was the overall topic of a workshop organized by the ZEF/UNESCO project in Khorezm, Uzbekistan. The workshop took place in Tashkent and Urgench, Uzbekistan, from May 27-29 2008. Around 70 participants attended the workshop, which was co-organized by the State University of Urgench, and held in the conference hall of the Uzbek Ministry of Agricultural and Water Resources (MAWR) (Tashkent) and in the Mamun Academy in Khiva (near Urgench).

We announce that the first issue of the new, free, open access, peer-reviewed, e-journal Water Alternatives has been posted on June 1. The table of contents is given below. The site address is www.water-alternatives.org, where you can register for alerts and find more information on the journal. Water Alternatives appears three times a year. The next issue is due October 1.

The latest edition of the newsletter of the Center for Development Research (ZEF) "ZEF news" is now available online. This edition is a special issue on Biodiversity which was produced for the 9th Conference of the Parties (COP9) of the UN Convention on Biological Diverstiy (CBD) which took place in Bonn from May 19-30 2008.

Biodiversity is a central research topic at ZEF and our biodiversity research is oriented towards the CBD. In the context of the CBD, biodiversity was recognized – internationally for the first time – as the basis for sustainable development.