Ch. 10— Maintaining Biological Diversity Internationally • 269 



lUCN. Its mandate is to analyze and dissemi- 

 nate information on conservation worldwide 

 and provide services to governments and the 

 conservation and development communities. 

 CMC supplies information in the form of books, 

 specialist publications, and reports. Major out- 

 put includes Red Data Books on endangered 

 species, protected-area directories, conserva- 

 tion site directories and reports, threatened 

 plant and animal hsts, U.N. Lists of National 

 Parks and Equivalent Reserves, preliminary 

 environmental profiles of individual areas (by 

 request), comparative tabulations of trans- 

 actions under CITES, and analyses of wildlife 

 trade data for individual countries and taxo- 

 nomic groups (15). 



The International Council for Bird Preserva- 

 tion (ICBP) takes responsibility for ornitholog- 

 ical aspects of lUCN's activities and shares the 

 lUCN database at CMC. ICBP is also in the 

 process of establishing an oceanic-islands data- 

 base to identify areas where action is required 

 for numerous threatened endemic bird species. 

 The initial target is to collect details about some 

 160 islands that support endemic species of 

 birds, especially islands smaller than 20,000 

 square kilometers (15). 



An important supplement to these initiatives 

 is the growing number of national organiza- 

 tions taking an international perspective in their 

 data collection efforts. Of particular importance 

 is The Nature Conservancy International (TNCI), 

 based in the United States. TNCI has developed 

 a regional database on distribution of fauna and 

 flora in the neotropics that is the most compre- 

 hensive of its kind and is promoting establish- 

 ment of country-level conservation data centers 

 (see ch. 11). 



International Network 



The emergence of lUCN as a recognized net- 

 work of conservation specialists has both gal- 

 vanized international conservation activities 

 and established conservation programs as sci- 

 entific initiatives. It also established two ma- 

 jor functions of the organization: 



1. promoting contacts among institutes and in- 

 dividuals, primarily by acting as a device for 

 the exchange of information; and 



2. setting up some kind of procedure whereby 

 common platforms and goals could be artic- 

 ulated and, ultimately, a measure of influ- 

 ence exerted on public policy (10). 



The Ecosystem Conservation Group (ECG), 

 consisting of FAO, UNEP, UNESCO, and lUCN, 

 was established in 1975 to advise on planning 

 and execution of international conservation 

 activities by the four organizations (75). ECG 

 has recently begun to take a more active role 

 in conservation. ECG agreed at its 11th Gen- 

 eral Meeting, held in Rome in February 1984, 

 to institute an ad hoc Working Group on On- 

 site Conservation of Plant Genetic Resources 

 (40). The working group consists of FAO (lead 

 agency), UNESCO, UNEP, lUCN, and the In- 

 ternational Board for Plant Genetic Resources 

 (IBPGR). The first meeting of the working group 

 was held at lUCN headquarters in April 1985, 

 during the 12th General Meeting of ECG. The 

 charge to the working group was twofold: 



1. review ongoing and planned activities in 

 onsite conservation in light of recommen- 

 dations of the First Session of the FAO 

 Commission of Plant Genetic Resources, 

 UNESCO's Action Plan for Biosphere Re- 

 serves (see earlier discussion), and the 

 lUCN Bah Action Plan; and 



2. identify ways to strengthen action and co- 

 operation in response to these recommen- 

 dations, with particular attention to im- 

 proving information flow and promoting 

 pilot demonstration activities (40). 



Six major goals for coordination and action 

 were recognized at the first meeting of the ECG 

 working group and activities were identified 

 within the framework of these goals. This de- 

 velopment signifies an important step among 

 involved organizations to focus their programs 

 on plant genetic resources within a common 

 framework, and, as reflected by the addition 

 of IBPGR, begin to build a mechanism to inte- 

 grate onsite and offsite efforts. 



Offfsite Programs 



International institutions dealing with offsite 

 maintenance are most easily considered under 

 the separate headings of plant, animal, and 

 microbial genetic resources. The level of exist- 



