Special Column:Celebration of the 70th Anniversary of IGSNRR, CAS
Jiang Zhigang
This paper first reviews the definition of the sustainable use of wildlife resource as a renewable resource. Then it looks into the cases of wildlife conservation and exploitation in Africa, North America, Europe , Australia and New Zealand. The noticed items include the recovery of once endangered elephants in Zimbabwe, the participation of local people in wildlife conservation in Southern Africa, the evolution of wildlife management system in North America,the importance of hunting to the economy of Western Germany, the game ownership and hunting licenses system of European countries, the significance of transforming the pastoral animal industry into deer industry in New Zealand and the management of kangaroos in Australia. It also reviews the traditional wildlife managernent ideas in ancient China and outlines two examples of over exploitation of wild species in modern China.Finally, the relationship between wildlife resource conservation and exploitation is discussed. It points out that the wildlife resource use in human history should be divided into four eras:the era of early exploitation,the era of over exploitation,the era of conservation and recovery and the era of sustainable use. However, due to the different characteristics of particular country and specific species,there are no universal rules guiding the management of wildlife resource. Now the wildlife resource in China is in the era of conservation and recovery.
