Latinamerican Botanical Congress in Cartagena

From: "Dr. Tom Croat" Thomas.Croat at mobot.org> on 2001.06.01 at 19:08:13(6670) informaci?n { HYPERLINK "mailto:congrbot@ciencias.unal.edu.co" }congrbot@ciencias.unal.edu.coVIII Congreso Latinoamericano de Bot?nica II Congreso Colombiano de Bot?nica Dear Aroiders: I have just gotten a posting from the organizers of the Eighth Latinamerican Botanical Congress to be held next year in Cartagena in October (no specific date set yet). Since at our last International Aroid Conference (the VIII International Aroid Conference which was held here in St. Louis at the Missouri Botanical Garden) someone suggested the possibility of having an intervening aroid conference before the one scheduled at Kew Gardens (which as I recall was not to be until 2005). The Latinamerican Botanical Congress was mentioned as a possibility. The reason I am writing now is that if our community wishes to do this we need to get into the planning of the conference because the organizers are going to be chosing the quantity, titles and lengths of conferences to be held. According to the preliminary forms I received our choices would be a 3 hour or 6 hour conference and If we are to do this I would suggest the longer format since I don't think that we would have much trouble filling a 6 hour sequen ce (recall that we had three full days of paper sessions at our VIII International Aroid Conference). Clearly, we would need to get someone in Latin America to be the principal spokesperson but Simon Mayo, who has close contacts with the Brazilian researchers or myself who works closely with the Andean researchers, would probably have to be involved at some stage. I am copying some of the Latin Americans whom I am not certain are on Aroid-L in this message. Others without e-mail I will contact separately. As most of you know Colombia is not currently an easy place to visit, at least as a professional botanist, owing to their restrictive collecting laws but I am hoping that as the result of hosting the VIII Latinamerican Botanical Congress they will make efforts to loosen the restrictions. In any event Cartagena is a lovely Caribbean port with a unique colonial archtecture and considerable history so it is a wonderful place to visit. I am sure that regardless of the restrictions that there will be many local trips planned, no doubt to include the Serrania de Santa Marta, a place which I am very anxious to see. I would appreciate any comments any of you might have regarding the possibility of an aroid conference in Cartagena. I would especially like to hear back from those of you in Latin America and from Pete Boyce and Simon Mayo at Kew since I would not want to in any way affect attendance at the conference in Kew in 2005 (Also please correct me on that date if I am wrong). Ron Isles. I will try to somehow get you these forms if I can figure out how they can be reproduced electronically so that you can have them put into the next Aroid Newsletter. Some of you may want to attend (as I would) whether we actually have an aroid session or not and you may wish to send in this preliminary form so that you will be put onto the mailing list. There is an e-mail address at the head of this message which can be used to find out more information.

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