NEWSLETTER

The International Mire Conservation Group (IMCG) is an international network of specialists having a particular interest in mire and peatland conservation. The network encompasses a wide spectrum of expertise and interests, from research scientists to consultants, government agency specialists to peatland site managers. It operates largely through e-mail and newsletters, and holds regular workshops and symposia. For more information: consult the IMCG Website: http://www.imcg.net

IMCG has a Main Board of 15 people from various parts of the world that has to take decisions between congresses. Of these 15 an elected 5 constitute the IMCG Executive Committee that handles day-to-day affairs. The Executive Committee consists of a Chairman (Jan Sliva), a Secretary General (Hans Joosten), a Treasurer (Philippe Julve), and 2 additional members (Tatiana Minaeva, Stuart Brooks).

Viktor Masing (†), Hugo Sjörs, and Richard Lindsay have been awarded honorary membership of IMCG.

Editorial

The first Newsletter of 2004, again full of interesting information on what is going on in the world of peatlands. We ask you to prepare yourself for the General Assembly that is taking place in South Africa later this year. Even when you cannot participate in person, you can contribute with discussion papers and proposals, and of course with voting.

Various positive developments can be reported including the decision of the Convention on Biodiversity of February 2004 to pay more attention to peatlands with respect to climate change. With respect to that topic also negative things have to be reported: the fallacy that peat is a renewable and climate neutral fuel is spreading. Read about it in a critical analysis.

We plan to publish the next Newsletter (probably thinner, but that is also upto YOU) at the end of May 2004 to be in time for the General Assembly. Therefore we need your contributions before 24 May. Please send all your proposals, contributions, news, publications, etc. to us, and with your help we will again prepare an interesting Newsletter.

Thanks to the work of Alexandra Barthelmes, the IMCG Newsletter is now also available in html format for fast online access and on-screen reading.

For information or other things, contact us at the IMCG Secretariat. Address updates should be sent to Jan Sliva (sliva@wzw.tum.de). In the meantime, keep an eye on the continuously refreshed and refreshing IMCG web-site: http://www.imcg.net

John Couwenberg & Hans Joosten, The IMCG Secretariat

Botanical Institute, Grimmerstr. 88, D-17487 Greifswald (Germany)

fax: +49 3834 864114; e-mail: joosten@uni-greifswald.de