Book
The Mermaid and the Lion King - Essays in honour of Hans H. de Iongh.
This liber amicorum is a tribute to Prof. dr. ir. Hans H. de Iongh, associate professsor at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) of Leiden University and guest professor at the University of Antwerp, on the occasion of his retirement on 27 October 2016.
- Author
- Editors: Gerard Persoon and Merlijn van Weerd
- Date
- 27 October 2016
During the more than 25 years at the CML he has been involved in numerous research and conservation projects related to human-wildlife conflicts in Africa and Asia. In addition, at the start of his academic career in Leiden, he was involved in research on the ecology and conservation of the dugong, an interest that is continued until the present day. Though working at an academic institute Hans always had a keen interest in the implication of research results for nature conservation. Parallel to his research work runs a long history of more applied nature conservation activities.
This liber amicorum is a collection of expressions by (former) colleagues and students who have worked closely with Hans in the course of those 25 years. In some cases a fiber amicorum can be written as an effort to bring out the (hidden) scientific relevance of the work of the laureate in a more or less coherent fashion, trying to present the retevane of the work systematically in a state-of-the-art publication. Such a book usu·ally requires heavy editing and does not allow an opportunity to the contributors to tell something about their relationship with the laureate in a more personal manner. A second type of Jiber amicorum is exactly what it claims to be: a book by friends for the person who is about to retire. Such a book is meant to tell something about the person by sharing experiences and stories from behind the scene, illustrating the man or woman behind the scientist. This book is of the second type. To a large extent the contributions are personal stories by colleagues and students who have worked with Hans in all sorts of acti· vities. Where appropriate, some pictures have been added to the texts.
The breadth of the contributions shows the incredible diversity of the work of Hans on a large number of subjects in many countries and his mark on our know ledge of the living world and on the careers of students, PhD researchers and fellow researchers.
Gerard Persoon and Merlijn van Weerd