Central and Eastern European countries continued to demonstrate their strong commitment to LTER at the recent Central and Eastern European (CEE) International LTER Annual Meeting on 29 August 2002 in Zvolen, Slovak Republic. The meetings were organized by Drs. Blanka Mankovsk‡ and Julius Oszlanyi. Countries represented at the CEE ILTER Meeting included the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and the United States.
During her presentation, Dr. Edit Kovacs-Lang announced that her group in Hungary had been awarded a $1 million grant from the Hungarian Ministry of Education to expand studies occurring in several biomes in Hungary .
Sander van der Leeuw (University of Paris) suggested linking the CEE ILTER network with other countries in western Europe. There is currently an effort in the European Union to develop a European-wide network of ecological research sites. Sander offered to function as an integrator and lead proposal writer for this large group effort. The suggestion was well received and further discussion regarding this topic ensued over the next two days.
It was also decided that this quickly evolving CEE network needs to continue to meet yearly to foster more cross-country projects. Dr. Maciej Zalewski agreed to host the next CEE ILTER meeting at the International Centre for Ecology in Warsaw, Poland in May 2003. The Romanian delegation is considering hosting the annual meeting in 2004.
U. S. Representatives at this meeting included Andrzej Bytnerowicz, Jim Gosz, Brian Kloeppel, Robert Musselman, and Kristin Vanderbilt.