Preface to workshop management of carbon in tropical soils under global change, science, practice and policy
It was first decided to organize a workshop on ‘Modelling of Soil Dynamic Practices’ in 1990 at the XIV International Soil Science Society (ISSS) Congress in Kyoto after the Committee on International Programs ~ (CIP) of ISSS-sponsored Symposium ‘V 8–Global Soil Changes and their Dynamics in a Changing environment’. This topic seemed redundant when we learned that our Canadian colleagues intended to focuson similar matters during their ‘Leth- bridge Symposium’ planned for 1992 (Wood and Dumanski, 1994). By letter exchange and intense discussion with those CIP members meeting in conjunction with the symposium on soil resilience and sustainable landuse September 1992 in Budapest, we opted for a meeting on carbon in tropical soils. We thought that a focus on the African savanna might be even more urgently required than emphasis on rice soils and wetlands, with the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) there a potential host, and where high caliber expertise was available. Thus, we accepted Dr. Pedro Sanchez’s invitation to have our workshop at the International Center of Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) in Nairobi, Kenya. Meanwhile the financial problem was settled by a donor group of German GTZ, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), United States Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA), and the United States Department of Agriculture-Natural Resources Conservation Service (USDA-NRCS). As the then chairman of the Standing Committee CIP of ISSS I should thank, besides the donors, in particular Dr. Pedro Sanchez, the Director General of ICRAF, our host and Dr. Mike Swift, Director of the Nairobi-based Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Program (TSBF), who accepted the strenuous task of being the workshop conveners. Hereby I tacitly include their able cooperators. Our scientific co-sponsors, in addition to ISSS, ICRAF and the UNEP were TSBF and the International Geosphere Biosphere Program-Global Change in Terrestrial Ecosystems (IGBP-GCTE) through liaison of Mike Swift and Bernard Tinker.
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Authors
Scharpenseel H W
Publication year
1997
