water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink....

....which i think sums up the water problems faced by the planet- even as I type, Planet Ark (the Reuters' environmental news arm) has details of the water problems all over the world - floods in Tunisia, Spain, Haiti and Costa Rica, while continued droughts devastate Australia and threaten the coffee harvest in Brazil.

So, it is appropriate that the next issue of Roots - out at the end of the month, is all about water. Julia and I have been working on it over the past couple of days - proof reading, writing captions, checking and re-checking the text (always a challenge with the sections in French and Spanish). Our designer will stick in our corrections, send it back to us for a final check before it goes off to the printers.

We've got some great articles from all over - Cuba, Australia, USA, Reunion and South Africa, looking at water wise garden design, water education, the role of botanic gardens in malaria prevention and an ingenious scheme for water provision from PlayPumps International. As always, there are a series of resources connected to the topic and we are including a fact sheet containing some key figures about the world's water and sanitation situation, quite an eye-opener.

I'll put up another message when Roots has been mailed out, so you know to expect it. In the meantime, many thanks go to all our contributors and fabulous group of translators who make each issue happen!