China is an ancient country with a rich cultural legacy. The diversity of cultural landscapes has gained much attention from all over the world, in addition to the beautiful natural landscapes. By organizing the IALE World Congress, we wish to draw more attention from international scientists, and establish a platform for them to start cooperative research projects in China. We will welcome all IALE members and interested individuals to participate in this congress in Beijing. We expect that participants will enjoy the stimulating academic atmosphere at these meetings.

Here is a brief summary of the preliminary themes (please send in other suggestions to Prof. Bojie Fu, bjfu [at] cashq [dot] ac [dot] cn): Cultural landscapes: Dynamic relationships between nature and society; Integrating landscape ecology with sustainability: Meeting the challenges of humanity; Landscape change and modeling in quickly developing regions; Habitat and bio-conservation; Long term ecological research at multi-spatial scales; Landscape and urban planning: the role of human beings in nature; Urbanization; Creation of landscapes.