic members of the same family, Psittacidae, have become extinct in the region in historical times. These four extant species are now all threatened by deforestation, predation, illegal hunting and collecting, and natural disasters. Measures for parrot conservation consist of environmental education, habitat protection, enforcement of appropriate legislation, and enhancement of wild breeding and captive breeding. These approaches are reviewed for each of the islands and compared with the relatively successful but much more expensive conservation measures adopted for the Puerto Rican parrot A. vittata in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Recommendations are made for future conservation emphasis and research.

The Efficacy of Africa's National Parks: An Evaluation of Julius Nyerere's Arusha Manifesto of 1961

Abstract In the Arusha Manifesto of 1961, Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere recognized Africas wildlife and consequently its parks as the rightful heritage of all humankind and pledged the new African states to manage these resources accordingly. Since their independence, the African states have dedicated considerable land to national parks; failure to develop robust economies has resulted in insufficient management of the parks, however. Africans and Westerners regard national parks in different ways, and the growing management dilemma for the parks is exacerbating these differences. Of particular concern are differences in expectations for the role of national parks in economic development and differences in perceptions of the seriousness of intrusions into national parks. The failure of African nations to develop economically suggests the need for greater Western financial support of Africas national parks if the promise of the Arusha Manifesto is to be kept.

Ecological redundancy and the research tradition of three Kanyan parks

National parks and equivalent reserves serve science, at least in part, as natural laboratories for original field research. In Kenya systematic research in national parks, developing in association with the new discipline, ethology, dates from the mid‐1950s. The majority of published findings since independence have resulted from research conducted at Nairobi, Tsavo and Amboseli national parks. The areas are highly similar in gross ecological structure, implying considerable redundancy in the opportunities they offer researchers. Further the research traditions of the three parks appear to be temporarily independent of one another. Locational characteristics, infrastructure to support research, the needs of management, and personal characteristics of individual scientists in addition to ecological opportunities have contributed to development of research programs in the three areas.

National parks in the Third World and associated national characteristics.

Abstract For 102 third world countries, presence and absence of national parks is used as the dependent or classification variable in a discriminant analysis. Eleven variables suggestive of diverse tropical savanna habitats contribute to a single canonical discriminant function. Socioeconomic variables are poor contributors to the function. Seventy‐nine of the countries are properly classified in their group by the canonical discriminant function. Misclassification focuses on sub‐Saharan Africa where many countries have established parks under “improper”; conditions, and strong positive association with the function calls attention to Latin America.