ABSTRACT
The Third World Congress on National Parks was held in Bali, Indonesia, during fall 1982. One of the early speeches at this meeting was made by Peter S. Thacher, executive director of the UN Environment Programme. Reported threats to the air subsystem were most frequently cited as having generalized effects on park environments; only one-third of these threats were perceived to affect more than three-fourths of the park. Most of the threats to parks in each biome type were reported to be documented and caused by man, and to have generalized effects on park environments. Some variation occurred at the subsystem level; yet only one threat was statistically associated with biome type when tropical forest and mixed mountain parks were examined. Trends in population growth and resource consumption, combined with our data, suggest that parks in less-developed countries will be among the most intensely pressured in the future.
