Conservation

CITES: In February 1987 Singapore finally ratified the Washington Treaty on the international trade in threatened species, exceptions have been made for the trade in crocodile products. A serious breach has now been closed that was of some impediment to the trade between Singapore and many of its partners. FAO’s Tropical Forestry Action Plan. (Unasylva 38, 1986) develops a strategy for action in five fields, among which conservation of tropical forest ecosystems. The main goals of the latter action plan are: to prevent loss or degradation of the tropical forest resource, while furthering development and the wise use of existing natural resources; to promote the sustainable use of tropical forest ecosystems, either exploited or not, for the production of timber and wood, in such a way that the genetic resources they contain are safeguarded; to encourage and facilitate the integrated management of tropical forest ecosystems so as to provide wildlife and non-wood crops with minimal disturbance of the ecosystems and associated wild genetic resources; to promote the conservation and management of samples of ecosystems as reservoirs of species diversity.