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Preserving Nature for Future Demands for stronger protection for wildlife in Britain sometimes hide the fact that similar needs are felt in the rest of Europe. Studies by the Council of Europe, of which 21 counties are members, have shown that 45 per cent of reptile species and 24 per cent of butterflies are in danger of dying out. European concern for wildlife was outlined by Dr Peter Baum, an expert in the environment and natural resources division of the council, when he spoke at a conference arranged by the administrators of a British national park. The park is one of the few areas in Europe to hold the councils diploma for nature reserves of the highest quality, and Dr Peter Baum had come to present it to the park once again. He was afraid that public opinion was turning against national parks, and that those set up in the 1960s and 1970s could not be set up today. But Dr Baum clearly remained a strong supporter of the view that natural environments needed to be allowed to survive in peace in their own right. No area could be expected to survive both as a true nature reserve and as a tourist attraction, he went on. The short-sighted view that reserves had to serve immediate human demands for outdoor recreation should be replaced by full acceptance of their importance as places to preserve nature for the future. We forget that they are the guarantee of life systems, on which any built-up area ultimately depends, Dr Baum went on. We could manage without most industrial products, but we could not manage without nature. However, our natural environment areas, which are the original parts of our countryside, have shrunk to become mere islands in a spoiled and highly polluted land mass. | 
