Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 1
Revisiting the Case for River
Conservation
Philip J. Boon
Scottish Natural Heritage, Edinburgh, UK
Introduction
appears (Boon
et al
., 1992). It was published at a
time when the subject of river conservation and
management was at an early stage of evolution.
That topic has proved valuable over the subsequent
years in stimulating further work and debate on
these topics. Eleven of the chapters were selected
at random, and an analysis made of the numbers
of times each has been cited and the geographical
region where it has been applied. Of the 240
citations in the ISI Web of Science, two-thirds were
related to studies in North America or the British
Isles, with most of the rest accounted for by studies
elsewhere in western and central Europe and in
Australasia (Table 1.2). Various factors are probably
responsible but these figures tend to support the
view that concepts of river conservation (and
nature conservation more generally) applied in
developed countries are perceived to be less
relevant to developing countries. This aspect was
not covered in great detail at the 2010 conference,
but relevant discussion can be found in Wishart
et al.
(2000), O'Keeffe and Thirion (2009), Abell
and Bryer (2009), Khan and Akbar (this volume)
and O'Keeffe (this volume).
This chapter looks back over the last 20 years,
describes some of the changes that have taken place
in river conservation since the 1990 conference,
and considers what still remains to be done. In
particular it re-examines the case for conservation
Links with the past
In September 1990 the Nature Conservancy
Council (NCC) in Great Britain organized an
international conference on river conservation and
management. It was held at the University of
York and attracted 337 delegates from 29 countries
around the world. The idea of arranging a similar
event at the same venue exactly two decades later
was to evaluate the successes and failures over that
period and to look ahead over the next 20 years.
The way that nature conservation is organized
in Britain has changed greatly since 1990. The
NCC no longer exists, and it was its successor
bodies - Scottish Natural Heritage, Natural England,
the Countryside Council for Wales, and the Joint
Nature Conservation Committee - together with
the environment agencies in the UK, that were
responsible for arranging the 2010 conference.
Compared with 1990, the 2010 event was held
in a considerably tougher economic climate. This
was at least partly the reason for the smaller
attendance: despite initial expressions of interest
from 430 people in 44 countries only 166 from
19 countries finally attended the 2010 conference
(Table 1.1).
The main output from York 1990 was a topic
with the same title as the one in which this chapter
