This is the first Issue of Volume 9 and a good moment to reflect briefly on the past year and our plans for the coming year.
In 2012, the submissions to our Journal continued to grow both in quality and in quantity (we received 20% more submissions) and the first, double issue of 2012 was a Special Issue on ‘Quantifying and Mapping Ecosystem Services’ with many renowned authors, edited by Benjamin Burkhard, Stoyan Nedkov and Neville Crossman (one of our Associate Editors). We would like to thank them for their excellent coordination of this interesting special issue, which was published as a result of the 4th ESP conference in Wageningen, The Netherlands (www.es-partnership.org).
Another indicator for the increasing visibility and quality of the papers is that 4 of the top 10 most-cited papers have been published since the Journal's scope and name was changed (in 2010 (Issue 6)), and 15 out of the top 20 most-read papers date from the last 3 years. Considering new papers generally take some time to be picked up, read and cited, it is encouraging that such a large share of papers have already reached the top 20.
You can find all this information on the renewed website: www.tandfonline.com\tbsm (the abbreviation TBSM still dates from the time before 2010 when the Journal did not yet have ‘Ecosystem Services’ in the name).
Another important feature in 2012 was that there were (at least) three big global conferences dealing with Ecosystem Services: the 5th ESP conference in Portland (August), the EcoSummit in Ohio (October) and the ACES-ESP conference in Ft. Lauderdale (December). By coincidence, all the three took place in the United States.
Important events in the coming year dealing with ecosystem services are the 6th ESP conference in Bali, Indonesia (26–30 August 2013) (www.espconference.org) and the 1st IPBES Science Conference in Bonn, Germany (January) (www.iisd.ca/ipbes/ipbes1/).
Several Editorial Board members are actively involved in the organisation of these conferences, which provide an important opportunity to discuss progress with the science and application of the topics addressed by our Journal.
Regarding the Editorial Board, I am very pleased to be able to announce that a third Associate Editor has joined us: Dr. Gunhild Setten from the Department of Geography, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim. Together with Neville Crossman and Carsten Smith-Hall, this team covers the main aspects of the subjects addressed in our Journal. One area that is still a bit underexposed in the Associate Editor team, and in the Editorial Board, is the role of genetic diversity in the provision of ecosystem services and the importance of natural resources to local communities. We receive quite a few manuscripts on these topics, and if you (i.e. as our reader or author) are interested in strengthening the board, please let us know.
This first issue of 2013 includes an interesting mix of papers, both geographically and topic-wise: the first three papers deal with impact assessment and implications for management in forest systems in India, Malaysia and Nepal. Then there are two papers dealing with participatory natural resource management in Bangladesh and Australia. The last two papers touch upon two very different subjects: Kuiper and Bryn discuss the interaction between forest regrowth and pilgrim routes in cultural heritage sites in Norway and Bhattacharya and Managi assessed the contribution of the private sector to global biodiversity protection.
We wish you enjoyable reading and a fruitful and productive 2013 (and do not forget to submit your own work to our Journal!).
Rudolf de Groot
Editor in Chief
Alexander van Oudenhoven
Managing Editor