Upcoming election of new Executive Committee of IALE (2011-2015)
Background: The current Executive Committee (EC) of IALE is in its third year of this term and itÍs now time to initiate a new EC election process. The IALE executive committee consists of a president (currently K. Bruce Jones), a past president (currently Bob Bunce), a secretary general (currently Thomas C. Edwards), a treasurer (currently Ralf-Uwe Syrbe), a bulletin editor and deputy secretary general (currently Felix Kienast) and four vice presidents (currently Paul Opdam, Diane Pearson, Bojie Fu and Sandra Luque).
The members are elected for a four-year term, with the last general election in 2007. Two of the four vice-presidents are elected to a four-year term between the general elections. In the existing Executive Committee, Sandra Luque and Bojie Fu were elected as vice-presidents in 2009, and will thus continue after the next general election until 2013, when a new election of two vice-presidents for 2013-2017 will be launched.
Nominate candidates by 15 January 2011!!
Nominations shall be made by two members in good standing and shall be consented to in writing by the signature of the nominee. These nomination forms are due in the hands of the secretary general (Thomas Edwards) by 15 January 2011. The nomination form (.pdf) (.doc) may be used, but e-mails confirming the nomination and consent of the nominee will also be accepted, provided they are sent individually from the nominators. The members proposing the nominations are asked to enclose a short description of motives and recommendations for the nominee. The nominee is asked to enclose a short biography and a position statement for the nomination (in all not more than 1000 letters), suitable for publication. This should be forwarded together with the nomination form. More on the voting schedule....
---> Nomination form (.pdf) (.doc)
---> visit the current Executive Committee ---> visit the Statutes (.pdf) (.doc)
April 15, 2009: Bojie Fu and Sandra Luque elected as Vice-Presidents for the IALE Executive Committee (2009-2013)
From February 24 to April 15, 2009 a total of 411 members responded to the distributed material for the election of two Vice-Presidents for the IALE Executive Committee. 75% of the voters voted for two candidates, 25% voted for one candidate.
Here is the list of votes per candidate:
Boije Fu 188
Hubert Wiggering 92
Pavel Kovar 101
Sandra Luque 133
Thomas Edwards 115
Boije Fu and Sandra Luque are therefore elected as vice-presidents for the IALE Executive Committee for the period 2009-2013.
Compared to the elections in 2005 and 2007 there has been a considerable increase in the number of voters:
IALE Election 2005
Members: 1709
Voting members: 120
Voting %: 7
IALE Election 2007
Members: 1793
Voting members: 333
Voting %: 18.6
IALE Election 2009
Members: 1421
Voting members: 411
Voting %: 28.9
The nomination committee and the election board would like to thank all members that responded to the voting, and especially to the 5 candidates that were willing to run for the position as vice-presidents.
Bob Gardner
Bob Bunce
Esbern Holmes
Jesper Brandt
CVs of New Vice Presidents
Prof. Dr. Bojie Fu, the chairman of IALE-China, is a professor of Landscape Ecology in the Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences and the Director-General of Bureau of Natural Resources & Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has his Ph.D in landscape ecology and studied in UK and Belgium. His main academic achievements focus on landscape pattern and ecological processes, and land use change and environmental effects. More than 290 papers and books have been published, with about 90 in international journals, including Science. His academic work has pushed forward the development of landscape ecology in China and East Asia. In addition, He is an Executive Board member of International Association for Ecology (INTECOL) and editorial board members of domestic and international journals including Landscape Ecology and Landscape & Urban Planning. He also leads the long-term program “Chinese Ecosystem Research Network”.
Position statement: As a Vice president for IALE and host of Beijing 2011 IALE-Congress, I want to promote:
- Very good Organization for Beijing 2011 IALE-Congress, and high quality services to all members of IALE and participants
- Communications within IALE at local, regional, and international levels with specific considerations of developing countries and the Asian region
- The advancement of landscape ecology by bridging scientific innovations with the real application.
Dr. Sandra S. Luque is at present Research Director at Cemagref (Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Engineering Research), France. Native from Argentina. Did her MSc and PhD at Rutgers University (New Jersey, USA). Her PhD thesis concerned the Structure and Dynamics of the New Jersey Pine Barrens Landscape. She was a former NASA Research Fellow on the Global Change Program– Earth Observing System (EOS-USA, 1991-1994). She was among the first three Latin Americans granted this fellowship when the program opened to students worldwide. She has a broad geographical experience working in landscape ecology related issues in South America, West Africa, USA and Europe. She is motivated by a need to understand the development and dynamics of patterns in ecological phenomena, the role of disturbance and complexity in ecosystems, and the characteristic spatial and temporal scales of ecological events. She explores the human influence on the environment and ecosystems from several angles, but mainly from a contemporary global environmental change perspective.
She is an active IALE member since 1990 and currently IALE Vice-president (2005-2009), co-founder and co-coordinator of the IALE-IUFRO working Group on Forest Landscape Ecology (http://www.greenspace.it/iale-iufro/), Founder and Scientific Coordinator of a network of Latin American experts on Forest Fragmentation and Biodiversity Loss: FragForNet (http://fragfornet.grenoble.cemagref.fr/). She has a strong commitment to teaching and building capacity. She is involved in teaching since early stages of her career, facilitating landscape ecology courses on regular bases and for intensive international teaching programmes in Spanish, French and English.
Position statement: I feel I have achieved some of the key goals I set out at the time of my election for the first term as Vice-President for IALE, such as to improve communications within IALE at the international level. I co-founded a network of scientists with common goals on landscape ecology oriented research that is bridging activities between the North and the South. Also I promoted and facilitated the establishment of the Brazilian and Argentinean Chapters. Thus I am motivated to serve a second term to continue promoting IALE at the International level to encourage an active integration of the Latin American, Asian and African communities into the EC. Concrete activities needs to be developed and supported by the Association as the First Latin American IALE Conference that will take place next October in Brazil and where I am part of the organization Committee (www.eventus.com.br/ialebr2009). Continue promoting and supporting new chapters in Latin American and African regions is pivotal to the development of a truly International IALE. I am eager to promote as well educational initiatives for young researchers from developing countries in order to orient their research interests towards landscape ecology with the financial support needed. Continue developing the initiated LE-Net (IALE working group on “Landscape Ecology – Network for teaching and training), while building up a network of Universities and Institutes North-South of the Globe that can broaden up the vision of Landscape Ecology.
Statute Changes
The IALE Executive Council (EC) proposed several changes to the statutes to improve IALE‘s effectiveness and management. All of these proposed changes have been approved in the recent election. Out of the 1421 members 166 (11,7%) members responded to the request. Out of these 166 members, 144 members were in favor of the proposed changes as a whole. Four members voted against the proposed changes as a whole. 68-70 of the members (41-42%) decided to vote individually for or against the changes in the individual paragraphs:
