Introduction

Conception of this book began with a chance meeting between Ian Metcalfe and Iain Davidson in an Armidale supermarket one Saturday morning in 1998. Ian Metcalfe, the senior editor, had been developing the idea of a University of New England Asia Centre multidisciplinary conference on biogeography in SE Asia for some time, and Iain Davidson embraced the idea immediately over a supermarket trolly and plans were laid to obtain some seed funding for the venture. The conference crystallised when the Asia Centre agreed to provide funds to bring the keynote speaker, Prof. Robert Hall, to Armidale for the conference.