Hiroko Isoda & Atsushi Kawachi 
Sustainable North African Society 
Exploring Seeds and Resources for Innovation

The authors are glad to present this book as a unique overview of the multidisciplinary collaborative research between Japan and North African countries, along the 10-year pathway of the Alliance for Research on North Africa (ARENA) existence at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. Initially, the history of ARENA is briefly described in the first part. Sequentially, four main areas of study are presented: bioresources, water resources, energy resources and human and social development, providing insights of the availability of those resources and related emerging problems, caused by the fast-paced changes in human activities in North Africa during the past decades. Furthermore, the authors included an appendix with profiles for six North African countries, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania. This book is intended to provide comprehensive information about the biodiversity and natural ecosystems, coupled with a critical point-of-view and future prospective from multidisciplinary contributors, focusing on regional problems and the effective utilization of natural resources, with encouraging suggestions toward working out answers to the question – "Could there be a better future for North African countries?". This valuable source of information may be useful to universities, research institutes, governmental and non-governmental organizations among others, ultimately targeting professionals from academia or industry as well as students at different levels. By the advent of ARENA’s 10th Anniversary, it is our utmost objective to strengthen the collaboration between Japan and North African countries, while endeavoring future challenges such as those related to climate changes, global warming, desertification, and scarcity of natural resources.