486 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
nature should aim at the conservation, the enlarging, and the multi- 
plication of natural resources, not made by man, for man’s own use. 
The basis of this protection is an organized and active intervention 
by man in the natural processes, and, as much as possible, in their 
regulation. The “passive conservationist” theory appears altogether 
insufficient. : 
Such active methods of nature protection must be founded on sci- 
entific research. Correct solution of the questions of nature protection 
depends above all upon ecological, both zoological and botanical, re- 
search. It is evident that the problems of numerical fluctuations of 
populations, of fertility, of reproduction, of the influence on these proc- 
esses of changes in the natural surroundings, research on seasonal dis- 
tribution and on migrations, on geographical and biotical distributions, 
all have a basic and essential value in the solution of protection prob- 
lems. Research in the areas mentioned above is made by many of the 
institutions of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., the academies 
of sciences in the various republics, and by specialized scientific uni- 
versities and institutions—for example, the national park system. The 
activity in this field by the Russian Society for the Protection of Na- 
ture, founded in 1924, should certainly be mentioned. 
Ecological questions are treated in hundreds of publications which 
have served as a basis for practical solution of fauna protection prob- 
lems in the U.S.S.R. We should note several national park publica- 
tions on these subjects: research on the sable by Raevski et al.; those 
on the tiger and the moose by Kaplanov; those on the wintering of 
birds on the southeastern and southwestern coasts of the Caspian Sea; 
those by Nasimovitch on the hoofed animals of the Caucasus region, 
those by Dmitriev on the hoofed animals of the Altai region; re- 
search on faunal changes since the construction of artificial reservoirs 
in the Volga system; Zablotski’s work on the European bison; a 
whole series of publications on the beaver and the moose, etc. A 
bibliography of these works was published in 1948 and in 1949 by 
Nasimovitch. There is a special institute which studies the symptoms 
of fluctuations in game populations. It is from these studies that 
plans are made for the annual exploitation of the principal species. 
Thus, the principles and the perspectives of conservation are always 
taken into consideration in the planning of the use of natural re- 
sources: water and forests, fish, birds, mammals, etc. We have always 
tried to consider the natural renewal and growth of these resources. 
As much as possible is done to improve living conditions of the 
fauna. For example: the prohibition of water pollution by hydro- 
carbonates and by waste from chemical plants; the prohibition of 
water pollution caused by discharge from breweries; new forest 
ranges and a strictly regulated system of forest exploitation; and the 
