ABSTRACT
The Union that emerged from Fontainebleau was a compromise. While it was constituted as a governmental and non-governmental organization, a number of governments had, quite deliberately, made sure that the intergovernmental element would not predominate, and that they were not committed to injecting money into it. The Secretary-General was only employed by IUPN part-time. The leaders of the new body had ‘more enthusiasm than experience’. 1 The first problem was how to make its mark while operating with the slenderest and most uncertain of resources. The second was how to make a body that was a creature of ‘Northern’ culture, with founders largely from Europe and North America, into something truly global.
