Permanence in diversity: Netherlands Ecological Research on Edgeøya, Spitsbergen

With the publication of this special issue of Circumpolar Journal, the Arctic Centre of the University of Groningen would like to honour Piet Oosterveld as the driving force behind biological research on Edgeøya, Spitsbergen. He invested large amounts of time and energy in this research and he was an inspiration for many students. The book starts with an article about Piet Oosterveld’s Arctic activities written by Louwrens Hacquebord. After some fieldwork in Iceland Piet Oosterveld’s Arctic career really started with a wintering spent on Edgeøya in 1968-1969. In this book Piet Oosterveld’s companion Ko de Korte reports on this wintering. Some years later Piet Oosterveld was the instigator of the Reindeer Environment Expedition to Edgeøya in 1977. The most important product of this expedition, the ecological landscape map, was never published. In our opinion this ecological landscape map merits publication and fortunately Ies Zonneveld was willing to revise the article accompanying the map which is to be found at the back of the book. In this article the results of the ecological survey are presented.. The articles of Arend J. van Dijk and Hester D. Heinemeijer also deal with the ornithological and botanical results of the Reindeer Environment Expedition Svalbard. The articles of Pim van der Knaap & Jacqueline van Leeuwen and Leo M. Jalink & Marijke Nauta are dealing with other biological research on Edgeøya initiated by Piet Oosterveld. They are presented here as a tribute to Piet Oosterveld’s always stimulating energy and effort to make research in Spitsbergen possible.