The Board of INTECOL are sad to announce that Professor Ryszkowski has died on 23 September 2006 at the age of 74. Professor Ryszkowski was a distinguished Polish ecologist who was the former director of the Research Centre for Agricultural and Forest Environment Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences. His major research interests were in energy flow in agroecosystems and in the conservation of biodiversity. He published over 360 papers and was editor or co-editor of 29 books.

Lech was a very strong supporter of INTECOL from the first. He gave a plenary paper at the First International Congress of Ecology in the Hague, and shares the rare distinction with perhaps no more than two other ecologists of having attended all the Congresses to date. He was the co-ordinator of the INTECOL working group on agroecosystems for a number of years, and was a member of the INTECOL Board from 1990-1998. He was also very much involved with helping to plan the proposed Congress in Warsaw which had to be abandoned because of the political situation.

Professor Ryszkowski remained very active in research to the end. His friends were delighted to see and hear him in Montreal in 2005, and at the time of his death, he was planning to organise a symposium at the Eco-Summit in Beijing next year. The members of the INTECOL Board extend their condolences to his family.