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Western Samoa possesses a considerable wealth of natural and cultural resources from which many generations of Samoans have been able to derive benefit. However, appre- ciable areas of natural vegetation are being lost annually to agricultural, housing and communication development, or modified by logging and life styles and cultural values of the Samoan people are changing in response to mounting pressures imposed by a rapidly increasing human population and aspirations for higher living standards. In the foreseeable future, exponential increase in these pressures and consequent speed of change seem inevitable. In recog- nition of these circumstances the Government of Western Samoa sees the creation of a system of National Parks and Reserves as a means of conserving representative samples of Western Samoa's natural and cultural heritage in perpetuity.