The IBP, as a worldwide programme seeking to expand and co-ordinate biological research, needed to provide for the protection of sites and species for future scientific study. The IBP 'check-sheet' survey was therefore devised as a tool for gathering information, allowing areas to be evaluated on a comparative basis. In this was it was possible to examine the extent to which scientifically adequate samples of the main types of natural biological systems were already protected, for example in national parks and nature reserves. The method chosen used a questionnaire approach but on an enormous scale, creating an extremely valuable report on the procedure of biological surveying, the successes and shortcomings of which are examined critically. This 1980 volume explains the procedures adopted in the check-list survey and the problems of securing adequate descriptions of types of vegetation and soil and suitable methods of information storage and retrieval.