Five-Year International Biology Programme

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30576, 20 October 1964, Page 9

Five-Year International Biology Programme

A five-year international biological programme on the lines of the International Geophysical Year is planned, and New Zealand has been invited to take part. The invitation was sent to the Royal Society of New Zealand, whose biological committee has recommended the proposal to the society for favourable consideration. The guiding committee of the programme was formally constituted at a meeting in Paris on July 25, with Professor J. Baer, of Switzerland, as president. Preparations for the start of the programme may take two or

three years, or perhaps longer. The theme of the programme will be “the biological basis of productivity and human welfare.” According to Nigel Calder, writing in the “New Scientist,” of which he is editor, the programme will be “of great practical consequence, even though most of the researches planned are ‘pure’ in character. It will give new orientations to field biology and provide comparative, quantitative data from many parts of the world.”

One of the objectives of the programme will be to fill in gaps in biological knowledge. Among these gaps, says Mr Calder, are the reasons for the 50-fold difference between the utilisation of sunlight by a good crop (where a typical figure is 10 per cent) and the over-all global utilisation by plant cover (about 0.2 per cent). “Perhaps the most notable area of present ignorance,” he says, “concerns man himself and his many adaptations to different environments. - . . What are the patterns of tolerance to cold, for example, in Eskimos and Negroes? . . . Are those who live high in the Andes or the Himalayas physiologically fitter for their environment than, say, visiting mountaineers? . . . There is a striking lack of information about fitness, growth, and physique in most human populations.”

A further aspect of the programme will be the investigation of neglected biological resources. "There are productive plants and animals whose use for human purposes has hardly been considered,” Mr Calder says.