The publication ceremony for the new book “Land Use Planning and Policy”, the second book of “Ecological Book Series” sponsored by Ministry of Land and Resources, the Embassy of Federal Republic of Germany to China (hereunder is referred to as German Embassy) and UNESCO Beijing Office, undertaken by the latter two and our institute, was held at German Embassy on the afternoon of June 30th, 2006.

Mr. R.Jauakumar, programme specialist for Science, Technology and Environment of UNESCO Beijing Office presided at the ceremony. Mr. Yasuyuki Aoshima，representative of UNESCO Beijing Office, Mr. Werner H Lauk， Minister of German Embassy, Mr. Huang Zongli, Director of International Cooperation and Science Department of the Ministry and Mr. Lin Jiabin, author representative from the Development Research Center of State Council, presented the opening speeches respectively. At the ceremony, Mr. Yasuyuki Aoshima and Mr. Werner H Lauk respectively presented the books to the Director Huang Zongli, representative of the Ministry and Mr. Liu Wenjia, Member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the former vice-director of Land Administration Bureau. The book of “Land Use Planning and Policy”, the second book of “Ecological Book Series” is an outcome of the International Conference on Land Use Planning and Policy: Sustainable Land Use Decisions in Economically Dynamic and Densely Populated Areas (hereunder is referred to as International Seminar) held in 2004, which was jointly sponsored by UNESCO, German Ministry for Education and Research(BMBF), Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources and undertaken by UNESCO Beijing Office and our Institute. It took two years for the specialists from UNESCO, Germany and China to compose and publish the book. The book holds not only the elaborately selected core contents of the lectures of well-known attending specialists, both nationally and internationally, but also some highly distillated constructive suggestions, providing us with so much precious advanced international experiences, concepts and methods learnable for the undergoing development of the general land use planning revision in our country. Director Huang Zongli said at the meeting that China would seriously consider the constructive suggestions in the book, learn the advanced international experiences, seek the balance between the land use for agriculture, construction and ecology with environment protection and rationally utilized land resources.

Representatives of some related national and international agencies were also invited to attend the ceremony, including United Nations Development Program, Delegation of the European Commission of European Union,, The Ford Foundation, Sino-Germany Research Center, German Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers Beijing Office, German Tech-Cooperation Company, Earth Biological Diversity Sustainable Management Program of German Tech-Cooperation Company, Chinese Environment Sustainable Development Reference Research Center Besides officers from State Environmental Protection Administration of China, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Science and Technology，Development Research Center of State Council and the related specialists from Chinese Academy of Social Science, Remin University, China Agricultural University, Zhe Jiang University were also invited