Abstract
IN an address entitled “The Dawn of a Geological Period” delivered atthe London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on May 4 for the University of London, under an arrangement for an exchange of lectures with the Universities of Belgium, Prof. V. van Straelen, director of the Royal Natural History Museum of Brussels, discussed the inroads made on the fauna of the world by the activities of man and especially by the exploitation of Central Africa. He pointed out the fact, which is usually entirely neglected if not always unrealized, that not only are the larger mammals threatened with extinction by the advance of settled areas in tropical Colonies, but also that the felling of rain forests, by exposing the soil to the direct attack of sunlight, renders it impossible to reafforest such lands, and by completely altering all the micro climatic conditions, necessarily causes the destruction of all smaller plants and animals, whether they live above, upon or in the soil. In the light of his own great experience of such conditions, and of others the ultimate effects of which are similar, Prof, van Straelen showed that the changes of fauna and flora which are now occurring are in magnitude analogous to those which characterize the geological periods, and thus justified his title.
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Preservation of Fauna and Flora. Nature 143, 816 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/143816c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/143816c0