FROM THE DESK OF THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
In 2003, 56 papers were submitted for publication in Environtropica. The maiden issue was not published until April-June 2004 when only 14 of these papers were published. In July-September 2004, 12 papers were published in Volume 1 Number 2. In 2004, only 19 papers were submitted. This is probably as a result of the high rejection rate of Environtropica. This year (2005), only 16 manuscripts were submitted and we were able to publish 12 papers in Volume 2. The papers are so few that we had to combine Numbers 1 and 2 of Volume 2.
Out of the 38 papers published so far by Environtropica, 6 were published by researchers outside Nigeria. These researchers are from Germany, Brazil, Uganda, Bangladesh and Egypt. This is a nice take-off for an International Journal based in Africa. It is expected that many more authors outside Nigeria will show interest in this journal in the nearest future.
It is my pleasure to inform you that the 2005 quality assurance of publications of Nigerian academics carried out by the National Universities Commission in Nigeria rated Environtropica high. Our Journal came next to four Journals in the country with respect to International standards. (see Monday Memo. Vol. 4 No 24. June 13, 2005, published by the Office of the Executive Secretary, National Universities Commission, Abuja, Nigeria). This is an encouraging achievement for a Journal that is barely two years old. On behalf of the Editorial Board, I promise that we will improve on our perfomance and keep the flag flying.
It appears as if Nigerian academics now know that Environtropica publishes only articles that meet international standard. This is the reason why submission rate has gone down tremendously. All things being equal, we envisage submission of about 20 papers per year, out of which 12 will be published. It may therefore not be necessary to have two numbers of a Volume after this year.
The Foreword in this Volume is unconventional. It was written by a postgraduate student in Nigeria. It is a poem on the Environment which I believe will re-awaken the environmentalist in every reader. I seize this opportunity to invite young researchers to send poems such as this to Environtropica for publication as Foreword.