Ladies a n d g e n t 1 e m e n , I have the pleasure to welcome you here in Prague in the name of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and to open the Fifth Inter national Colloquium on Soil Zoology. We are very glad that Czecho slovakia was chosen for this important meeting. It is clear to all of us that the soil plays and will play a de cisive part in providing food for the explosive increase of human pop ulation. For this reason we watch with great anxiety the negative influence of human activities on the environment accompanied also by the other destructive intervention into the soil ecosystem, its devas tation by inefficient management, application of herbicides and pesti cides pollution by the waste products of industry and human settlements. The basis for solving these accumulating and now sometimes latent prob lems is among others a good knowledge of the role of soil organisms in the cycles of materials and in the energy flow. Soil zoology as a part of soil biology is still at the beginning of this trend The lack of in formation about life in soil is obvious when compared with the results of a related biological science dealing with the water ecosystem.
