WILD

Collectors Item from the 1st World Wilderness Congress

Today, I received something very cool in my email inbox.  With hints of your mom’s old signed yearbook, this scan of the program from the 1st World Wilderness Congress (1977, South Africa) is most definitely a collectors edition.  Click through the slide-show below to see the program, and photos and signatures from all of the main participants/speakers.

With 2,500 delegates from 27 countries, the 1st WWC:

• Introduced the wilderness concept as an international issue of importance, whereas formerly it had been only an issue of Western cultures;
• Presented programs for integrating cultures and races around the world in nature conservation;
• Incorporated economics and banking for the first time as major issues on the conservation agenda;
• Presented the largest exhibition of conservation art ever held to date in Africa; and,
• Prompted production of major BBC film, Zululand Wilderness: The Black Umfolozi Rediscovered.

Proceedings were published in 1978 by Jonathan Ball, edited by Ian Player.  You can read Voices of the Wilderness below, or download the PDF.

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