Introduction The first cross-border dragonfly symposium

Dragonflies do not care about borders and in many cases the best and most beautiful nature reserves are close to the border. The first crossborder dragonfly symposium was organised on September 19th 2003, The main goals of this symposium were: • Meeting dragonfly researchers from the other side of the border • Getting to know what they are doing on the other side • Looking for cross-border cooperation The symposium took place at Kranenburg in Germany, a village near the Dutch/ German border close to Nijmegen, the Netherlands. About forty people attended the symposium. There were a total of eleven lectures on a variety of topics in dragonfly research. • The organisation of dragonfly research in the Netherlands and North Rhine-Westphalia (Jaap Bouwman, Klaus-Jürgen Conze & Robert Ketelaar) • Status and conservation of Coenagrion mercuriale in North Rhine-Westphalia (Christian Göcking) • Ecology and conservation of dragonflies of brooks and rivers: a cross-border perspective (Robert Ketelaar) • Dragonflies of peat moors and their conservation: a state-of-the-art from Germany (M. Olthoff & M. Aletsee) • Libellen im Grenzgebiet Teverener Heide und Brunssumerheide (Ulrike Krüner) • Topical situation of FFH species and process in North Rhine-Westphalia (Klaus-Jürgen Conze) • Protection through legislation: experiences in the Netherlands (Vincent Kalkman) • The rare Somatochlora arctica needs cross-border cooperation for its protection (Jaap Bouwman) • News from Libellula fulva at the Lower Rhine area (Suzanne Kloosterman) • Three-year research on Sympecma paedisca shows some remarkable results (Evert Ruiter) Leucorrhinia pectoralis – FFH Monitoring 2004 in NRW (Thomas Hübner & Friedrich Kiel)