During July 8-10, Prof. Chen Jin, director of XTBG, led a 4-person delegation (including Prof. Zhu Hua, Prof. Hu Huabin, Assoc. Prof. Wang Hong) to Laos for cooperating programs. During their visit in Laos, Memorandum of Understanding was signed with Lao Biodiversity Society and National University of Laos respectively

Entrusted by the CAS Bureau of International Cooperation, a summery meeting on the feasibility study of project which aims to help Cambodia to set up the first national botanical garden was held in CAS Kunming branch on May 31.

Prof. Dr. James P. Collins, NSF Assistant Director (Directorate of Biological Sciences), paid a visit to XTBG during May 29-30. He delivered a lecture entitled “Ecology in the 21st Century: Where do we go from here”, which arouse much interest among the scientists and students here.

Recently Dr. Liang Naishen has carried out joint research activities with scientists from the XTBG Forest Ecosystem Research Center. The scientists focused on stereoscopic observation of carbon dioxide and water at different height levels in the forest, with the assistance of documents obtained through eddy covariance of micrometeorology and chamber. They studied fluxes of carbon dioxide and water in tropical rainforest ecosystem and atmosphere.

The 3rd World Botanical Gardens Congress (3GBGC) opened on 16 April in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

Dr. Martin Giurfa, academician of French Academy of Sciences, with his wife, paid a visit to XTBG from April 12-13. During his stay in XTBG, deputy director Dr. Cao Min met and held talks with him.

Ashton's most prominent work cited by the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan is his leadership since the 1980s in research projects aimed at conservation and the sustainable use of tropical forests. (Staff file photo Kris Snibbe/Harvard News Office)

Having finished their two-year research program at XTBG workstation for postdoctoral research on biology, Dr. Aeshita Muher Jee and Dr. Burkhard Wilske are to leave the Garden in early December.

During April 5 -26, Prof. Markku Hakkinen of Helsinki University Botanical Garden, Finland, came to visit XTBG on invitation. Prof. Markku Hakkinen is a well-known specialist in Musa. He is one of the few people working on the taxonomy of the genus Musa on a large scale and working on sorting out old issues in Musa taxonomy as well as documenting new species and their place in the Musaceae.

During April 8-10, Prof. Marc van Montagu, president of the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB), and Prof. Lars Bolund of University of Aarhus, Denmark paid a visit to XTBG in the company of Prof. Yang Huanming, director of Beijing Genomics Institute, CAS.

On December 14, a 3-person Danish procuratorate delegation, headed by Director of Public Prosecutions Mr. Henning Fode, came to visit XTBG. On the next day, a 6-person Hungarian Procuratorate delegation, headed by Prosecutor General Mr. Peter Polt also visited XTBG. Their visits were accompanied by relevant procurators of Yunnan People’s Procuratorate, and the People’s Procuratorate of Xishuangbanna.