Guest Editors’ Preface

This special issue of Bird Conservation International represents a sample of contributions made during the International Symposium on Galliformes held in Peninsular Malaysia during 7-21 September 1997. The World Pheasant Association (WPA) and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, Peninsular Malaysia, jointly organized this meeting in collaboration with two Specialist Groups: those responsible for the conservation and sustainable use of pheasants, and of partridges, quails and francolins (PQF). This was the second meeting involving the PQF Specialist Group (founded in 1991), and the seventh one for pheasant specialists, although the first since the founding of the Pheasant Specialist Group in 1993. The symposium started with three days of presentations and poster sessions at the comfortable and wellequipped Melaka Paradise Resort. Virtually all those attending then moved to the Kuala Tehan Resort inside Taman Negara National Park for a further three days. Here, in more rustic but nevertheless comfortable conditions, several informal workshops were held, whilst everyone had an opportunity to explore the surrounding tropical jungle on foot, by boat or via the magnificent canopy walkway. If nothing else this convinced most people how difficult it is to study Galliformes species, or indeed any other animals, in such an oppressive climate with so much vegetation and so little light! Following this phase of the meeting, a limited number of young Asian field workers were taken by Philip McGowan and John Carroll to the Wildlife Department's field research base at Kuala Lompat in Krau Game Reserve, where their individual research goals and problems, and field and data analysis techniques, were discussed by the group at great length.