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P R E S I D E N T ’S MESSAGE

October – December 2004

Council: President: Samran Sombatpanit, Thailand Deputy President: Michael Zoebisch, Thailand Immediate Past President: David Sanders, UK Treasurer: Maurice Cook, USA Executive Secretary: Jiao Juren, China Secretariat: ICRTS/DSWC, Ministry of Water Res. Jia 1, Fuxinglu, Beijing 100038, China Phone: +86-10-63204370 Fax: +86-10-63204359 [email protected], www.swcc.cn/waswc/ http://community.webshots.com/user/waswc Publishing Partner: Science Publisher, Inc., P.O. 699 Enfield NH 03748, USA. [email protected], www.scipub.net Newsletter Layout and Production Khin Mar Cho, IWDM Program, AIT, Bangkok, Thailand Cooperating Institutions Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Bangkok, Thailand WOCAT, NORTH-SOUTH, CDE, Berne, Switzerland ERECON Institute, Machida, Tokyo, Japan Int’l Water Management Institute-SEA, Bangkok, Thailand Int’l Soil Reference & Info Centre (ISRIC), Wageningen, Neth. Int’l Soil Conservation Org. (ISCO), Brisbane, Australia Int’l Soil Conservation Org. (ISCO), Marrakech, Morocco Soil Conservation Society of India, New Delhi, India Central Res. Inst. Dryland Agric., Hyderabad, India Soil Conservation Service, Gunnarsholt, Hella, Iceland Nat. Assoc. for Protection of Icelandic Env. Iceland Int’l. Erosion Control Assoc., Steamboat Springs, CO, USA Int’l. Erosion Control Assoc., Picton, NSW, Australia Land Development Department, Bangkok, Thailand Wolverhampton University, Wolverhampton, UK Estonian Agricultural University, Tartu, Estonia Environmental Inst. ECO ASIA, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia PCARRD, Los Baňos, Laguna, Philippines Faculty of Agronomy, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina AAPRESID (Direct Seeding Promotion), Rosario, Argentina Conf. Asoc. Amer. Agric. Sustentable (CAAPAS), Argentina EMBRAPA Solos (National Soils Center), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Instituto Agronomico do Campinas (IAC), SP, Brazil National School of Forest Engineers, Salé, Morocco Institute of Soil & Water Cons., Yangling, Shaanxi, China Fujian Soil Conservation Office, Fuzhou, Fujian, China Fujian SWC Association, Fuzhou, Fujian, China Guangdong Huihua Env. S&T Co., Guangzhou, China Andy Science & Technology Dev. Ltd., Zuhai, China Guangzhou ECO Env. Sci. & Tech., Co. Ltd., China Guangzhou Ecoen Env. Afforestation Co. Ltd. China

N E W S L E T T E R World Association of Soil & Water Conservation – WASWC

IN THIS ISSUE ► President's Message 1 ● Guest Message from CARDI Director 4 ► Association News 5 ► New Officers 6 ► Members’ Forum 7 ► Regional News 10 ● Iceland’s Program: Farmers Heal the Land 10 ● Maintaining Soil Fertility in Malawi 10 ► Features 11 ● The Universal Soil Loss Eqn. or a Universal Soil Gain Eqn.? 11 ● Natural Veg. Contour Strips for Soil Conservation 12 ● Agroforestry Highlights 13 ● Soil OM/Fertility Highlights 13 ● Vetiver Highlights 14 ● WOCAT Highlights 15 ► Research News and Abstracts 16 ► Announcements 17 ● Int’l Erosion Control Assn’s Annual Conference 17 ● III World Congress on Conservation Agriculture 18 ● Mgmt of Tropical Sandy Soils for Sust. Agriculture 18 ► Summary Reports 20 ● Water in Agricultural Production in Asia 20 ● Desertification in Mediterranean Region 20 ● Meeting of East African-Austrian Water Association 21 ► Publication Reviews 22 ● Water Productivity in Agriculture 22 ● Conservation and Improvement of Sloping Land III 22 ● Land Quality, Agric. Productivity, & Food Security 23 ► Information Sources 24 ► News in Brief 26 ► List of Worldwide Officers 29

The World Association of Soil and Water Conservation Newsletter is sent quarterly to WASWC members. The news-letter seeks to keep conservationists worldwide informed of new developments in the field of soil and water conservation and land management issues. Please send editorial contributions to WASWC President Samran Sombatpanit at [email protected]. From January 1, 2005, please send all articles to WASWC President Martin Haigh at [email protected].

Reporting global SWC news to you quarterly Volume 20 , Number 4

Samran Sombatpanit Since we put the list of persons nominated as members of

the next Council in the newsletter in August, there has not been any petition from our members for more candidates. Therefore, the members of the upcoming WASWC Council for the period January 2005-December 2007 will be as nominated by the Nominations Committee: Martin Haigh, President; Miodrag Zlatic, Deputy President; Jiao Juren, Executive Secretary; John Laflen, Treasurer; and myself as the Immediate Past President.

WASWC Vision: A world in which all soil and water resources are used in a productive, sustainable and ecologically sound manner. WASWC Mission: To promote worldwide the application of wise soil and water management practices that will improve and safeguard the quality of land and water resources so that they continue to meet the needs of agriculture, society and nature.

We will present the profile of new council members in the next issue. I sincerely congratulate all of them and I am confident they will run the Association and serve all members worldwide effectively and efficiently. See their photos at: http://community.webshots.com/album/183666678ObqBdn.

During the 3rd quarter of this year I had a chance to visit South America through the invitation of the AAPRESID to participate in its 12th Congress in Rosario, Argentina. I therefore took the chance to visit other parts of the country, as well as to meet our members in Brazil, another country where WASWC has not done enough to promote membership.

AAPRESID (Asociacion Argentina de Productores en Siembra Directa – Argentine Association for Direct Seeding Farmers - with website at www.aapresid.org.ar) is a farmers’ organization, with its headquarters in Rosario, some 300 km NW of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It has been holding con-gresses approximately every year since its foundation in 1989, with the participation of about a thou-sand people each time. Now there are more than 2,000 members countrywide, including more than 50 manufacturing companies. Though AAPRESID promotes all kinds of farming techniques, the prominent practice that it is strongly and successfully advocating is no-tillage agriculture. At present more than 50% of the farm area of Argentina is under no-till. No-tillage is a practice that now forms a major part of ‘conservation agriculture’.

The congress for each year brings farmers and industries/ companies to meet together and get to know some new innovations in agricultural production. The congress theme for this year was “La hora del Empowerment – Empowerment Time”. Besides the national experts in agricultural sciences, the organizers also invited some professionals from abroad. I was one who received this privilege along with a number of US, Latin American and Asian speakers. Apart from introducing the WASWC to the audiences, I gave the soil and water conservationist’s view of the no-till practice as one of the few farming techniques that reduce expenses from tillage operations and help conserve soil and water, while the total farm income may increase because of the higher yields obtained through the better soil conditions.

The congress is itself a high profile one, with Mr. Daniel Scioli, Vice President of the Argentine Republic, coming to give a special keynote presentation on the second day. At the opening and the closing, an opera singer was invited to sing their national anthem while everyone was standing. The large convention center became overcrowded with over 1,000 participants, exhibitors and organ-izers. But it gave a good mix of people who till the land, those who produce tools for them, e.g. farm machine and pesticide manufacturers, extension workers, researchers and policymakers. At this meeting I met a number of farmers; they all seemed to practice no-tillage, at least partly. One farmer has been doing no-till entirely on his land which is as large as 60,000 ha (600 sq km).

Attending this congress was an eye-opener for me. This no-till technique has been adopted well in S. America because farmers themselves have agreed to it while the states give technical assistance and manufacturers work with farmers to develop better and more effective products.

Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil have adoption rates of no-tillage agriculture of 60, 55 and 50%, respectively. It was therefore of much interest to learn more of what no-till is, how it is done, what results it yields, and how widespread it is in Latin America and other countries of the world. We are lucky in that by the end of my tour of S. America we got three prominent writers who have agreed to write about no-till agriculture. This will be published as a WASWC Special Publication. More experts may be involved at a later stage. The three writers are Rolf Derpsch (WASWC VP for Paraguay), Don Reicosky (a USDA scientist working in Mississippi, USA) and John Landers (a British no-till expert living in Brazil). We believe that this issue will be very useful for world distribution as it will allow peo-ple living in other areas to get to know and understand this very successful farming technique that has found a stronghold in S. America but can be applied in other regions.

AAPRESID is a strong organization that has given rise to another regional organi-zation, CAAPAS (Confederacion Asociaciones Americanas por una Agricultura Sustentable – Confederation of American Associations for a Sustainable Agricul-ture, with a website at www.caapas.org) that covers organizations involved in con-servation agriculture in Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chili, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico and the USA. During meetings with Mr. Jorge Romagnoli, President of AAPRESID (p. 1), and Mr. Roberto Peiretti, President of CAAPAS (above), himself a board director of AAPRESID, the WASWC and AAPRESID/ CAAPAS made an agree-ment to collaborate with each other in the matter of conservation agriculture. The introductions by Mr. Carlos Crovetto (left), our NR for Chile, to these two organiza-tions, which brought about this agreement, is very much appreciated. A short de-scription of AAPRESID can be found in the Information Sources section of the next issue.

This interest in no-tillage agriculture brought me further to Brazil where I met aca-demics and professionals in Campinas, Sao Paulo State; Brasilia, Capital Territory; Tengara da Serra, Mato Grosso; and Rio de Janeiro, the former capital of Brazil. Sonia Dechen (left in the picture) of the famed Instituto Agronômico Campinas (IAC) and her colleague Isabella de Maria brought me to see the classic and oldest soil erosion plots in S. America in their 700-ha experimental station (everything in

Brazil is so big, any distance in Brazil is so great – that was my first impression of Brazil) where sev-eral important research studies have been done, and to visit CATI, the important agricultural exten-sion arm of the Sao Paulo State Government. In Brasilia, John Landers was my host in his mansion, took me to visit a cooperative of farmers practicing no-till, introduced me to EMBRAPA Cerrados (National Agricultural Research Institute for the Savannas) scientists and flew me to see more no-till farmers in the Far West, close to the border of Bolivia, where I also had a chance to visit a large teak plantation, thousands of hectares, possibly the largest outside Asia, under the direction of Luit Smit.

In Rio de Janeiro, I gave a talk to a number of soil scientists of the National Soil Re-search Institute - EMBRAPA Solos, introduced by Dr. Antonio Ramalho-Filho (left), our NR for Brazil. This is an important soil science organization of this large country and we have come to a good understanding and made some agreements for future collaboration. My trip to Brazil ended with my vision about this huge country widened, as I saw vast expanses of land of different pedologic and edaphologic nature, human resources of various ethnic groups and social conditions, and great opportunities to develop the country.

During my 4-week sojourn in S. America something concerning our association and its growth unexpectedly happened. Initially, Prof. Eduardo Rienzi (left), 11th ISCO President and WASWC NR for Argentina, who arranged for my visit to his Faculty of Agronomy, University of Buenos Aires, before my departure to Brazil told me he had become frustrated by not recruiting any new members during the two years since he took up the WASWC NR post. So, he was determined to have the newsletter trans-lated into Spanish, something that he and his close colleague, Mr. Claudio Kvolek, could do soon. This struck the right chord, so I encouraged him to do it and make it

available to all Spanish-speaking countries, using Buenos Aires as the hub! Spanish-speaking people find it hard to read English, so to have our newsletter available to people in their own language should ease the problem of membership, a thing that is crucial at this time. After one month the Span-ish newsletter was ready and we have sent it to all Spanish-speaking members everywhere including Spain.

I had this translation idea in mind much of the time while on the road and thought if we could have the newsletter translated into other languages it would be excellent and attract more members, and our service would be more useful to many more people. Think of CNN News Network, LEISA Maga-zine and FAO in particular – they all deliver or print their work in other languages in order to reach their target clients quicker. True, the English language is a universal one and is being used widely and it would be good to get most of the target or potential members of WASWC to learn English and benefit from all our products and services fully but that would not be feasible. Another reason that urged me to have translations done in other languages is that the computer and internet these days are compatible enough to work in practically every significant language.

I therefore contacted our colleagues in Morocco, Brazil and China and encouraged them to make translations into French, Portuguese and Chinese. They did not disap-point me – Prof. Mohamed Sabir (left), the 14th ISCO President and our VP for Af-rica, agreed promptly and now the French edition of WASWC Newsletter, 20(3) is-sue, is ready and has been sent to all Francophone countries. In Brazil, Dr. Antonio Ramalho-Filho of EMBRAPA Solos, along with Sonia Dechen of IAC, would spear-head the translation of the newsletter into Portuguese. Meanwhile, in China, Prof. Li Rui (left), VP for Asia grabbed the idea at once and had it translated into Chinese, thinking of benefiting the 1.3 billion of his countrymen. The possibility of translating it into other languages is being explored but that depends very much on the initiative of our members who live in various countries and who may find it beneficial if the news-letter is available in their languages.

Photos taken from this trip have been posted on our photo website at http://community.webshots.com/album/183794857JLdiQK. One interesting photo, sent from Prof. Fernando García Préchac, our NR for Uruguay, is the satellite picture of Rio de la Plata with a lot of mud mixing in the water. I might have flown over this river when going to Brazil from Argentina but it

was dark at that time. This river drains largely from the Parana, which is another very large watershed south of the Amazon watershed. You can view this photo by clicking http://community.webshots.com/photo/192538425/194345587qwSkOG and can see clearly the loca-tions of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, capitals of Argentina and Uruguay. Interestingly, the river in this picture is 60-80 km wide. If you are interested to learn more about S. America, especially Argentina, you may click http://www.swcc.cn/waswc/articles/articles.htm and read the account of my previous trip in Octo-ber/November 2000 to attend the 11th ISCO conference in Argentina where I had a chance to travel down to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego as well as to cross over to Chile, resulting in an article “A Short Trip to the End of the World”. GUEST MESSAGE

Dear Colleagues and Friends, It is my great honor to introduce myself and CARDI. My name is Men Sarom, and I am the Director of the Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Insti-tute (CARDI). I received my PhD Degree in plant breeding from the University of Western Australia and, before becoming the Director of the Institute, I led the plant breeding program in Cambodia that successfully released many rice and mungbean varieties.

Despite CARDI being a new research institute in Cambodia, it is recognized as the prime agricul-tural research and development institute within the country. The institute is staffed by a highly quali-fied team in the subjects of plant breeding, soil and water sciences, plant protection, agronomy and farming systems, socioeconomics, agricultural engineering that provide training and information.

Besides rice, we work on many agricultural crops including maize, legumes, vegetables, fruit and root crops. Currently we are collaborating with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Centro Internacional de Mejoranmiento de Maize (CIMMYT), the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), the Asian Vegetable Research and Development Centre (AVRDC), the International Network for Banana and Plantain (INIBAP), the Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT) and the Rockefeller Foun-dation. We are now also developing projects with institutions in Europe and, hopefully, America.

We also receive support from the Royal Government of Cambodia and the Cambodian Agricul-tural Research Fund for our research activities. Besides research, we work in close collaboration with many institutions, national, international and private companies or individuals in the area of training and technology transfer. Following is a brief profile of CARDI:

The Kingdom of Cambodia, after many years of conflict, hardship and food shortages, is now self-sufficient in rice and has a surplus to export. Now the challenge is to raise farm incomes and eradi-cate poverty.

CARDI is a semi-autonomous, leading agricultural research institute under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF). A core purpose of CARDI is to improve the living standards of Cambodian farmers through agricultural research, training and technology trans-fer. CARDI has developed and released high quality crop varieties and seeds, while a range of other programs have improved all aspects of crop diversification and crop improvement, growing, cultiva-tion and harvesting.

CARDI is a multidisciplinary research institute responsible for: - management and leadership of all research activities to enhance agricultural development, - conducting applied research and transfer technologies, including agricultural economics, - delivering services to support implementation and rehabilitation of agricultural development projects, - development of human resources in the agricultural field, and - cooperation with relevant research institutions, both national and international.

To respond to this mandate, the institute has one center, offices and the following programs:

1. Plant Breeding Program – to develop high yielding potential with premium quality crop varieties through research and utilization of available genetic resources in lowland, irrigated and upland farming systems.

2. Plant Protection Program – to develop technologies and strategies that will assist farmers to in-crease yields and profit by protecting agricultural crop losses from pests in a safe and sustainable manner.

3. Soil and Water Sciences Program – to develop cost effective, simple and reliable nutrient manage-ment systems to help farmers increase and stabilize crop yields through improving knowledge of soil and water quality.

4. Agricultural Engineering Program – to improve the efficiency, quality and sustainability of crop pro-duction in the farming systems of Cambodia by researching, developing and extending appropriate technologies related to tools, equipment and means of production.

5. Agronomy and Farming Systems Program – to improve the living standard of Cambodians, espe-cially farmers in lowland, irrigated and upland farming systems of Cambodia through crop diversifi-cation, aquaculture and animal raising.

6. Socio-Economics Program – to enhance the quality of agricultural research and development in the farming systems of Cambodia to meet the requirements of stakeholders, especially farmers, by facilitating research designs, implementation, evaluation and, at the same time, incorporating gen-der and marketing perspectives into research programs.

7. Training and Information Center – to develop knowledge and skills in agricultural R&D through training, information sharing and creating public awareness. Knowledge and skills are needed to increase agricultural productivity in lowland, irrigated and upland farming systems of Cambodia, thereby improving the quality of life of Cambodians. Training and the library promote the under-standing of “TECHNOLOGY FOR PROSPERITY”.

8. Planning, Collaboration and Business Office – to support CARDI as a public sustainable national research and development institution and as the preferred Cambodian supplier of agricultural re-search and development services.

9. Station Management, Accounting & Finance and Administration Offices – to support and improve the working conditions of the Institute's employees in order to help increase the effectiveness of research outcomes for long-term sustainability.

This will just give you a rough idea about CARDI and you are more than welcome to contact me

([email protected]), or Mr. Hun Yadana, Head of Planning, Collaboration and Business Office ([email protected]), if you would like to get more information about CARDI or about agricul-ture in Cambodia. Our website is www.cardi.org.kh. I look forward to collaboration with you all. Best regards Men Sarom Director, CARDI Note: A report from last November’s CARDI Conference on Water in Agriculture appears in the Sum-mary Report section. WASWC is the beneficiary of AANRM Due to membership and financial problems, the Federal Council of the Australian Association of Natural Resource Management (AANRM), the successor of the Australian Association of Soil and Water Conservation, met in Canberra on June 30, 2004 and decided to close down from December 31, 2004. In so doing, the Council will put all published NMR journal papers on the Regional Institute website (www.regional.com.au) and all of the association’s funds remaining will be lodged with the WASWC.

WASWC Newsletter in French language From October our newsletter will be available in French, in addition to the English and Spanish edi-tions, thanks to the efforts of Prof. Mohamed Sabir of Morocco, WASWC Vice President for Africa and the 14th ISCO President. The French edition will be sent to members in Francophone countries, as well as to those who would like to receive the newsletter in this language.

Ground and Water Bioengineering for Erosion Control and Slope Stabiliza-tion book is ready The long awaited book derived mainly from the Manila conference of the same name that WASWC was a co-organizer is now ready and the publisher (www.scipub.net) will be able to deliver copies to you in November this year. Click to see the book at http://community.webshots.com/photo/164861694/200189532RUSztm. The book, 420 pages, is divided into four parts: Infrastructure, Forestry, Agriculture and watershed management, and Restoration. The published price is US$75/ copy, hardbound. Our members will have a 40% discount, but have to add delivery charge for addresses outside USA.

ASSOCIATION NEWS

Certificates of Membership are now available for mem-bers in all categories The Land Development Department in Bangkok has assisted in the design of the WASWC certificates in all categories. Certificates for Organization- and Life Members will be issued simultaneously. Individual members may contact their coordinators or directly to the WASWC Secretariat ([email protected]) for more information.

Treasurer’s Report of the expenses of years ended March 2003 and Decem-ber 2003

Ivan Blinkov, WASWC National Representative for Macedonia. [email protected],

Prof. Blinkov was born in Skopje, Macedonia in 1961. He received his BS degree in forest engi-neering in 1986 from the University “Sv. Kiril i Metodij”, Skopje, and a PhD at the same university in 1998. All his working life has been spent at the University of Skopje where he is now Associate Profes-sor at both the Faculty of Forestry and the Faculty of Environmental Engineering. He lectures BS and MS students in erosion and torrent control and land surveying. In 1999 Prof. Blinkov was invited as a lecturer for the US Peace Corps in Macedonia. He has also served as a member of the Council of Experts to the Ministry of Environment. His research has focused on soil erosion, torrent control, land degradation and desertification, land surveying and forest hydrology. He is the author of two textbooks for students and 31 papers. Prof. Blinkov has participated in 30 studies and preliminary and final project designs for scientific pro-jects.

Year ended Dec 2003

Year ended Mar 2003

REVENUES Dues USA office Bangkok office Beijing office Contributions – USA office Total revenue

1,750.00 2,161.02 60.00 215.00 4,186.02

REVENUES Dues Contributions Investment income Total revenue

4,780 1,314 - 6,094

EXPENSES Expenses of Bangkok office, 1st quarter (Jan-Mar 2003) Expenses for Bangkok office (Apr-Dec 2003) Purchase of non-expendable materials Purchase of expendable materials Service fee for terminating WASWC Secre-tariat in USA Support to conferences and officers’ travels Total expenses Increase (decrease) in fund balance

594.26 1,177.07 2,313.58 1,063.38 1,950.41 2,093.50 9,208.58 (5,022.56)

EXPENSES Contract expense General and administrative Investment loss Total expenses Increase (decrease) in fund balance

4,500 3,025 181 8,606 (2,512)

Remaining fund from SWCS 7,901.15 Beginning fund balance & amount dues 10,413

Ending fund balance 2,878.59 Ending fund balance 7,901

NEW OFFICERS

Ramazan Saraçi, WASWC National Representative for Albania. [email protected]

Ramazan Saraçi has, since 1959, been the manager and leader of a group at the Hydrometeo-rological Institute studying branches of river hydrology, especially on river sediment transport. He has participated in international post-graduate courses in Italy (1971) and Turkey (1991) and in interna-tional meetings and conferences. He has led two and has collaborated with eleven projects for the National Economy in the hydrological aspects of irrigation and hydroenergetical projects.

He was awarded the title Manager of Scientific Research (equivalent to Professor) in 1995 by the Hydrometeorological Institute of the Academy of Sciences of Albania.

Prof. Saraçi is the author of two books and has collaborated with six others (monographs). He has also produced 18 scientific papers on different branches of the hydrology of Albania, on water yield, sediment transport, erosion and land degradation in Albania. He has been serving as a consultant for scientific meetings in Albania and other countries.

He contributed to the foundation of the Albanian Association of Inland and Coastal Water Conser-vation and has been Vice Chairman of this Association since its inception. He has organized 5 round-table meetings on water conservation in Albania. Abdybek Asanaliev, WASWC National Representative for Kyrgyzstan. [email protected]

Dr. Asanaliev received his academic training from the Kyrgyz Agricultural Institute, Scraybin, cul-minating in a PhD in crop production. He subsequently served as Assistant Professor at the Kyrgyz Agricultural University, Bishkek from 1986 to 1996 and then as Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture from 1996 to 2000. From 2000 to 2002, he worked as Chief of the Department of Plant Management at the same insti-tute. Since 2002 he has worked on the monitoring and evaluation of the World Bank funded Agricul-tural Support Services Project and is presently Associate Professor of the Agronomy Faculty, Kyrgyz Agricultural University, Bishkek.

Letter from Mrs. Dorothy Hudson (wife of the late Prof. Norman Hudson) Dear Samran, I got very thrilled to get David Sanders letter informing me that at the ISCO Conference this coming July in Australia the first Norman Hudson Memorial Award would be given to Prof. Calvin Rose of Griffith University, Brisbane. … I remember two splendid conferences in Bangkok that you had organ-ized so well. So the last few years must have been very busy for you. … We remembered with great pleasure the happy two years that we spent in Thailand while Norman was working at AIT, and the many good friends we made there. With kind regards and every good wish, Dorothy

MEMBERS’ FORUM

WASWC Vision A world in which all soil and water resources are used in a productive, sustainable and ecologically sound manner. WASWC Mission To promote worldwide the application of wise soil and water manage-ment practices that will improve and safeguard the quality of land and water resources so that they continue to meet the needs of agriculture, society and nature.

What members say: - The WASWC Newsletter joins us with the soil conservation world and going through it is just like to have a trip of world of soil and water conservation. I think this is the most perfect newsletter I have ever seen. I would like to specially thank you for taking pains in sending the members a Special Publication No. 2 regarding Carbon Trading, Agriculture and Poverty by Mike Robbins. This bulletin is very useful for a person who is a layman in this field. I pray to Almighty to provide you with all courage and strength to carry on with this noble service to the world of soil and water conservation. In case of any service for me, you are most welcome. Surinder Singh Kukal, Assoc. Prof. in Soil Conservation and Editor-in-Chief, Indian Journal of Ecology (Indian Ecological Society), Department of Soils, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana-141004, INDIA ([email protected]) - You have a very interesting, well written report/newsletter that covers a wide range of activities in most parts of the world. Santiago Obien, The Philippines Winners of photo contest – First Event

The three winners of the first event of WASWC photo competition, July-September 2004, are (alphabetically with the winner’s last name): * Tom GODDARD (Children fascinated by the world beneath our feet, Alberta, Canada) * John LAFLEN (Road view blocked by wind eroded material, Iowa, USA) * Machito MIHARA (Participatory approach for building terraces in Thailand)

These winners may choose the book of your choice as your prize at the following website www.scipub.net, and let us know, and you will receive the book from the publisher soon. Members are invited to send in their digital photos for all categories of SWC for competing in the next round, the deadline of which is December 25, 2004.

The photos that have won and all the rest are being shown on our photo website at http://community.webshots.com/album/199487009kjbZxj until the end of this year. After that they will be integrated into various albums and will stay there indefinitely. – Photo contest juries: Maurice Cook (Chair), David Sanders, Michael Zoebisch, Jiao Juren, with Samran Sombatpanit as ex officio.

Let’s try to find a slogan for WASWC

Sorry, we need to repeat this short message in order to get a good consensus for one of our most important outcomes. All members are requested to share ideas.

Nothing will be more memorable than this but again we need your help!! Early in July this year I visited Australia in connection with the 13th ISCO Conference and I had

discussions with a number of people. We agreed that an organization or movement is better remem-bered if it has some kind of slogan. So, we need a short slogan that shows what we do and attracts more members at the same time. As a start, we have come up with the following suggestions: "Conserving soil and water together - join WASWC" "Conserving soil and water worldwide - join WASWC" “Help conserve soil and water resources - join WASWC” "The WASWC - bringing soil and water conservationists together - join now!"

We would now like to have your suggestions. Also let us know if you like any of those mentioned

above. We want to see the best slogan, both eye-catching and effective in expanding membership. And when we get the best one, we will ask an artist for a design that will make our slogan become even more eye-catching. Hope to hear from you soon! Samran.

A reply to “Landcare Highlights” article published in July-September Newsletter, by David Sanders, Immediate Past President

I was pleased to see that we are to be publishing a series of articles on the Australian Landcare

movement. This is an excellent program and deserves the publicity it is receiving. However, as a for-mer member of the Victorian Soil Conservation Authority, I was surprised and disappointed by some of the statements made by Sue Marriott and Victoria Mack in the first of the articles that appear in the July-September issue of WASWC Newsletter as they showed an insufficient knowledge and under-standing of the background to Landcare. The article gave the impression that nothing was done be-fore the advent of Landcare in the 1980s and that Landcare only came about through some sort of spontaneous landholder movement. This, of course, is far from the truth.

Soil conservation has a long and proud record, going back to the 1940s, in the Australian state of Victoria where the Landcare movement started. It is important to understand that the principles and practices now employed by Landcare slowly evolved over many years in the soil conservation service while it worked in close collaboration with many hundreds of farmers. For instance, the concept of whole-of-catchment planning was well established by the late 1950s when I joined the former Soil Conservation Authority as a very young and inexperienced officer – it is not some sort of new concept as suggested in the newsletter article. The way catchment planning was put into practice, with the farmers themselves taking an integral part in the planning process, was further refined in the highly successful Eppalock Project (on which I worked) in the 1960s and 1970s, Australia’s first large-scale “watershed” project, and refined even further in later years.

Just as effective ways of working with groups of landholders slowly evolved over many years, so too did the technology for combating land degradation and bringing about more sustainable land use. By the mid 1980s much of the technology now used in Landcare had already been developed. Al-though individual farmers may have improved these practices in recent years, landholders were not starting from scratch when Landcare came along, as implied in the article.

As work continued over the years, landholders were increasingly involved in the planning and implementation of activities. However, with the state conservation service still fairly heavily involved with what was done, there was still a problem of “ownership” of the various works, once they were completed, and problems of maintenance. This led to the launching of the first Landcare projects in Victoria, as we know them today, with almost full responsibility being given to the landholders.

In short, Landcare evolved slowly and was the result of years of hard work and trial-and-error by many people, both landholders and dedicated professional soil conservationists. Rod(ney) Gallacher has retired

One of the driving forces in WOCAT for some 12 years, Rod Gallacher retired from FAO in August. Over the years Rod has become well known to many mem-bers not only for the splendid work that he has done on WOCAT committees, but also for his international work over 40 years in soil conservation. Rod started his career in 1962 with the Victorian Soil Conservation Authority in Australia. In 1969 he joined FAO and over the years worked on various assignments in Tunisia, Algeria, Niger, Rwanda, Syria, Morocco and Ethiopia. In 1985 he moved to FAO Headquarters in Rome from where he was involved in numerous programs and activities in many countries, including the ASOCON project – a project which in-

volved many soil conservationists over a number of years in Thailand, Vietnam, China, the Philip-pines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Rod and his wife Barbara now plan to settle in the UK. We wish them both a long and happy retirement and hope that Rod will keep in touch with his former colleagues and the many friends that he has made over the years from all over the world, through the WASWC and its newsletter. His e-mail: [email protected]

Members who had passed away Harold Dregne, Lubbock, Texas, USA, May 21, 2002

Iceland’s Program: Farmers Heal the Land Andrés Arnalds ([email protected]), Assistant Director, and Sigthrudur Jonsdottir ([email protected]), district conservationist and program leader Farmers Heal the Land, Soil Conser-vation Service, Iceland. Andrés is WASWC National Representative for Iceland (See another article of Andres in Information Sources section, this issue.)

Increased participation, with a local leadership emphasis, has been one of the main foundations in the development of new soil conservation strategies in Iceland over the past two decades. This direct involvement has proved to be a very powerful tool in increasing revegetation of denuded land and in development of conservation awareness. Iceland is located on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, just beneath the Arctic Circle. The 290,000 inhabi-tants of this 103,000 km2 island are faced with an immense task of restoring lost soil and plant re-sources. Over the last millennium about half of the vegetative cover and most of the woodlands have been lost through the interaction of unsustainable land use and the forces of a harsh environment. Barren deserts have replaced vegetation and deep soils in many areas. Restoration of degraded land and the quest for sustainability are unattainable without a commit-ment to good management by the agricultural community. As a step in reaching the long-term goal of making the land users the true custodians of the land, a new participatory program for revegetation was launched in 1990, termed “the farmers heal the land”. It was based on work already being done by many farmers, and met an increasing desire by farmers to improve the health of their land. The program is supervised by the Soil Conservation Service, and the basic prerequisites for participation are land in need of revegetation and a commitment to using areas under reclamation in a sustainable manner. Realizing the limited financial resources available to farmers for land improvement, it was decided that their machinery, time and skill, plus a small proportion of the cost of materials would be their main contribution to the project. The direct cost-share, although limited, was considered important in stimulating the feeling of “ownership” of the project. The project was built on the psychological con-cept of mutual trust. Bureaucracy was minimized and communication improved with emphasis on a handshake and simple paper work. The “bottom-up” nature of the project has made it easy to interact with land users on their own terms. The farmers take pride in their achievements and enjoy being participants in reaching a solu-tion to degradation problems. This, in turn, opens up positive channels for discussing and resolving other resource issues; topics that were traditionally difficult to broach prior to this cooperation. Partici-pants commonly do more than they are asked to do. They are innovative and are urged to experiment with reclamation guidelines and to customize solutions for their own situations. This cooperation be-tween farmers and scientists/ soil conservationists has greatly advanced the development of suc-cessful restoration techniques and illustrates the power of the grass root approach. More than 25% of the sheep producers in Iceland are now actively participating, along with a number of other farmers. The Challenge of Maintaining Soil Fertility in Malawi, Stephen Carr, [email protected]

The population of Malawi grew from 720,000 in 1902 to 11.5 million by 2000. In the middle of the 20th century over 85% of the population had access to more than 1.5 ha/ family. Now over 60% have access to less than 1 ha per family and a significant proportion have less than 0.5 ha. This is with a climate that provides farmers with just one growing season of 5 months each year. There are limited opportunities to grow profitable cash crops so the land is overwhelmingly allocated to maize cultiva-tion. Many fields have been cropped with maize without a break for 20 or 30 years so yields and soil fertility are steadily declining. It is against this background that efforts to maintain soil fertility are be-ing made. Malawi provides an interesting study because the challenges that it faces are likely to be-come widespread across the continent over the next half-century as African populations continue to expand. The earliest efforts to offset soil degradation were made in colonial days with the promotion of growing crops on ridges sited approximately on the contour. This technology has been universally adopted and fulfils a threefold function: it reduces soil and water loss, it concentrates scarce topsoil and it provides roots with a moderately aerated zone during the 2 months of the year when heavy rains can cause waterlogging. Currently farmers are being helped to re-align their ridges more accu-rately on the contour with the use of A-frames and line levels and to plant vetiver lines on very steep slopes. Large numbers of field workers have been involved in this program but the numbers of re-sponsive farmers is numbered in tens of thousands rather than millions. The main thrust of restoring soil quality over the past 15 years has been through agroforestry.

REGIONAL NEWS

The earliest efforts focused on alley cropping with Leucaena but this was soon abandoned and re-placed with interplanting with either Tephrosia or Sesbania to provide a 7-month fallow of these legu-minous shrubs. In neighboring Zambia, where land is abundant, these fallows are left for 3 years and have a striking impact on soil fertility. Malawian farmers cannot afford to set aside any land for long fallows and the short period in which the shrubs can grow provides only a modest boost to crop pro-duction. Consequently, the uptake of this technology has been slow. There has also been a long-term program to popularize the growing of Faidherbia albida (apple ring acacia) in arable fields. The tree is indigenous and highly valued in the areas where it occurs naturally. Mistakes were made in the early stages of the program with propagation techniques that slowed down adoption. These have been overcome but the positive impact of these trees only starts after about 7 years so again there are only a limited number of farmers who have adopted this tech-nology. Only 5% of the population own cattle and 22% own an average of four goats so that animal ma-nure can only play a small role in restoring soil nutrients and quality. Compost making is widely en-couraged and it has become increasingly popular for home vegetable gardens but most households do not have either the organic matter or water needed to produce the quantities which would make a significant impact on their main arable fields. Recent estimates show that all organic sources are restoring about 15,000 tons of plant nutrients per year while 160,000 tons are lost. Inorganic fertilizer replaces an estimated 70,000 tons so there is an overall deficit of 75,000 tons per year. Because of the slow uptake of “organic” methods of restor-ing soil quality there is now a major thrust to extend the use of inorganic fertilizer but few farmers can afford to buy it. The strategy being adopted by British aid is to provide work for farm families in their own communities in the dry season and pay them with vouchers for fertilizer and improved seed. Some 100,000 families will be involved this year and it is hoped to expand the program further in the future. The challenge is clearly understood, technologies to deal with it have been evolved but there is still a long way to go before the majority of smallholders in Malawi will have reversed the degradation of their soils.

The Universal Soil Loss Equation or a Universal Soil Gain Equation? Francis Shaxson, Greensbridge, Sackville St., Winterborne Kingston, Dorset DT11 9BJ, UK. [email protected]

The Universal Soil Loss Equation has been used in many places and for many years to estimate likely losses of soil by water erosion processes. It has widely been assumed that this provides a rea-sonable basis for estimating the effects of erosion on plant yields (though I believe that the philoso-phical – let alone the technical – justification for this is debatable – see ENABLE-15).

It is worth pointing out that: a. The principle underpinning the assumed direct soil loss/ yield loss linkage has not been satis-

factorily defined, being assumed much more often than it has been clearly demonstrated by experi-ment;

b. The closeness of the USLE model’s soil loss estimations to in-field realities have in many situa-tions not been satisfactorily cross-checked, with the result that decisions on policy and actions relat-ing to plant production in particular, based on the model’s results alone, may be of questionable valid-ity;

c. After decades of experimentation across the world the policies, strategies, tactics and imple-mentations adopted to deal with the problem of soil erosion, based on the USLE model, have not of themselves been particularly successful both in eliminating the erosion problem and simultaneously stabilizing or raising average yields.

These points suggest that a radical re-appraisal of the approach to land degradation by erosion and associated declines in soil productivity is justifiable and needed. This should be undertaken ur-gently, no matter how many sacred cows need to be subjected to veterinary-style examination as to there continued productivity and, where necessary, be deconsecrated and relegated to the back pas-ture.

A Soil Gain Equation. Now take another look at the photo on p. 26 of ENABLE # 15 – July 2002,

and then at ‘Think-Pic 2’ on p. 23 of ENABLE # 14 - February 2002 (in that order) and a different per-spective becomes apparent.

If plant-favorable soil is developing from the top downwards much more than from the bottom upwards under influence of organic materials and processes, then an appropriate approach to the problem becomes that of actively enhancing the quality and depth of the soil also from the top down-

FEATURES

wards. Now DMC – ‘Direct Sowing, Mulch-based systems and Conservation Agriculture’ (see e.g. pp. 12-15, 23 of ENABLE # 15) – come into their own.

It seems likely that more direct linkages between soil improvement (particularly in terms of or-ganic materials and processes, and of soil porosity) and biomass yield of crops, grasses, shrubs and trees could be more accurately predicted using some form of ‘Soil Gain Equation’ than has been pos-sible with any form of Soil Loss Equation.

The growing number and range of positive experiences by farmers, their advisors and research-ers validate this view of the problem and of the approach to its solution after implanting zero-tillage/ DMC systems on their farms and ranches in Brazil and other countries.

The results of better land husbandry, of which this is a part, are giving rise to policies, strategies, and tactics, which please both people and the environment.

It may prove complicated to determine a soil gain:yield gain relationship, but the philosophy and principles behind it will be more comprehensible, and the consequences in the field more positive, than they have been up till now.

(Reproduced, with permission, from ENABLE, Newsletter of the Association for Better Land Hus-

bandry, #17, July 2003).

Assessment of Natural Vegetative Contour Strips for Soil Conservation on Shallow Calcareous Soils in the Central Philippines (For the period November 2000-July 2003), Marco Stark, Julito Itumay and Samuel Nulla, ICRAF Philippines. [email protected]. (Full report can be read at the WASWC website, under ‘Articles’.)

Summary/ Key Findings: The initial two-and-a-half years of research and development work con-

ducted by ICRAF and its partners under the AECI-supported project in the central Philippines has shown that the technical and institutional innovations developed in northern Mindanao are also appli-cable to the contrasting conditions of the Visayan Islands. As in Mindanao, the low-cost NVS technol-ogy built one of the pillars in successfully disseminating improved natural resource management practices in this part of the Philippines. Its evaluation in the islands of Bohol and Leyte from late 2000 to mid 2003 has generated the following key findings:

* Building on existing local ecological knowledge and practice, and traditional systems of knowl-edge exchange enhances project impact. It speeds up the identification of appropriate technical inno-vations for improved natural resource management and land productivity, and enhances the dissemi-nation of successful technologies.

* The use of natural vegetative strips for soil conservation is a local practice that has been used traditionally in parts of the central Philippines for several decades. Farmers observed that they im-prove yield and increase land value. The simple low-cost conservation technology seems to be the best option for resource-poor farmers cultivating densely populated upland areas with severely de-graded soils and poor market access. For many farmers they provide the basis for further improving their land, by incorporating productive species, such as fodder grass, banana, pineapple, fruit and timber trees into the contour strips.

* On-farm research proved that NVS are at least as effective in shallow calcareous soil environ-ments as under deep acidic soil conditions in northern Mindanao. Contour strips of natural vegetation can reduce soil loss by more than 95% on hillsides with up to 60% slope. However, labor inputs for establishment and maintenance, negative effects of soil fertility scouring on the alleys (terraces) and competition from the NVS with crops and trees planted along the strips, affects the overall profitability of the NVS system. Spacing NVS at 2 m vertical intervals appears to be most appropriate. Long-term observations are needed to fully understand the impact of the technology at the plot and landscape scale. The application of process models can help in predicting the effects of NVS under a range of site conditions and for various management regimes.

* Complementary practices are needed to enhance soil fertility on cultivated slopes under the low external input conditions typical for most of the central Philippine uplands. The intercropping of maize with leguminous crops – a strategy based on local practice – is one option to maintain and improve soil fertility that has been identified. While this technical option requires further observation and pro-motion, other practices should be explored, such as improved fallows and minimum tillage for exam-ple. ICRAF’s work in the Philippines could benefit greatly from the Center’s successful work on strate-gies to maintain soil fertility under low external input cropping conditions in parts of Africa.

Agroforestry Highlights The 1st World Congress of Agroforestry, WCA organizers, Orlando, Florida, USA 2004.

“Peace and stability in the world cannot be built on human misery in the Third World.” With those

words, Nobel Laureate Norman Borlaug inaugurated the 1st World Congress of Agroforestry in Or-lando, Florida, 27 July 2004. He said that agroforestry would continue to have an important role in alleviating both poverty and environmental degradation in low-income countries.

More than 500 delegates from 82 different countries attended the Congress from 27 June to 2 July 2004. Diverse examples of agroforestry practiced by rural people around the world, to improve both their livelihoods and the environment, were highlighted and their scientific underpinnings exam-ined at the Congress. On the last day of the Congress, the delegates adopted the “Orlando Declara-tion” (http://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/wca) as one of the outcomes of the meeting. The Declaration states that the adoption of agroforestry over the next decade will “greatly enhance the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals” by increasing household income, promoting gen-der equity, improving health and welfare of people, and promoting environmental sustainability.

Delivering the first plenary lecture to the Congress, M.S. Swaminathan, a world leader in agricul-ture and natural resources (www.mssrf.org) suggested agroforestry as a means for “bio-happiness.” Other keynote speakers included Jim Moseley, USDA (Social and institutional issues); Hosney El-Lakany, FAO, Rome, and Björn Lundgren, Sweden (Agroforestry and food security); P.K. Nair, Uni-versity of Florida (Science and education in agroforestry); and Dennis Garrity, ICRAF, Nairobi, Kenya (Agroforestry: the next 25 years). The program also included 8 sub-plenary sessions, 31 concurrent oral sessions, two poster sessions, two pre-Congress workshops, a pre-Congress tour and three in-Congress filed tours (see the list of sessions, below).

The Congress was hosted by the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and organized by a global committee with P.K. Nair as its chair; Dennis Garrity (ICRAF), Gregory Ruark (USDA-Forest Service), and Howard Shapiro (Mars Incorporated) as co-chairs; and 18 indi-viduals from around the world as members. More than 25 public and private organizations from four continents co-sponsored the event.

In addition to compiling abstracts of the nearly 800 voluntary papers and posters presented, the Congress also launched a new book series entitled Advances in Agroforestry published by Kluwer (Springer) Publishers. Review papers on a wide array of topics from both temperate and tropical cli-mate zones are collected in the first volume, New Vistas in Agroforestry: A Compendium for the First World Congress of Agroforestry, 2004 by P.K Nair, M.R. Rao, and L.E. Buck (eds) (also published as a special issue of Agroforestry Systems, 61 & 62, 2004).

The Congress Website (http://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/wca) that will be retained indefinitely may be accessed for the Book of Abstracts and information on other Congress outputs.

Soil OM/Fertility Highlights Importance of Soil Organic Matter in the Mountain Farming System of Nepal, Bhaba P. Tripa-thi, Sustainable Soil Management Programme (SSMP), P.O. Box 688, Kathmandu, Helvetas-Nepal. [email protected]

The mountain soils of Nepal are light textured, shallow in depth and acidic (pH 4.5-5.0). Nepal has

the highest density per unit of cultivated land in the world. Traditionally, soil fertility has been main-tained by the use of farm yard manure (FYM) mixed with bedding materials/compost, in-situ manure, slicing and burning of terrace risers, trapping spring pre-monsoon flood water and inclusion of grain legumes in the cropping system The main source of manure comes from the large ruminants such as cattle and buffaloes. Of the total quantity of 49.3 million tons (t) of manure produced in the country, 28.8 million tons (58.6%) are produced by 6.1 million cattle followed by 37.7% produced by 3.1 million buffaloes, while goats, chauries, mules and ponies, sheep, poultry and pigs are also important ani-mals producing manure for crop production.

For the last 20 to 30 years farmers of the accessible areas have been using combinations of or-ganic manure and inorganic fertilizers to increase the crop productivity of high yielding varieties of cereals (maize, rice, wheat) and vegetable crops (cauliflower, cabbage, radish, turnip, potato). But manure remains the only source of nutrients in the remote areas. The amount of manure applied to the farmers' fields varies considerably, depending on the priority of the crop, distance of the fields from the homestead, availability of organic matter, labor, fertility status of soil and availability of the fertilizer. A survey of the mountains of Nepal showed that farmers apply 20-58 tons of FYM/compost/ha.

The nutrient content of FYM from farmers' fields is different, ranging from 1.57 to 2.21% total nitro-gen (N), 611-906 mg/kg available phosphorus (P) and 16.6-39.8 me/100 g exchangeable potassium (K). Farmers prepare manure either by keeping it in pits or depositing it in heaps. Experiments con-

ducted at the research farms indicate that the manure/ compost prepared in pits contained high N (1.10%), P (0.11%) and K (0.40%) as compared to heaps (0.60% N, 0.06% P and 0.06% K), during the dry season. However, the nutrient content prepared by the heap method during the rainy season had higher nutrients (1.72% N, 0.14% P and 0.13% K) than by the pit method (1.12% N, 0.09% P and 0.11% K). The reason is that during the rainy season, high rainfall not only causes leaching of nutri-ents but also impairs decomposition due to the high moisture content. A comparison of manure pre-pared by open and roofed pit methods indicates that roofed pit compost has higher nutrient levels (3.41%N, 0.42% P and 0.52% K) than open pit compost (2.28%N, 0.36% P and 0.28% K). Roofing over a pit or heap improves manure/compost quality by preventing moisture loss through sun and wind in the hot season and nutrient loss through leaching by rain in the monsoon.

For sustainable soil management in the mountains of Nepal, the Government of Switzerland has been providing financial support to the Department of Agriculture of His Majesty's Government of Nepal since 1999. This program covers: (i) organic matter management (quality enhancement of ma-nure/ composting, collection and utilization of animal urine, integrated plant nutrient management) for productivity and sustainability; (ii) mixed cropping systems for productivity and soil conservation; (iii) fodder cultivation, stall feeding and organic waste recycling; (iv) integration of herbaceous and tree legumes into farming systems; (v) promotion of high value crops in combination with sustainable soil management (SSM) (vegetable cultivation, fruit cultivation); (vi) soil moisture management and com-plementary irrigation (if based on SSM). This program has covered 12 mid-hill districts of Nepal and the program has been implemented by government, non-government and community-based organi-zations in all the districts. Providing training develops the capacity of the organizations and arranging visits focusing on specific SSM practices. Then organizations provide training to local leader farmers and leader farmers demonstrate the specific technologies themselves and also provide training to Group farmers so that SSM technologies are widely adopted. Initial evaluation shows that awareness and adoption of SSM technologies has reached more than 40% of the farmers who started SSM practices in different groups.

See related article “Research Farmers in the Middle Hills of Nepal: Conserving Soil and Nutrient Losses” by B.P. Tripathi et al. on our website www.swcc.cn/waswc/.

Vetiver Highlights The Vetiver System – Land Stabilization and Energy Production Dick Grimshaw ([email protected]). Chairman of The Board of the Vetiver Network (www.vetiver.org).

Late this summer two events are impressed on my mind – the series of catastrophic hurricanes

that have severely damaged many Caribbean islands and some of the Gulf states of the USA, and the high price of oil. Both phenomena appear to stay. There are many small tropical nations, particu-larly island nations, whose infrastructure and social fabric will be severely affected by future storms and floods; and whose economies will be imperiled by high energy costs. The Vetiver System could be used to mitigate against both of these problems.

Severe tropical storms and hurricanes destroy infrastructure, induce landslides and other mass sediment flows; resulting in human misery, soil loss, water pollution and damage to coastal marine life. The Vetiver System has proven its ability to significantly lessen tropical storm impact. The most telling evidence was recorded in El Salvador, at the time of Hurricane Mitch (1998), where hundreds of kilometers of roads protected by the Vetiver System were undamaged, and in Honduras vetiver protected farmland survived with minimum soil loss. Since that time most Central American countries are starting to protect their infrastructure and farm lands using the Vetiver System. Relevant papers can be found at: www.vetiver.com/LAVN_disaster.htm and www.vetiver.com/HON_mitch1.htm.

Elsewhere in Thailand, South China, Philippines, Madagascar (see http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/08/0831_040831_supergrass.html) and Malaysia, where hurricanes (typhoons) and tropical storms are a fairly frequent occurrence, major infrastructure has been very effectively protected, and at low cost, by the Vetiver System. This is because vetiver grass increases the shear strength of soil. Research by Diti Hengchaovanich and others demon-strates a mean vetiver root tensile strength of 75 Mpa (equivalent to 1/6 of the tensile strength of mild steel), compared to say willow (Salix sp) roots of the same size at 9-36 Mpa. As a result, the shear strength of soil is improved. Moreover, because of its dense and massive root system, underground, it offers better shear strength increase per unit fiber concentration (i.e. 6~19 kPa per kg of root per m3 of soil) compared to 3.2~3.7 kPa/kg per m3 of soil for tree roots. I recommend you read “15 Years of Bio-Engineering in the Wet Tropics” at www.vetiver.com/ENG_bioengineeringmal.htm for further in-formation relating to the impact of vetiver grass on slope stabilization.

The high cost of crude oil, currently around US$50 per barrel, is likely to have a profound impact on small nations. The “poor” are likely to accelerate the removal of trees and shrubs for fuel purposes

unless some alternative energy source can be created. In the hot wet tropics vetiver grass biomass production is extremely high. Yields of 80-100 tons/ ha of dry matter per year have been recorded.

Research in Queensland, Australia supports this potential yield data. See “Modelling Monto Vetiver Growth and Nutrient Uptake for Effluent Irrigation Schemes” by Alison Vieritz, Paul Truong, Ted Gardner and Cameron Smeal at www.vetiver.com/ICV3-Proceedings/AUS_MEDLI.pdf. Vetiver

grass, a C4, has a high Radiation Use Efficiency in the order of 18 kg/ha per MJ/m2. This is com-parable to that of sugar cane, and is four times higher than C3 grasses such as Bermuda grass.

The calorific value of fuel oil is about 43 GJ per ton, four times that of vetiver grass. The en-ergy from an average of 70 tons of vetiver dry matter/ha/year would be equivalent to 17.5 tons of crude oil, at US$40 per barrel (6.3 barrels per tonne) the per ha value would be $4,410 – certainly worth investigating. The technology for biomass conversion to electrical energy is well known.

Many of the world’s degenerated land areas, particularly saline areas caused by bad irrigation and drainage practices could be used for vetiver production, thus not only could vetiver produce en-ergy, but it could also be used for land reclamation (desalinization). Note that because of vetiver’s massive root system it could take advantage of the high water tables often associated with saliniza-tion and would also be able to tap, at depth, nutrients that are generally not available to shallower rooted plants. Finally the vetiver root mass is an ideal CO2 sink and any large “vetiver for energy pro-gram” might be able to take advantage of current “carbon exchange schemes”. See The Global Hub for Carbon Commerce at http://www.co2e.com/trading/MarketHistory.asp.

WOCAT Highlights Samran Sombatpanit

▲ Since the last WOCAT Annual Meeting in Nepal last October, a great deal of progress has been made in South Africa. The introduction phase of WOCAT in South Africa was concluded with a very successful WOCAT Workshop held in Pretoria on March 5, 2004. This Workshop was or-ganized by Robin Barnard and Rinda van der Merwe rinda@)arc.agric.za). A publication contain-ing the data of South African WOCAT database, the so-called Fact File was released at the Work-shop. The Department of Agriculture (DoA), who funded the project, expressed their satisfaction with the completion of Phase II. A proposal for Phase III, for a period of 18 months, was submitted to the DoA, focusing on the following aspects. - Improvement of completed questionnaires through revisits and follow-up contact. - Continuation of the process of data acquisition, through the completion of additional question-naires, thereby extending the network. Attempts will be made to increase the representivity of the data, through balanced involvement of different stakeholders. - Training of persons to manage data acquisition and the database, involving capacity building in the DoA. - Implementation of procedures to ensure quality control of data for inclusion in the WOCAT data-base. ▲ Miodrag Zlatic ([email protected]) has organized a regional workshop “Community Based Rehabilitation of Degraded Lands of Central Balkan Mountains and Northern Turkey” in Bel-grade/Predejane from July 8-10, with 25 participants from Turkey, Bulgaria, FYR Macedonia and Serbia & Montenegro as well as Prof. Dr. Martin Haigh, Professor of Oxford Brookes University in UK and Vice President of WASWC for Europe, who is a consultant for this regional initiative. As the workshop results will be the base for the project proposal its significance is in its implementa-tion character, i.e. it would be executed directly on the selected representative localities of the hilly-mountainous Balkan Region, and has also been planned for WOCAT implementation. ▲ Godert van Lynden ([email protected]) attended the first SoilAce Conference (September 16-17, 2004) about soil and compost ecobiology, organized by the University of Leon and Biomasa Peninsular Co. at Leon, northern Spain, in close collaboration with various aca-demic, private and government institutions as well as the EU environmental agency. It consisted of 5-7 extensive presentations by invited speakers in each day followed by a roundtable session. Godert gave a presentation on “European and world soil’s present situation and expected evolu-tion”. He highlighted the fact that there is not much information available on the state of the soils worldwide other than the FAO Soil Map and GLASOD and he presented some of the initiatives underway to fill these gaps (e.g. SOTER, (G)LADA, WOCAT, SOWAP, European Soil Database, etc). This raised considerable interest, especially for WOCAT. Other presentations revealed the large potential of good quality compost in disease suppression and for improving soil fertility. How-ever, like soils, compost apparently still has some image problem which needs to be solved by

better PR and stronger incorporation with, and links to, other issues like soil and water conserva-tion and sustainable land management. ▲ The SOWAP (Soil and Surface Water Protection Using Conservation Tillage in Northern and Central Europe Project – comprising UK, Hungary, Belgium and now the Czech Republic) meeting on October 5-7, 2004 at Stamford, Lincolnshire, UK was organized to discuss progress, problems and plans for the near future at the country level and for the different tasks of the project: soil (erosion), ecology and biodiversity, agronomy, dissemination – for which Godert van Lynden was the task leader. It transpired that considerable progress had been achieved at various levels. All plots have now been installed, the first one (Loddington, UK) as early as a year ago, the last one (Belgium) last spring. On these plots detailed measurements of runoff, sediment, pesticide and nutrient loss are made to compare conventional, farmer and SOWAP practices. Visual erosion surveys and rainfall simulation trials are also undertaken on these plots. Furthermore specific ar-eas have been delineated for monitoring the impact of different practices on the aquatic and ter-restrial environment. At the end of the meeting a special session was held for the WOCAT activi-ties within SOWAP (SOCAT). After the training that was held in Leuven in April this year, all par-ticipants had promised to try documenting one case study for each SOWAP site in their country (1 Technology and 1 Approach). A question was raised whether the WOCAT database would be useful for North European farmers. The response was that at least the evaluation exercise should be useful to them and in the longer run they may learn more from other experiences, especially the other SOWAP sites. See earlier SOWAP report in the same column of issue 20(3).

Abstract: Soil Macrofauna Community Structure along a Gradient of Land Use Intensification in the Humid Forest Zone of Southern Cameroon, Madong à Birang, ([email protected], [email protected]) PhD Dissertation of the Department of Soil Quality, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Wageningen, The Netherlands. 2004. 194 pp. [email protected], www.dow.wau.nl/soil_quality

The impact of land use systems (LUS) and land use intensity (LUI) on earthworm, termite and ant community structures are described as well as their relationships with the vegetation and soil pa-rameters in humid forest zones of southern Cameroon. 36 earthworm species were found, of which 1 genus and 17 undescribed species belong to 3 families. Abundance ranged from 64 and 236 individu-als m-2. Biomass ranged from 2 to 16 g m-2. A completely different and specific earthworm assem-blage was found at high LUI, while low and medium LUI blocks had a lot of species in common in the various functional groups. Earthworm surface casting decreased when fallow plots were converted to cultivated fields but this reduction depended on the type of fallow. 223 termite species were recorded of which 43% were undescribed and 6% were new genera; 80% were soil inhabiting species and 13% were potential pests to agricultural crops. The number of species found was 68% higher than the previous figure for the region. There was no significant effect of LUI but, in contrast, a strong ef-fect of LUS on termite species’ richness and abundance. 80 ant species were found belonging to 7 subfamilies. LUI and LUS had striking effects on ant communities with highest richness and abun-dance in the low LUI block, followed by medium and high LUI blocks. Ant species assemblages were rather location specific. Soil macrofaunal species’ richness and diversity were more responsive to soil and vegetation parameters than macrofaunal abundances. There is a positive relation between the structure of vegetation and soil macrofaunal community in terms of species’ richness and diversity.

The knowledge gathered on the present state of earthworm, termite and ant communities and the effects of land use change on these macrofauna in southern Cameroon constitute the baseline infor-mation necessary for the design and / or implementation of measures of conservation in which farm-ers should play a pivotal role.

Abstract: Improving Weed Management and Crop Productivity in Maize

Systems in Zimbabwe, Arnold B. Mashingaidze ([email protected]), PhD Disserta-tion of Plant Sciences, Crop and Weed Ecology Group, Wageningen University and Research Cen-tre, Wageningen, The Netherlands. 2004. 196 pp. [email protected], www.dpw.wau.nl/cwe/

Weeds are a major factor, together with low soil fertility and inadequate precipitation that contrib-

utes to the low food security of smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. Two hypotheses were tested in this study: 1. Crop management techniques that increase radiation interception by the crop increase crop yields while at the same time suppressing weed growth and seed production. 2. Strip-ping of the lowest senescing leaves and/or detasselling maize at anthesis increases maize and minor crop yield in maize-pumpkin and maize-bean intercrops. Maize-pumpkin and maize-bean intercrop-

RESEARCH NEWS AND

ABSTRACTS

ping suppresses weed growth and seed production and in general the monocrop required to be weeded three times to reduce weed biomass whereas the intercrops needed to be weeded once. Intercrops use land resources more efficiently than monocrops as indicated by LERs greater than unity.

Leaf stripping or detasselling only increased maize grain yield by removing lower leaves that were beginning to senesce and compete for assimilates with the developing cob. Leaf stripping increases both maize and pumpkin yields in maize-pumpkin intercrops. Bean yields marginally benefited from leaf stripping as beans senesced too early to benefit from increased radiation penetration to the minor crop. Planting maize in narrow rows and precision placement of fertilizer were effective in increasing radiation interception by sole maize and significantly increased maize grain yield and suppressed weed growth and seed production. Reduced herbicide dosages of nicosulfuron and atrazine were equally effective in protecting the maize from the yield reducing effects of weeds but herbicide es-capes needed to be removed by hoe-weeding, or mechanically. It was concluded that integrating cultural weed management techniques into the production practices of smallholder farmers would reduce their weeding burden and ensure high crop yields.

The 16th Global Warming International Conference

New York City, USA April 19-21, 2005 The International Conference will provide many opportunities for academicians and professionals to interact with members inside and outside their own particular disciplines. Cross-disciplinary submis-sions with other fields are welcome.

ANNOUNCE-MENTS

Call for research proposals from young scientists

The International Foundation for Science (IFS) and the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food (CPWF) are pleased to issue a call for research proposals open to young scientists. The purpose of the grants is to provide opportunities for young researchers to contribute to the genera-tion of scientific knowledge relevant for achieving food security and poverty alleviation as expressed in the formulation of the Challenge Program on Water and Food. For information regarding the call, please access the CPWF web page www.waterforfood.org for a copy of the guidelines, or the IFS website www.ifs.se.

U.S.-Israel Cooperative Development Research Program (CDR)

The U.S.-Israel CDR Program is an integral part of the United States’ program of development assistance. It seeks to strengthen the ability of scientists and institutions in the target (developing) countries to do developmentally relevant innovative research. Emphasis is on helping scientists from the target countries to obtain Israeli technology, to enhance their own capacity to do scientific research, and to collaborate with Israeli researchers. CDR focuses on problems that are especially important in target countries, and provides grant funding for target country and Israeli scientists to cooperate on joint research projects. Deadline for receipt of Pre-proposals is November 17, 2004. Contact a USAID mission in your country or e-mail to Menahem Agassi, WASWC NR for Israel at [email protected].

International Erosion Control Association’s Annual Conference Dallas, Texas, USA February 20-24, 2005

The EC05 meeting of IECA will take place in Dallas, Texas, USA during February 20-24, 2005 at

Wyndham Anatole Hotel. Join nearly 2,000 delegates from 30 countries and learn new methods that can help you prevent costly damage from soil erosion. At EC05, you will have the opportunity to attend full-day training course with completion certificates, network with experts, shop at our book-store, visit outstanding construction projects and explore the amazing market of solutions at our expo. You won’t want to miss the world’s largest conference dedicated to the control of soil erosion. Contact Kate Novak at [email protected]. For more information, call 970-879-3010 and see the web-site www.ieca.org.

TOPIC AREAS: Global warming science & policy: Carbon & greenhouse gas management: Extreme events and impacts assessment: Nao and El Niño, Global warming and the oceans, Greenhouse gas & ecosytems, Human health in a changing climate, Agricultural and forestry resources management, Water resources management, Sustainable environment and health for the 21st century, Remote sensing and global surveillance, Clean energy technology, Low greenhouse gas transportation, Edu-cation: global change & sustainable development All abstracts must be received by GWXVI by October 30, 2004 GWXVI Secretariat, P.O. Box 5275, Woodridge, IL 60517 USA [email protected], Fax: +1-630-9101561 James A. Roberts, [email protected] Prof. Sinyan Shen, [email protected], www.globalwarming.net/wrr-authorsguide.asp

III World Congress on Conservation Agriculture “Linking production, livelihoods and conservation”

Nairobi –Kenya October 3-7, 2005 Organized by The African Conservation Tillage network (ACT), Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kenya, and Kenya Conservation Tillage Initiative (KCTI) in association with New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) For more information contact: Martin Bwalya, African Conservation Tillage Network (ACT) No. 9 Balmoral Drive, Borrowdale, Harare, Zimbabwe Tel: (+263) 882107 / 851868, Fax: (+263) 885596 [email protected], [email protected], www.fao.org/act-network

First International Symposium on the Management of Tropical Sandy Soils for Sustainable Agriculture: A Holistic Approach for Sustainable Develop-

ment of Problem Soils in the Tropics Khon Kaen, Thailand November 28-December 2, 2005

Over the past 50 years significant progress has been made in ensuring food security through agri-cultural development in developing nations. Nations that once experienced devastating famines, such as China and India, are now virtually self-sufficient in food production. Whilst three of every five Asian lived in poverty 30 years ago, less than a third do so today. Virtually all of the increases in production within Asia have been the result of yield gains rather than expansion of cultivated land. Besides the need to feed a burgeoning globally population, it is estimated that approximately 800 million people are still currently undernourished, and that additional food needed by 2030 will have to increase be-tween 50 and 100% over current production levels. The task for agriculturalist and policymakers in increasing production levels is enormous and will require significant innovation. Agriculture by its very nature can effectively be viewed as a mining operation. A significant pro-portion of the land currently under production is affected by degradation associated with losses in fertility, erosion and salinization. This degradation is clearly evident on soils that are light textured and sandy that occur globally in the tropics. For example, within the Kingdom of Thailand the soils of the Northeast are dominated by sandy light textured soils with low organic matter and clay contents. Con-sequently these soils have a low water holding capacity, cation exchange capacity and hence limited buffering capacity to both anthropogenic and natural stresses. Although the annual precipitation ranges from 800 to 1,400 mm, it is often erratic and poorly distributed resulting in seasonal drought periods. However, despite the limitations associated with the natural resource base, the region sup-ports a population of approximately 20 million. It is these soils and agroecosystems that form the fo-cus of this international symposium. More importantly it is the sustainable management of these unique ecosystems that if it were not for their elevated rainfall, would be classed as unproductive deserts. These soils are ubiquitous in areal extent and support highly productive agricultural systems and plantation forestry enterprises. However, there is strong evidence to support the notion that these soils are undergoing significant degradation and their ability to support large populations is being brought into question.

The symposium will focus on the sustainable management of land and water resources within these agroecozones. It is anticipated that the symposium will provide a platform for the exchange of new knowledge and concepts in the management of these resources. We take this opportunity in inviting you to participate in this first international symposium on tropical sandy soils and do hope that this will become a regular platform for the dissemination of new management options for these unique agroecozones. Please visit our website at: http://203.209.62.252/tropicalsandysoils/ or contact the Symposium Secretary Andrew Noble ([email protected]) for further details. Christian Hartmann (L’Institut de recherche pour le développement), Chairman Narong Chinabut (Land Development Department), Co-Chairman

Summary of the Report on the International Conference on Research on Wa-

CUSTOM PRODUCTS – an advertisement

Custom Products is a small company started by Donald W. Fryrear, a WASWC member, to manufacture soil erosion equipment not available from any other company. For researchers working on wind erosion problems there may not be another source for research tools such as erosion sam-plers, wind tunnels, rotary sieves, roughness meters, etc. Information on Custom Products can be found in www.fryreardustsamplers.com. The major items manufactured are the wind erosion sam-pler called the BSNE dust sampler, a surface creep sampler, and a weighing BSNE sampler. In addition, Custom Products engineers have manufactured laboratory and field wind tunnels and soil roughness meters. Custom Products can also manufacture the compact rotary sieves for determin-ing wind erodible fraction, portable weather stations, and the VSAT (Vertical Settling Aerosol Tube) for determining aerodynamic equivalent diameters of wind blown material. Custom Products engi-neers will build unique equipment from sketches provided by scientists. From your sketches and a description of the objectives of the equipment, they will prepare construction drawings and will pro-vide an estimate of the total cost for the customers approval before construction begins.

Custom Products will also contract to weigh and analyze wind eroded material. If needed, they can consult on the layout and design of field installations. Mr. Fryrear has considerable experience in the layout of field erosion sampling procedures, and the analysis of field erosion data. He has been a mentor and worked with university students as well as scientists from countries outside the United States. Because of his past experience of instrumenting more than 25 field erosion sites and the collection of more than 40,000 erosion samples he can recommend equipment and procedures that will be best suited to any location.

Mr. Fryrear has provided expert witness testimony on wind erosion, advised on wind erosion potential and on wind erosion research programs in several countries. He is familiar with many for-eign scientists and is actively working with scientists from the Near East to minimize wind erosion and dust problems in that region.

Contact: CUSTOM PRODUCTS & CONSULTANTS, 7204 S. Service Road, Big Spring, Texas 79720, Phone: 432 393 5517, Fax: 432 393 5519, e-mail: [email protected]

Note: Members and non-members are welcome to use the pages of WASWC Newsletter to advertise their prod-ucts/ services to worldwide members; only a reasonable fee will be charged. Please contact the Secretariat at [email protected].

ter in Agricultural Production in Asia for the Twenty First Century, Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia. No-vember 25-28, 2003. Hun Yadana, CARDI, Phnom Penh, Cambodia. [email protected]

The conference addressed effective ways to use water for maximizing agricultural production and had three themes (1) Agricultural systems and efficient water use, (2) Water and land resources with emphasis on management and quality and (3) Improving agricultural productivity under water con-straints.

There were about 150 participants from Australia, China, Cambodia, India, Japan, Lao PDR, Mex-ico, The Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, The Philippines, China, Thailand, USA and Vietnam.

The Conference was co-hosted by major donors: the Australian Agency for International Develop-ment (AusAID), the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the Danish International Develop-ment Agency (DANIDA) and other donors including the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GTZ), the Australian Centre for Inter-national Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

H.E. Chan Sarun, Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries attended and officially opened the conference. Also attending the opening were H.E. Dr. Mok Mareth, Minister for the Environment and H.E. Tao Seng Huor, Vice Chairman of Council for Agricultural and Rural Development.

The conference was structured with several technical sessions, each with a keynote speaker, a selection of papers and a plenary session. A final synthesis session closed the technical program.

In summary, the conference concluded that Asia should pursue five objectives. * First, Asian agriculture should pursue increasing productivity for water, land and labor. * Second, better nutrient management was needed in Asian agriculture. * Third, in order to better manage Asia’s natural resources, more emphasis should be placed on

enhanced sustainability. * Fourth, Asian governments should emphasize assistance to farmers who were faced with addi-

tional risks and uncertainties associated with fluctuations in weather and in markets as well as risks associated with changing production systems.

* Fifth, Asian agriculture should take into account future market prospects for the various com-modities and inputs.

Note: Pictures from the conference are in the WASWC Photo website and can be seen by clicking http://community.webshots.com/album/165216432jAsfsj. The proceedings is now available (see de-tails in the Information Sources section).

Desertification in the Mediterranean Region: A Security Issue [NATO-CCMS and Science Committee Workshop on Desertification in the Mediterranean Region; A Security Issue (Valencia, Spain, 2-5 December 2003)] Summary of report by William G. Kepner, U.S. Environ-mental Protection Agency and Jose L. Rubio ([email protected]), Centro de Investigaciones sobre Desertification-CIDE, Valencia, Spain.

Security issues related to desertification in the Mediterranean Region were the subject of a spe-cial NATO workshop held on 2-5 December 2003 at the Museum of Science in Valencia, Spain.

This workshop was organized by the Center for Desertification Studies (CIDE, Valencia, Spain), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (Las Vegas, Nevada, USA), and the Desert Research Institute (Reno, Nevada, USA) on behalf of the NATO Science Committee and the NATO Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (Public Diplomacy Division). ESSC participated as a Collaborating Institution.

The Workshop focused on two basic concepts: security and environment and their linkages. Since the end of the Cold War, traditional security concepts based on national sovereignty and territorial security have increasingly been brought under review. Currently, a broader definition of security that would incorporate non-traditional threats and their causes, including environmental stress, has been advocated. Most recent research indicates that global environmental change and its subsequent socio-economic effects are likely to continue and intensify in the future. The intensity as well as the interdependence of these problems will have affects on an international scale and will begin to impact on industrialized countries more directly. These challenges call for mutual cooperation at the interna-tional level.

While arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid ecosystems of the Mediterranean Region are vulnerable to numerous threats, including pollution from current or past anthropogenic activities, the overwhelm-ing threat is from human population density and associated uncontrolled development, leading to depletion or degradation of natural resources (water, soil, biota). The predominant considerations for

SUMMARY REPORTS

environmental management decisions and ecosystem protection include understanding and estab-lishing land and resource use priorities, establishing time frames for management, using comparative evaluation and assessment analyses, and clarifying where decision authority resides (i.e. local, re-gional, national, international).

For the purpose of this workshop the organizers turned to the Mediterranean countries that in-cluded 6 NATO Member countries, 4 NATO Partner countries, and 7 countries that comprise the Mediterranean Dialogue in the Middle East and North Africa for discussion of the issue. Because the region has a long historical record of political, economic, and cultural division the workshop attracted a large and diverse participation; over 225 participants registered for the workshop and represented 22 different countries. The challenge before the workshop participants was to identify the regional causes of desertification and examine the consequences of past and future land use and physical processes, especially as they relate to international security.

The workshop was organized into five special sessions dealing with the consequences of degra-dation on social, economic and political issues (especially food security and human migration); soil and vegetation monitoring techniques and programs; water resources and management; and fore-casting techniques and advanced technologies. Desertification was not treated solely as an environ-mental problem but an issue with cultural, political, social, and economic importance. Thus the pur-pose of the NATO Desertification Workshop became eight-fold:

1. To provide a focus on land degradation in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas (i.e. deserti-fication) within the Mediterranean Region;

2. To bring together interdisciplinary technical experts and decision/policy-makers throughout both the northern and southern Mediterranean states;

3. To recognize that there are remarkable demographic differences between the North and South Mediterranean and thus there are different socioeconomic disturbance gradients as well as climatic gradients that affect environmental conditions, sustainability of resources, employ-ment, poverty, migration, and ultimately, security.

4. To evaluate the consequences of desertification to security, both in regard to the ability of the environment to provide important ecological goods and services and relative to social and political instability;

5. To open discussion on the issue of linking security to environmental conditions throughout the Mediterranean Region and to explore likely impacts on the social, economic, and political di-mensions of human society;

6. To increase the knowledge base and provide assistance in developing mitigative measures and policy to thwart social and environmental instability;

7. To encourage interdisciplinary research, especially in regard to integrating social and natural science; and

8. To promote better mutual understanding and friendly relations across the region.

Meeting and Symposium of the East African-Austrian Water Association (EAAWA), December 11-13, 2003, Mukono, Uganda. James Owino, WASWC NR for Kenya ([email protected])

The inaugural meeting and symposium of the East African-Austrian Water Association (EAAWA) took place in Mukono, Uganda. EAAWA was set up to serve as an international dialogue and ex-change platform, a springboard for research and project activities, and a forum for intensifying net-work activities in the field of freshwater research and freshwater ecosystem management. The theme of the symposium was “Linking water experts for networking and partnerships, getting active together to meet the challenges of water resources management in East Africa”. The aim of the association is to foster information exchange to strengthen international networking, and to stimulate cooperation and collaboration within East Africa in the water and education sectors. There were over 130 partici-pants representing Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Ethiopia, Austria, Netherlands and Nepal in the meeting. The participants from the African region were mainly made up of the current and former recipients of the Austrian Academic Exchange Service (AD) scholarship. The inauguration ceremony was presided over by the mayor of Mukono Town Council Mr. Ssenyonga. The topics covered in the symposium were grouped under the following subjects:

1. Freshwater ecosystem management 2. Freshwater ecosystem functioning 3. Freshwater resource management 4. Water quality and ecosystem quality 5. Fisheries and aquaculture I presented a paper on “Effectiveness of vegetative barriers in the control of crop nutrient loss and

water pollution”. The paper gave findings of a study in which the performance of narrow strips of vetiver and napier grass in reducing nutrient losses was evaluated using runoff plots. As can be seen from the subjects indicated above, most of the presentations dealt mainly with the problems of fresh-water sources, wetlands, limnology and aquaculture. Thus, most of the papers presented covered the problems facing freshwater ecosystems, with emphasis on pollution, the influence of human activities on freshwater resources and limnological parameters on the fish population in the East African water resources.

We also had an excursion to study the water issues in Kampala city area. During the tour we vis-ited Nakivubu Channel, a wastewater treatment plant, a water quality lab, Nakivubu wetlands, drink-ing waterworks and a fingerponds project site. During the tour it became apparent that the pollution problem in this area emanated from chemicals in the effluents from the sewage treatment plant and wastewater from the factories in town. The problem of sediment pollution did not appear to be seri-ous, most probably due to the good vegetation cover, which was present on most of the slopes and in the wetlands within this area.

Water Productivity in Agriculture: Limits and Opportunities for Improvement, CABI Publishing (www.cabi-publishing.org), Wallingford and Cambridge MA, in association with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), Sri Lanka. J.W. Kijne, R. Barker and D. Molden (eds), 2003. 332 pp. US$110/£60

This scholarly volume is the first in a series under the ‘Comprehensive Assessment of Water Man-agement in Agriculture’ (CA), an international research, capacity-building and knowledge sharing program, taking stock of the last 50 years of water development for agriculture, and assessing the current water management challenges and potential solutions. The CA is a timely and important exer-cise – with a commendable cross-disciplinary perspective. IWMI’s popular slogan, ‘more crop per drop’, sums up the overall goal: how can the planet’s water resources be more effectively used in agriculture?

This first product of the CA essentially sets the stage: stating the problem and offering some first insights into the potential solutions. It is neatly divided into two sections – ten theoretical chapters, supplemented by nine case studies. 43 top specialists in their various fields have contributed. There is an editor’s overview preceding these chapters, which is clearly written, and not only acts as a use-ful summary, but also helps guide the reader towards the chapters of most interest to him or her: few will read this book cover to cover. There are chapters on water use efficiency and water productivity, scale considerations, economics of water productivity, rainfed agriculture, and future scenarios for productivity based on modeling. Case studies cut across the globe, from the Far East to Sub-Saharan Africa, and span various production systems, from irrigated rice to rainfed cereals to potato growing.

We are informed in the chapter on world water productivity that – based on modeling – by the year 2025 the global average water productivity of rice (kg grain/ water used) will increase from 0.39 to 0.52 kg/m3, and other cereals from 0.67 to 1.01 kg/m3. Where will these improvements come from?

The authors point to agricultural research and better infrastructure. The general conclusions of the book are, however, that ‘more crop per drop’ is a challenge at various levels. First, yields must in-crease without corresponding increases in transpiration; second, non-productive outflows of water from watersheds must be decreased, and third, economic productivity of all forms of water must be achieved. The authors see ‘hopeful signs’ but admit that this will be a daunting task.

This is an important book – if rather daunting itself for the non-specialist in the field of crop-water relations or hydrology. This reviewer found certain parts rather hard going – and is not the only one who would have been assisted by a full glossary of terms, and a list of acronyms. What does one make, for example (with tongue slightly in cheek) of this snippet: both the increase in crop yield and reduction in WC through improvement in BE contribute to the increase in WP…? However, on a more serious note, this is a state-of-the-art contribution to the topic, and we look forward to the following volumes (no details given about how many, what titles or when…) where we look forward to more light being shed on what can be done at policy level. – Will Critchley, ([email protected]), Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands

The Conservation and Improvement of Sloping Land, Volume lll: Practical Application – Soil and Water Conservation. P.J. Storey. 2003. 349 pp. ISBN 1-57808-234-1, Science Publishers, Inc. ([email protected], www.scipub.net), P.O. Box 699, Enfield, New Hampshire 03784, USA. US$65 This is the third and final volume of Peter Storey’s trilogy on The Conservation and Improvement of

PUBLICATION REVIEWS

This is the third and final volume of Peter Storey’s trilogy on The Conservation and Improvement of Sloping Land. Volume ll dealt mainly with soil improvement while this volume deals more directly with the related subject of soil and water conservation. As with the other two volumes, this book is based on the author’s many years of practical experience in the mountainous regions of the humid tropics and aims to be a practical guide to the field worker. Part 1 of the book includes seven chap-ters of background information on soil erosion and the theory behind the use of various practices. Part 2 deals with the practical aspects of such subjects as livestock management, agroforestry, field trials, research and development and extension as they apply to soil and water conservation. The last part of the book is devoted to eight fairly lengthy appendices that provide excellent information on such practical subjects as assessing soil moisture content in the field, how to make a simple bull-dozer for a two wheeled tractor and simple methods of surveying.

Peter Storey’s views are not always orthodox and he does not mind criticizing some of the cur-rently promoted systems of soil and water conservation, such as the vetiver system widely advocated in recent years by the World Bank. However, the reader can be sure that all the practices that he rec-ommends in the book have been personally checked and tested in the regions where he has worked.

As with Volume ll, I believe that this book will be a very useful guide to many of our field workers. It is the sort of book that many field project leaders could profitably buy and provide for the staff they are training as extension workers.

– David Sanders.

Land Quality, Agricultural Productivity, and Food Security: Biophysical proc-esses and economic choices at local, regional and global levels, edited by Keith Wiebe, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham UK, Massachusetts USA. 2003. ISBN 1 84064 752 3. 461 pp.

Keith Wiebe’s edited volume is based on ‘innovative collaborative research’ brought together by

USDA’s Economic Research Service. The book is an attempt to link different disciplines and show connections and relationships between land quality, land degradation, agricultural productivity and food security. Sandwiched between Mr Wiebe’s introductory and concluding chapters are 18 others, written by such luminaries as Rattan Lal, Pierre Crosson, Hari Eswaran, Stefano Pagiola and Sara Scherr.

What the book bravely attempts is to address these issues from the twin perspectives of soil sci-ence and economics – thus linking two disciplines that tend to shy away from each other by nature. The first of five parts is dedicated to an overview of these two perspectives, the second looks at land quality in relation to agricultural productivity, the third traces land degradation over time, the fourth then examines the implications of degradation on productivity, and the final part summarizes the re-sultant policy and research challenges.

While land degradation threatens food production, its impact has been masked by increases in areas under cultivation and higher use of inputs. The world’s population may have doubled from 1960 to present, but it has been outstripped by the growth in food supply. This bald statistic, however, masks the fact that the poorest – nearly one-sixth of the world’s population - are still hungry. What’s more, these people live in vulnerable areas where land degradation and desertification are at their most virulent. However we are told that the whole debate about land degradation and productivity is hampered by a lack of precise data – and muddled by the different estimations of soil scientists and economists.

A mass of summarized statistics is presented regarding land degradation and production (many of these from well-known sources) but there is rather too much repetition. Many of the chapters open with overlapping accounts of land degradation, its extent and importance. Furthermore it is easy for the reader to become confused between the various tables presented by different authors. Rather more cross-referencing between chapters would have added value to what are a rather eclectic range of topics. The danger of such edited works is that they can end up being rather less than the sum of their parts.

Nevertheless, as a reference book, this is a valuable addition, mainly because it offers the reader critical analysis and theory from very different viewpoints. There is a good index, and particularly pleasing are the boxed definitions of terminology. Mr Wiebe’s introduction is well written, and his end summary ties up the loose ends, though the policy section gives the overriding impression that – de-spite the research carried out – we still don’t know enough about the various interactions in the title to come to definitive guidelines about what precisely needs to be done. One surprising, and rather con-troversial conclusion, is that “the available evidence does not suggest that a reallocation of research towards marginal areas is warranted”. Perhaps, this reviewer would suggest, we need to look more at the type of research we are talking about, rather than where it should be directed.

– Will Critchley ([email protected]), Vrije Universiteit, The Netherlands

Announcements or reviews for the WASWC newsletter may be sent to the President or any other Council member. Please state clearly if a publication is available free or priced (including or excluding delivery). Also please indicate the e-mail address and website. Books, Proceedings & Reports - OISCA-International Annual Report 2003 – Cultivate the Future, a 44-p report of the Organiza-tion for Industrial, Spiritual and Cultural Advancement-International (www.oisca.org), located at 6-12 Izumi 3-chome, Suginami-ku, Tokyo 168-0063, Japan. Order your copy from [email protected]. The OISCA-International serves humanity through a wide range of activities within the three pillars of De-velopment, Environment and Learning. - A Method to Identify and Evaluate the Legal and Institutional Framework for the Management of Water and Land in Asia: The Outcome of a Study in SE Asia and the People’s Republic of China, a 33-p research report by Ian Hannam, 2003. ISBN 92-9090-528-X, ISSN 1026-0862, For a copy, write to: International Water Management Institute, Colombo, Sri Lanka, [email protected]. Journals, Magazines & Newsletters - SAI (Sustainable Agriculture Initiative) Platform Newsletter, is accessible on www.saiplatform.org/sa-info/newsletters/default.htm. The new issue, No. 8, contains: * Progress of the Working Group on Sustainable Dairy Production * New Systems to Address Agricultural Production Challenges * Treaty Sows Seeds of Hope for Sustainable Agriculture; The Rising Cost of Global Warming; Scien-

tists Go Bananas for Sustainable Power Plants * Further sources of information on sustainable agriculture (and related issues) Contact for subscrip-

tion: Emeline Fellus at [email protected], www.saiplatform.org - Environment News Network Newsletter, an e-newsletter, 11-year old, with lots of information, can be accessed at www.enn.com/, and anyone can subscribe for free. Interesting that there is an ‘ENN Magazine’ coming within the newsletter, present issue (October 2004) containing following articles: Emissions Free Country; EarthTalk: Do urban trees really help reduce pollution and clean the air?; Is Agribusiness Making Food Less Nutritious?; Revealing Dhaka: The Hope of Bangladesh. An interest-ing feature of this newsletter at this time is that, it has a special section presenting the Rolex Awards for Enterprise, showing in video all award winners (in natural science, conservation, etc.) and how they had achieved them, as well as the award presentation ceremony in Paris. - E/The Environmental Magazine, a non-profit organization, located at 28 Knight Street, Norwalk, CT 06851, USA, available as paper and online. Subscription rate: US$20/year. Contact: [email protected] Institutions and Websites: The Soil Conservation Service of Iceland, Gunnarsholt, 851 Hella, Iceland. Phone: + 354-488-3000, Fax: + 354-488-3010, [email protected], www.land.is

Iceland has North Europe’s only designated, and possibly the world’s oldest, Soil Conservation Service (SCS) – it was established in 1907.

The main goals of the current law that regulates the Soil Conservation Service are the mitigation of land degradation and desertification, revegetation of eroded land and attaining sustainable land use. A Parliament agreed program gives the SCS an operational framework for the period 2003–2014. The means of achieving this program include the use of increased knowledge of the problems and possible solutions; by providing education and advice; increasing land user responsibility; im-proved legislation; and wide ranging participation. The SCS operates research and land information departments that work closely with other related agencies.

The 2004 government budget of the SCS is US$6 million. With a population of 290,000, this is equivalent to about US$21 per capita. Private sector financing is high. Carbon sequestration has also

INFORMATION SOURCES

become an incentive for restoring land health. A national survey of soil erosion in Iceland, completed in 1997 (http://www.rala.is/desert/), re-vealed severe soil erosion on 40% of Iceland and that the condition of vegetation is poor in many areas. Fighting catastrophic erosion is a legal responsibility of the government. Since 1990, there has been an increasingly participatory approach to soil conservation. The highly successful Farmers Heal the Land project includes a “cost share” partnership, with conservation work being jointly funded by the government and the farmers. The evolving Better Farms program combines the forces of soil con-servation, forestry, extension and nature conservation in aiding land users to produce their own prop-erty plans. A major step forward was taken in conservation with the current contract between the sheep pro-ducers and government. This agreement has a cross-compliance clause. Starting in 2003/2004, farm-ers must verify the sustainability of their operation to the SCS in order to obtain a full subsidy. Farm-ers not meeting standards must submit a conservation and land improvement plan for SCS approval.

– Andrés Arnalds, Assistant Director SCS, WASWC NR for Iceland Meghalaya SWC On-line or Gems on the Internet Expressway www.megsoil.nic.in/newsletter-vol6/news.htm

Internet has brought us all closer together. It has also increased the volume of information I want to consume! I recently took time to slow down on the information expressway and spent some time reading the newsletter and other material at the Meghalaya Soil and Water Conservation Department. Meghalaya is a small state in northeast India just above Bangladesh and west of Myanmar.

Four newsletters are posted with the most recent for the last half of 2003. The newsletter is clear, concise and informative. They show a very comprehensive and active soil and water conservation program. They promote such occasions as World Environment Day, Water Month and Year of the Farmer with seminars, films, and sport competitions. Meghalaya also invests in staff training through an established training centre and through hands-on tours and employee exchanges.

The website describes land management practices (good and bad) accompanied by illustrative photographs.

A ‘gem’ that I found at the website was an interesting figure of the soils of Meghalaya that accom-panied the soils map. It reminded me that we must not be constrained by the tools we use – “my graphing software only has these options...”. The Meghalaya website reminded me to think out of the box and to re-examine my own conservation program to see if I am doing all that I can.

- Tom Goddard ([email protected]) – Alberta Agriculture, Food & Rural Development, Ed-monton, Canada

www2.mozcom.com/~arldf/index.htm is the website of well-known Asian Rural Life Develop-ment Foundation (ARLDF) in Mindanao, with affiliations in several Asian countries. It shows various activities including the four famous SALT versions for farming on sloping land. www.farmingsolutions.org contains information on world hunger as well as data on populations, food security, land use, etc. www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop has a database that lists a number of well and lesser known food crops. www.moringanews.org is a website for horse radish tree, attempting to link moringa enthusiasts across the world. www.cta.nl is a website of the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation in The Neth-erlands, which allows you to access the publication Spore. The four above websites have been cited from the ARLDF Network News Vol. 2, Issue 2, obtained recently from the ARLDF International, located at Chiang Mai, Thailand, under the directorship of Jeff Palmer ([email protected]).

Meetings The organizers of meetings in the field of SWC and related subjects are invited to send an-nouncements for publishing in the WASWC Newsletter. Note: Events appearing in bold are presented in the list for the first time.

2004 - October 4-6, 2004. Int’l Seminar on Ecotechnology for Sustainable Development – Ecotech 2004,

Post Graduate and Research Department of Zoology, the New College, Chennai – 600 014, India, October 4-6, 2004. Contact: S. Dawood Sharief, Organizing Secretary, Phone: 91-44-28352584, Fax: 91-44-2835288, Mobile: 91-9840182319, [email protected], [email protected]. See more details in Announcement section, 20(2) issue.

- October 11-14, 2004. 2004 CIGR Int’l Conference “Olympics in Agricultural Engineering”, Beijing, China. Contact: Xiaoyan Wang, Secretary, P.O.Box 46, Dept. of Agricultrual Engineering, China Agricultural University, East Campus, 17 Qinghuadonglu Rd., Haidian District, Beijing, 100083, P.R.China. Phone: 86-10-62337300, [email protected], www.2004cigr.org

- October 18-21, 2004. 9th Int’l Symposium on River Sedimentation: Interaction Between Fluvial Sys-tems and Hydroprojects and Their Impact, Yichang, China. Contact: Hu Chunhong, Phone: +86-10-68415522/684156576/68413372, Fax: +86-10-68411174, [email protected], [email protected]

- October 20-24, 2004. Agroenviron-2004: Role of Multi-Purpose Agriculture in Sustaining Global Environment, Udine University, Udine, Italy. Contact: Guiseppe Zerbi, Phone: +39-328-0908099, Fax: +39-043-2558603, [email protected], www.dpvta.uniud.it/~agroenv, or Sajid Mahmood, Phone: +92-300-6607290, Fax: +92-41647846, [email protected]

- October 31-November 4, 2004. Annual Meeting of the Soil Science Society of America, Seattle, Washington, USA. See details in www.asa.cssa.sssa.org/anmeet/

- November 1-2, 2004. Int’l Workshop on Integrated Ecosystem Management (IEM): Partnership on Combating Land Degradation in Dryland Ecosystems (OP12 PRC-GEF) Beijing, China. Contact: Zhang Weidong, Project Management Office, PRC-GEF Partnership on Land Degradation in Dry-land Ecosystems (OP12), Rm 428, Debao Hotel Bldg., Xicheng District, Beijing, 100044 P.R. China, Phone: 86-10-68334597, Fax: 86-10-68334527, [email protected]

- November 2-6, 2004. World Engineers’ Convention 2004: Engineers Shape the Sustainable Future, Shanghai, China. Contact: WEC2004 Secretariat, No. 86, Xueyuan Nanlu, Haidian District, Beijing 100081, China. Phone: +86-10-62173499, Fax: +86-10-62180142, [email protected], www.wec2004.org

- November 7-14, 2004. 9th Int’l Annual WOCAT Workshop and Steering Meeting (WWSM9), Yi-chang, China. Contact: Xu Feng ([email protected]) and Godert van Lynden ([email protected]), info about Yichang: http://www.yc.chinanews.com.cn/eng/index.htm

- November 15-17, 2004. Farming on the Edge: Meeting the Challenge, Lexington, KY, USA. Organized by the American Farmland Trust to allow planners, land trusts, conservationists, farmers, ranchers to share their expertise and experiences. Contact Doris Mittasch at [email protected].

- November 17-25, 2004. 4th IUCN World Congress “People and Nature – Making the Difference”, Bangkok, Thailand. www.iucn.org, http://www.iucn.org/about/wcc/wcc.pdf

- *November 27-28, 2004. Int’l Symposium on Participatory Strategy for Soil & Water Conservation, Tokyo, Japan. Contact: Rokuro Yasutomi, Organizing Chairman, Institute of Environment Rehabilita-tion and Conservation (ERECON), 2987-1 Onoji Machida-shi, Tokyo 195-0064, Japan. Phone/Fax: +81-42-7368972, [email protected], http://homepage3.nifty.com/erecon/symposium.htm. See more details in Announcement section issue 20/4.

- December 5-9, 2004. SuperSoil 2004, University of Sydney, Australia. Contact: ASSSI, phone: +61-2-92903366, [email protected], http://www.asssi.asn.au

- December 6-10, 2004. 1st National Conference on Ecosystem Restoration, Orlando, FL, USA. It is an exciting first conference that will provide a forum for "physical, biological, and social scientists, engineers, resource managers, and decision-makers to share their knowledge and research results concerning ecosystem restoration throughout the United States". Contact: G. Ronnie Best, [email protected]

- December 8-10, 2004. Int’l Symposium on Sustainable Highland Development and Networking: Lessons Learned from the Royal Project of Thailand, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Contact: Marcus at [email protected], www.highlandsymposium.net

- December 8-12, 2004. 4th Congress on Water Planning and Management, (IV Congreso Ibérico sobre Gestión y Planificación del Agua - Ciencia, técnica y ciudadanía: claves para una gestión

NEWS IN BRIEF

sostenible del agua), Tortosa, Cataluña, Spain. Contact: João Pedroso de Lima, Phone: +351-239-797-183; Fax: +351-239-797-179/ +351-239-797-123, [email protected], www.us.es/ciberico. See more details in Announcement section issue 20/1.

- December 20-22, 2004, 2nd Int’l Symposium on Land Use Change and Geomorphic, Soil and Water Processes in Tropical Mountain Environments, Luang Phrabang, Lao PDR. Contact: Christian Valentin at [email protected]. Sources of fund to provide travel assistance to a limited number of participants are currently being sought. Participants needing travel support should contact the committee soonest.

2005 - January 18-20, 2005 Int’l Conference “Education for a Sustainable Future (ESF), Ahmedabad, India.

Contact: ESF Secretariat, Phone: +91-79-26858002, Fax: +91-79-26858010, [email protected], www.ceeindia.org/esf

- January 24-29, 2005. Global NGO Forum on Women's Progress on Agroforestry since Beijing 1995, Kampala, Uganda. Contact: [email protected]

- February 23-25, 2005. Int’l Conference on Integrated Assessment of Water Resources and Global Change: A North-South Analysis, Bonn, Germany. Contact: Eric Craswell, Global Water System Project (GWSP), Walter-Flex-Str. 3, D-53113 Bonn, Germany, [email protected], [email protected], www.giwa.net. See more details in Announcement section, 20(2) issue.

- March 7-9, 2005. The East African Integrated River Basin Management Conference. Morogoro, Tanzania. Contact: [email protected], http://eng.suanet.ac.tz/swmrg/rbmconference.htm

- March 20-23, 2005. 9th Int’l Symposium on Biogeochemistry of Wetlands, Luisiana State Univ., Baton Rouge LA, USA. Contact: Robert R. Twilley at [email protected].

- March 29-April 6, 2005. Int’l Conference on Global Soil Change: Time-scale and Rates of Pe-dogenic Processes, Montecillo, Mexico. Contact: Elizabeth Solleiro-Rebolledo, [email protected]

- April 2-9. 2005. Int’l Symposium on Regional Hydrologic Impacts of Climate Variability and Change With an Emphasis on Less-developed Countries, Foz do Iguacu, Brazil. More information on the symposium at http://iahs.info, and on the organizer, ICCLAS, at www.hwr.arizona.edu/icclas/.

- April 8-12, 2005. 5th Int’l Conference on Hani/ Akha Culture, Mojiang County, Yunnan Prov-ince, China. Contact: Messrs Zhao Dewen, Mr. Minta Minji and Bai Bibo, The Hani Culture Institute, Ethnic & Religious Affairs Bureau, Mojiang County, Yunnan Province 654800, China. Phone: +86-(0)879-4233955, Fax: +86-(0)879-4238299, [email protected], [email protected]

- April 19-21, 2005. The 16th Global Warming International Conference, New York City, USA. Submission deadline: October 30, 2004. Contact: [email protected]

- April 25-27, 2005. Int’l Study Forum on Managing Saline Soils and Water: Science, Technology and Social Issues, Riverside, CA, USA. Contact: Donald Suarez, Phone: +1-909-3694815, [email protected]

- May 16-22, 2005. International Symposium on Land Degradation and Desertification (Simpósio de Degradação de Terras e desertificação), Uberlândia, Brazil. Contact: Sílvio Carlos Rodrigues, Instituto de Geografia, Universidade Federal de Uberlândia, Brazil, [email protected], [email protected], www.ig.ufu.br/comland/index.htm

- June 6-10, 2005. Int’l Conference on Modeling Tools for Environment and Resources Man-agement Conference 2005, Bangkok, Thailand. Contact: [email protected], http://www.mterm.ait.ac.th

- June 12-15, 2005, 9th North American Agroforestry Conference, Rochester, MN, USA. Con-tact: Dean Current, 612-624-4299, [email protected].

- *June 20-23, 2005. VI Headwater Control Conference: Hydrology, Ecology and Water Resources in Headwaters, Bergen, Norway. Contact: Martin Haigh ([email protected]) and Josef Krecek ([email protected]). See more details in Announcement section issue 20/2.

- June 20-25, 2005. Int’l Symposium on “Sustainability of Paddy Farming Systems", Manila, Philip-pines. Contact: Jose Rondal at [email protected]

- July 30-August 4, 2005. Soil and Water Conservation Annual and International Conference. Roch-ester, New York, USA. Contact: Contact: Nancy Herselius, Phone: +1-515-2892331, [email protected], www.swcs.org

- September 7-11, 2005. 6th Int’l Conference on Geomorphologicy: Geomorphology in regions of environmental contrasts, Zaragoza, Spain. Contact: Organizing Secretary, Geomorphologia, Edificio C. Facultad de Ciencias, Univ. de Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain. Fax: +34-976-761106, [email protected], http://wzar.unizar.es/actos/SEG

- September 10-18, 2005. 19th Int’l Congress on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID), Beijing, China. Con-tact the Chinese National Committee on Irrigation and Drainage, Phone: +86-10-68415522/ 68416506, [email protected], www.icid.org/index_e.html

- September 19-21, 2005. XXXI CIOSTA-CIGR V Congress on Increasing Work Efficiency in Agricul-ture, Horticulture and Forestry. University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany, www.uni-hohenheim.de/ciosta-cigr.

- October 3-7, 2005. III World Congress on Conservation Agriculture, with a theme, "Linking Produc-tion, Livelihoods and Conservation", Nairobi, Kenya. Contact: Melanie Mostert, Phone: +263-4-882107, Fax: +263-4-885596, [email protected], www.act.org.zw, www.fao/act-network See more details in the Announcement section issue 20(4).

- *October 5-8, 2005. “Yundola 2005”, Forest Impact on Hydrological Processes and Soil Erosion: 40 years of the foundation of Experimental Watershed Research Basin, Yundola, Bulgaria. Contact: Elena Rafailova, [email protected], Georgi Gergov, [email protected] See more details in Announcement section issue 20(2).

- November 28-Dec 2, 2005. First int’l symposium on the Management of Tropical Sandy Soils for Sustainable Agriculture: a holistic approach for sustainable development of problem soils in the tropics, Khon Kaen, Thailand. Contact: Andrew Noble at [email protected] and see details in http://203.209.62.252/tropicalsandysoils/

- December 2005. 1st Int’l WASWC Meeting, New Delhi, India. 2006 - March 16-22, 2006. 4th World Water Forum: Local Actions for a Global Challenge, Mexico City,

Mexico. See http://www.cna.gob.mx/publica/doctos/eventos/Cuarto_Foro_Mundial/Paginas/Inicio_ingles.htm and www.worldwatercouncil.org.

- May 2006, 14th ISCO Conference, Marrakesh, Morocco. Contact: Mohamed Sabir at [email protected]

- July 9-15, 2006. 18th World Congress of Soil Science. Frontiers of Soil Science: Technology and the Information Age, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. Contact The Organizing Executive Commit-tee at [email protected], www.18wcss.org. First Announcement is available at www7.nationalacademies.org/usnc-ss/WCSS_First_Announcement.html.

2008 - Summer. 2nd Int’l Eco-Engineering Conference, Beijing, China.

2010 - July 2010. 19th World Congress of Soil Science. Brisbane, Australia. Contact: Neil McKenzie at

[email protected]

List of worldwide WASWC Officers for the period up to December 2004

Council: President: Samran Sombatpanit, 67/141 Amonphant 9, Soi Sena 1, Bangkok 10230, Thailand. [email protected] Deputy President: Michael Zoebisch, AIT, P.O. Box 4 Klong Luang, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand. [email protected] Executive Secretary: Jiao Juren, ICRTS, DSWC/MWR, Jia 1, Fuxinglu, Beijing 100038, Beijing, China. [email protected] Treasurer: Maurice G. Cook, 3458 Leonard Street, Raleigh, North Carolina 27607, USA. [email protected] Immediate Past President: David W. Sanders, Flat No. 1, Queen Quay, Welsh Back, Bristol, UK. [email protected] (Assistant Treasurer: William C. Moldenhauer, 17 Marvin Dr., Volga, S. Dakota 57071, USA. [email protected])

Past Presidents: 1983-1985: William C. Moldenhauer, USA; 1986-1988: Norman W. Hudson, UK (deceased); 1989-1991: Rattan Lal, USA. [email protected]; 1991-1997: Hans Hurni, Switzerland. [email protected]; 1997-2001: David W. Sanders, UK Secretariat: c/o International Center for Research and Training for Seabuckthorn, DSWC/MWR, Jia 1, Fuxinglu, Beijing 100038, China. Phone: +86-10-63204370, Fax: +86-10-63204359, [email protected] Secretary General: Henry Lu, Phone: +86-10-63204362, [email protected] Deputy Secretary General: Zhong Yong, Phone: +86-10-63204370, [email protected], [email protected] Assistants: Tu Xiaoning, Xu Tao, Chen Xuechun Regional Vice Presidents Africa: Mohamed Sabir, National School of Forest Engineers, BP 511 Salé, Morocco, [email protected] Zachee Boli, IRAD, BP 2123, Yaounde, Cameroon. [email protected] Paul S. Tarimo, Dept. of Agriculture and Food Security, P.O. Box 9071, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. [email protected] Asia: Dimyati Nangju, Jl Mertilang c. Jl Maleo, Blok JE8, 15, Sekt 9, B. Jaya, Jakarta, Indonesia. [email protected] D.C. Das, 19 Parijat Apartments, 4 Outer Ring Road, Pitampura, New Delhi 110 034, India. [email protected] Li Rui, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, 26 Xinong Rd., Yangling, Shaanxi 712100, China. [email protected] Machito Mihara, Tokyo Univ. of Agric., 1.1.1 Sakuragaoka Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 156-8502, Japan. [email protected] Australasia: Ian Hannam, Dept. of Land & Water Cons., 10 Valentine, Paramatta, Australia. [email protected] Europe: Martin Haigh, Geography Unit (S.S.), Oxford Brookes Univ., Oxford OX3 OBP, UK. [email protected] Eric Roose, ORSTOM, B.P. 5045, Montpellier, F 34043, France. [email protected] Georgi Gergov, National Inst. of Meteorology and Hydrology, B. Tzarigradski, 1784 Sofia, Bulgaria. [email protected] C. America/Caribbean: Pedro Ferreira, Trop Agr Res & Higher Edu Center (CATIE), Turrialba, Costa Rica. [email protected] L. America: Rolf Derpsch, Conservation Consultant, CC13223, Shopping del Sol, Asunción, Paraguay. [email protected] Ildefonso Pla Sentis, Universitat de Lleida, Av. Alcade Rovira Route 177, E-25198 Lleida, Spain. [email protected] Middle East: Shabbir Shahid, ERWDA, P.O. Box 45553 Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. [email protected] Pacific: Samir A. El-Swaify, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA. [email protected] Mohammad H. Golabi, College of Agric. and Life Sci., Univ. of Guam, Mangilao, Guam. [email protected] Pradip Baisyet, 2 Lachlan Place, Favona, Mangere, Auckland, New Zealand, [email protected] National Representatives Austria: Josef Rosner, Agric. Office of Coordination for Edu. & Res., Frauentorgasse, A-3430 Tulln, Austria, [email protected] Bangladesh: J.U. Shoaib, Soil Resource Development Institute, Dhaka 1215. [email protected] Belgium: Donald Gabriels, University of Ghent, Compure links 653, B-9000 Ghent. [email protected] Bosnia and Herzegovina: Hamid Custovic, Agricultural Faculty, St. Zmaja od Bosne 8, 71000 Sarajevo. [email protected] Botswana: Benedict Kayombo, Botswana College of Agriculture, Private Bag 0027, Gaborone. [email protected] Brazil: Antonio Ramalho-Filho, Embrapa Solos, Rua Jardim Botanico, 1024, Rio de Janeiro 22460-000. [email protected] Bulgaria: Elena Rafailova, Univ. of Forestry, Kliment Ohridski Str. 10, Sofia 1756. [email protected] Burkina Faso: François Lompo, INERA, BP 8645 Ouagadougou 04. [email protected] Canada: David Lobb, Soil Science, Univ. of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2 [email protected] Chile: Carlos Crovetto, No-Till Dev. Cen. (CEDECELA), P.O. Box 1626, Las Heras 2095, Concepción. [email protected] Colombia: Franco Obando-Moncayo, University of Caldas, Calle 65 No 26-10 AA:275, Manizales-Caldes. [email protected] Cuba: Leslie Molerio León, Gr. of Terrestrial Waters, Min. of Sci., Tech. and Env., CP 10600, Habana 6, [email protected] Czech Republic: Josef Krecek, Czech Technical University, Thakurova 7, CZ-16629 Prague 6. [email protected] Ecuador: Pedro Cisneros E., Faculty of Agriculture, University of Cuenca, Cuenca. [email protected] Estonia: Raimo Kolli, Dept. of Soil Sci. and Agrochemistry, Estonian Agric. University, Erika, EE-51014 Tartu. [email protected] Ethiopia: Daniel Danano Dale, Ministry of Agriculture, P.O. Box 62758, Addis Ababa. [email protected] Ghana: Charles Quansah, Kwame Nkrumah Univ. of Sci. & Tech., Kumasi. [email protected] Greece: Christos Tsadilas, Inst. Soil Class. Map. Nat. Agr. Res. Found., Theophrastos 1 St., Larissa 41335. [email protected] Hungary: Ádám Kertész, Geogr. Res. Inst., Hungarian Academy of Sci., Budaörsi út 45, H-1112 Budapest. [email protected] Iceland: Andrés Arnalds, Soil Conservation Service, Gunnarsholt, 850 Hella. [email protected] Indonesia: Dwiatmo Siswomartono, J. Raya Sindabarang 167, Bogor. [email protected] Iran: Hassan Rouhipour, Desert Div., Res. Inst. of Forests and Rangelands, P.O. Box 13185-116, Teheran. [email protected] Iran: Ali Najafi Najad, Watershed Mgmt Dept., Univ. of Gorgan, Golestan Province. [email protected] Israel: Menahem Agassi, Soil Erosion Res Sta., Ruppin Institute, Emeq Hefer. [email protected]

Italy: Michele Pisante, University of Teramo, Via Spagna, 1, 64023 Mosciano S. Angelo (TE). [email protected] Italy: Paola Rossi, Dept. of Agr. Science and Tech., Univ. of Bologna, Bologna. [email protected] Kazakhstan: Zulfira Zikrina, Kazakhstan Center for Pollution Prevention, Microdist. 6, 46, 59, 480036 Almaty. [email protected] Kenya: James O. Owino, Dept. of Agric Eng., Egerton University, P.O.B. 536 Njoro, Kenya. [email protected] Korea: Yeong-Sang Jung, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon 200-701, Kangwon-Do. [email protected] Kuwait: Ghulam Shabbir, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, P.O.Box 24885 Safat 13109, [email protected] Kyrgyzstan: Abdybek F. Asanaliev, Agronomy Faculty, Kyrgyz Agrarian University, Bishkek. [email protected] Latvia: Aldis Karklins, Dept. of Soil Sci. and Agrochemistry, Latvia Agric. Univ., Jelgava, LV-3001. [email protected] Lithuania: Benediktas Jankauskas, Lithuania Institute of Agriculture, Silale District LT 5926. [email protected] Macedonia: Ivan Blinkov, University "Sv. Kiril i Metodij", 1000 Skopje. [email protected] Madagascar: Razafindraboto Etienne, FCER Project, Fianarantsoa, Madagascar. [email protected] Morocco: Abdelaziz Merzouk, Institut Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan II, Rabat 10101. [email protected] Nepal: Mohan P. Wagley, Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation, Singhadurbar, Kathmandu. [email protected] Netherlands: Leo Stroosnijder, Wageningen University, Nieuwe Kanaal 11, 6709 PA Wageningen. [email protected] New Zealand: Garth Eyles, 1 Kent Ter., Teradale, Napier. [email protected] Nigeria: Olanrewaju S. Bello, Department of Agronomy, University of Ibadan, Ibadan 40. [email protected] Pakistan: M. Ehsan Akhtar, Inst. for Nat. Res. Sci., Nat. Agric. Res. Center, P.O. NIH Chak Shehzad. [email protected] Pakistan: Khalida Khan, Center for Integrated Mountain Research, Punjab University, Lahore. [email protected] Peru: Manuel Paulet, IICA Sede Central-Area II, Av Jorge Basadre 1120, San Isidro, Lima 27. [email protected] Philippines: Romeo V. Labios, FSSRI, University of the Philippines, Los Baños. [email protected] Philippines: Jose D. Rondal, Bureau of Soils and Water Management, Diliman, Quezon City. [email protected] Poland: Jan Jadczyszyn, Inst. of Soil Sci. and Plant Cultivation, ul Czartoryskcih 8, Pulawy 24-100. [email protected] Portugal: João Pedroso de Lima, Civil Eng. Dept., Faculty of Sci. & Tech., Univ. of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra. [email protected] Romania: Gheorgh Cretu, "POLITEHNICA" University of Timişoara, Timişoara 1900. [email protected] Russia: Ludmila Frolova, Dept. of Ecology, Kazan State University, Kremlevskaya St. 18, Kazan. [email protected] Serbia and Montenegro: Miodrag Zlatic, University of Belgrade, Kneza Viseslava 1, Belgrade. [email protected] Slovak Republic: Beata Houskova, Soil Sci. & Cons. Res. Inst., Gagarinova 10, 82713 Bratislava. [email protected], [email protected] Slovenia: Ales Horvat, Podjetje za urejanje hudournikov, Hajdrihova 28, 1001 Ljubljana, Slovenia. [email protected] South Africa: Rinda van der Merwe, Inst. of Soil, Climate & Water, Private Bag X29, Pretoria 0001. [email protected] Spain: Artemi Cerdà, Departament de Geografia, Universitat de València, 46010-Valencia, Spain, [email protected] Sri Lanka: E.R.N. Gunawardena, University of Peradeniya, Peradeniya. [email protected] Taiwan: Huei-long Wu, Soil and Water Conservation Bureau, Taipei. [email protected] Tajikistan: Sanginboy R. Sanginov, Soil Science Research Institute, Rudaki av. 21 A, 734025 Dushanbe. [email protected] Thailand (N): Mattiga Panomtaranichagul, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50002. [email protected] Thailand (NE): Patma Vityakon, Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen 40000. [email protected] Thailand (S): Charlchai Tanavud, Prince of Songkhla University, Hat Yai, Songkhla 90112. [email protected] Thailand (C): Nongkran Maneewan, SWCST, Land Development Dept., Bangkok 10900. [email protected] Turkey: Sevilay Haciyakupoglu, Istanbul Technical University, 80626 Maslak, Istanbul. [email protected] Uganda: John Ssendawula, SWCSU, Dept. of Soil Sci., Makerere Univ., P.O. Box 7062, Kampala. [email protected] Ukraine: Vasyl Gutsuleak, Geography Institute, Chernivtsy University, 58000 Chernivtsy. [email protected] Uruguay: Fernando García-Préchac, Faculty of Agronomy, University of the Republic, Montevideo. [email protected] Venezuela: Fernando Delgado, CIDIAT, University of Los Andes, Merída. [email protected] Viet Nam: Dao Chau Thu, Hanoi Agricultural University, Gia Lam, Hanoi. [email protected] Zimbabwe: Edward Chuma, Inst. of Env. Studies, Univ. of Zimbabwe, Box MP 167 Mt. Pleasant, Harare. [email protected] Special Representative Will Critchley, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, de Boelelaan 1105-2G, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. [email protected]

World Association of Soil and Water Conservation – WASWC M E M B E R S H I P A P P L I C A T I O N / R E N E W A L F O R M (issued 040721)

(For renewal, you may fill in only your name, country, year and amount to pay. Sending the form by e-mail is acceptable and preferred.)

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Please sign me up for the WASWC membership in category: 1 2 3 (see below)*

My membership starting year ………………. US$ …………………

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Please tick one: I would like to receive the digital newsletter in: Word (~250-300 kb), or .pdf (~400 kb),

or I do not have e-mail access and would like to receive the newsletter in paper version.

* Membership rates: The rates depend on where you are working/ living. There are 3 categories. 1. Individual membership: US$5/yr worldwide but please pay more if you can; $10-$20 is suggested. 2. Life membership: US$60 (developing country)/ US$100 (developed country). 3. Institution membership: US$50/yr (developing country)/ US$100/yr (developed country). (This form issued 030905)

▲ How to submit this form and the money: You may send this form by e-mail, fax or post.

• For countries in the Decentralization Program (DP), the program coordinator in each country will notify members how and where the fee in local currency should be sent to. Countries in the Program include: Albania, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, Lithuania, Nepal, Nigeria, Philippines, Romania, Russia, Serbia & Montenegro, Tanzania, Thailand and Uruguay. Program coordinators may send the members list and fees to a, b, c or d below. New applicants living in these DP countries can send their fees in local currency to the program coordinator, who normally is either Vice President (VP) or National Representative (NR), or send directly to a, b, c or d.

• For other countries, you may send the fee/ donations to a, b, c or d, or send in local currency to the nearest VP/ NR.

a. Dr. William (Bill) C. Moldenhauer, Vice President (Assist. Treasurer), 317 Marvin Ave., Volga, SD 57071, USA. Phone: +1-605-6279309; Fax: +1-605-6279123 Attn: W.C. Moldenhauer, [email protected]. He can receive money from US and Canadian members through Personal Check, Money Order, or Bank Draft (payable to Dr. William C. Moldenhauer), and can receive VISA and MasterCard credit cards from all over the world. b. Mr. Zhong Yong, WASWC Secretariat, c/o ICRTS, Ministry of Water Resources, Jia 1, Fuxinglu, Beijing 100038, P.R. China. Ph: +86-10-63204370, Fax: +86-10-63204359, [email protected]. Remittances can be received in the form of Domestic Money Order from within China, SWIFT Wire Transfer (see the box below) from all countries, and UNESCO Coupons from 59 countries (see details and list of countries in www.unesco.org/general/eng/about/coupon/ or ask the WASWC Secretariat). All forms should be marked “payable to the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation”, from whom and which country. c. Dr. Samran Sombatpanit, WASWC President, 67/141 Amonphant 9, Soi Sena 1, Bangkok 10230, Thailand. Phone/Fax: +66-25703641, [email protected]. He accepts Bank Drafts from every country. Mark the draft “payable to Dr. Samran Sombatpanit”. d. Dr. Machito Mihara, WASWC Japan, c/o Institute of Environment Rehabilitation and Conservation (ERECON), 2987-1 Onoji Machida-shi, Tokyo 195-0064, Japan. Phone/Fax: +81-42-736-8972, [email protected]. He can receive all forms of payment from within Japan, and can receive Visa and MasterCard credit cards from all over the world (mark in all forms of payment “payable to ERECON Japan”). Payment is in Japanese yen only; see more details in: http://homepage3.nifty.com/erecon/WASWCtop.htm. Note: To avoid hassles and bank charges due to cash transactions in certain cases you are encouraged to pay for several years or sign up as Life member. Contact WASWC Secretariat ([email protected]) if you have any problem.

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