Mangroves and Halophytes: Restoration and Utilisation

Abstract

During 2005 the editors of this volume started toenlarge the work of the international society ofhalophytes utilisation (ISHU) from their previousconcentration of the Old World to include also theNew World. In this region the main interests on halophyteswere reported from North America. We hadalready used a number of species from this regionin the field experiments of the ISHU projects aroundthe Mediterranean Sea, but little was known aboutthe performance of these species in South America.Some of our members were interested in using speciesfrom this region in other areas of the world, butbefore doing so they wanted more information aboutthe performance of these species in competition withnative plants in the new environments.From the South American regions one of theeditors (Lieth) had long time experiences withsalinity problems and had worked with scientistsin Venezuela and Colombia. Other members of theISHU group of scientists had interest in startingprojects in the region as well. It was therefore convenientfor the entire group to renew the contactswith the scientists from this region, although theworking conditions as well as the political environmenthad drastically changed.With the help of our old friends and the generoushelp of the DAAD section for South America, it waspossible to develop in 2005 the cooperation with theecological section of IVIC in Venezuela. The newpolitical and public awareness situation in Venezuelamade it possible for the new director of IVIC, Dr.M. Garcia-Sucre, to establish international cooperationon the coastal ecosystems protection, which wasneeded because of the heavy impact the oil and gaspipelines had inflicted upon several of the mangroveecosystems as well of the inland semidry areas.Several members of the European ISHU and severalVenezuelan colleagues contributed to the seminarsin IVIC/Caracas and several German Universitiesin Osnabrueck, Giessen, Bremen and Hanover. Thisvolume compiles the papers presented at these meetingsas well as contributions which were triggered bythese seminars.It was advantageous for the work on this volumethat OSTRin Brigitte Herzog agreed to cooperate withthe other members of the group on the seminars aswell as in the publication of the volume. She had previouscontact with several persons in Venezuela andwith some of the persons contributing to the volumefrom Germany.We thank all foundations and private individualswho contributed to the project and made it possible tolink their work, mostly done in countries of the OldWorld, with projects of interest to the New World.