Preface

Abstract

The Great Lakes of the World (GLOW) Working Group was established by the Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management Society (AEHMS) in 1996 and was followed by the convening of the first GLOW symposium in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe during the summer of that year. The success of that first conference resulted in the AEHMS launching a continuing series of GLOW symposia to promote interaction and communication amongst great lakes and large lakes researchers from all parts of the planet. The GLOW symposia were designed to establish a global platform where ecosystem-based studies dealing with the structure, function, and performance of large lake ecosystems are promoted, organized and synthesized. In addition, GLOW encourages ecosystemic science-based management of these extensive natural resources in an integrated, multi-trophic and multi-disciplinary fashion. GLOW activities are globally known, not just from the symposia, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, from the resulting peer-reviewed publications. These publications include both special issues of the journal Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management (AEHM) and books released under the banner of the Ecovision World Monograph Series (see list of publications in Tables 1 and 2).GLOW VII in Bujumbura, Burundi, was the 5th symposia in the series to be organized in Africa, which helped to ensure the participation of African scientists, students and managers. We are pleased to report that in Bujumbura, a majority of papers presented were from Africans. The program consisted of 49 platform and 7 poster presentations which were categorized into the following sessions: Lake TanganyikaLake VictoriaOther lakes and ecosystemsPanel discussion and synthesisTwenty manuscripts were submitted to the journal for publication and subjected to the rigours of peer review by the AEHMS. Eleven papers survived the review process and were then technically and linguistically edited by the AEHMS before their inclusion in this special issue. In the celebratory article Congratulations Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management Society, its president, its boards and all staff at the secretariat, (2013) Van der Knaap reviewed publications on the African Great Lakes with African scientists as first authors and credited African success to the GLOW symposia held there. Figure 1 depicts the successful promotion of the African Great Lakes studies by the AEHMS and its journal.We greatly appreciate the assistance of the Organizing, Scientific and Local Arrangements Committees towards the formulation of this meeting, especially Henry Mwima, Martin Van der Knaap and Kaitira Katonda, for their enthusiasm and support. We sincerely thank the members of the Conference secretariat, namely Lisa Elder, Jennifer Lorimer, Susan Blunt, Robin Rozon and Mark Fitzpatrick for their hard work. The financial assistance of the Lake Tanganyika Authority and the African Development Bank are gratefully acknowledged.We sincerely hope that this special issue on GLOW VII will be a unique and landmark contribution to the African Great Lakes literature and will generate new energy and momentum for the continued success of the AEHMS-GLOW Working Group. On that note the next symposia, GLOW VIII, is to be held on the shores of Lake Malawi in June 2014.M. Munawar Co-Chair, GLOW VII, President & Chief Editor, AEHMSM. Van der Knaap Lake Tanganyika Authority, Bujumbura, Burundi