Dear Readers,

I am writing this in mid-October, having only recently returned from Australia. Those of you who were not able to make it this year to enjoy the conference missed a great opportunity to share insights with other IMWA members, and explore part of what is, for most of us, another continent, with unique wildlife, trees, and flowers. Instead of a boring photo of conference participants, here is a photo my wife took of some wild parrots enjoying the bounty of leftovers at an adjacent table—one of many great memories from down under! The conference proceedings, like virtually all of our conference proceedings, are available on-line at: http://www.IMWA.info/imwa-meetings/proceedings.html. I mention this because I recently learned that some of you were not aware that our conference proceedings are so accessible. If you can’t make it to any of our annual meetings, you can still read what was presented there. But do try to make it to our 2013 conference, in Golden, Colorado, at the Colorado School of Mines; the details, including when your abstracts and papers are due, can be found on the following page, and at: http://www.IMWA2013.info.

I am pleased to announce the winner of our journal’s annual Best Paper Award for 2011. Application of a Peat-humic Agent for Treatment of Acid Mine Drainage by Anna A. Bogush and Vladimir G. Voronin [30(3):185–190]. Unfortunately, neither Anna nor Vladimir could make it to the conference this year, so we shipped it to them; here is a photo of Anna with the award (taken, I believe, by her husband). International Advisory Board members are undoubtedly already scrutinizing all of the papers that we published in 2012; if you have a favorite paper, feel free to e-mail our Board members and let them know—they are all listed on the inside front cover of this journal.

I should have just enough space to let you know that we have squeezed 8 papers into this issue, covering a wide array of topics that we believe you will find interesting. Personally, I think this journal keeps getting better and better, and I hope you do as well. I thank our authors, our reviewers, our hard-working associate editors, and the staff at Springer; without all of them, this would not be possible!

Best wishes to all of you for a joyous and festive holiday season.