关键词: 草地, 草地生物多样性, 草地与环境, 草地与人类可持续发展

Abstract: Grasslands 2000"was given as the theme for the ⅩⅧ International Grassland Conpress,June 8-19, 1997, Winnipeg and Saskatoon, Canada.It shows that this congress has been an important value in history.A total of 1189 delegates from 94 different countries took part in this congress.More than 1200 papers were submited by delegaes and all of those papers were divided into 30 different special themes,in order to at least touch all facets of grasslands.The thirty themes were also grouped into three categories i.e.plant, Animal and Grassland and each category represents a specific area of interest.The main contents of the three categories include the conservation, evaluation and utilization of plant resources; conventional and novel methodologies for plant improvement; forages in cropping systems; animal intake and foraging strategy; supplementary pasture and seasonal balance of animal forages; grazing system ecology and grazing management; grassland resources and ecology of grasslands; biodiversity of grassland; grasslands and environments; social and economic aspects of grasslands; pastural agroforestry;grasslands with sustainable development of humankind and so on.This paper will be a general introduction on these three categories mentioned above."Grasslands 2000",the title of this paper,was used to emphasize the importance of the historical review on grassland development.We will have a brigh 21 centry and a new millennium of grassland when we can obtained fully the knowledges and experiences from the past 2000 yeare, 70 years of International Grassland Congress and the ⅩⅧ International Grassland Congress.

Key words: Grassland, Biodiversity of grassland, grasslands and environments, grasslands with sustainable development for humankind