Interview with Don Koo Lee, Professor Emeritus, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea

Keynote speaker at the IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania – Forests for Sustainable Development: The Role of Research

iufro-ao2016-interview-keynote-dklee-lee-with-captionProfessor Lee, the overarching theme of this IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania is “Forests for Sustainable Development: The Role of Research”. When you gave your opening speech as President of IUFRO at the XXIII IUFRO World Congress 2010 in Seoul, you stressed the importance of sustainability, equity, growth and development and the need to understand that “Forest is our life, our hope, and our future.”

Q: What would you say has been achieved in the quest for sustainable development since the 2010 IUFRO World Congress?

A: Since then the important role of forests for life, hope and future has been further strengthened internationally by collaborative partnership activities, (e.g. co-research, advanced studies, site visits, trainings, conferences, etc.) especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as nationally by the Forest For Life National Movement in Korea. Read more…

IUFRO Spotlight #40 – Biological Invasions: An Undesired Effect of Globalization

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Increasingly, the trend of globalization causes many species to be moved around the world and into areas in which they have never before existed.

Unfortunately, when organisms are moved out of the regions where they evolved and transported to new regions where there are few or no natural limiting factors – predators, as an example – populations can sometimes explode with profound impacts on the new and vulnerable territory. Read more…

Governance and Forest Landscape Restoration at IUCN World Conservation Congress 2016

Summary on a session held at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, Hawai’i, USA, on 3 September 2016

The purpose of the session was to better understand governance challenges related to forest landscape restoration (FLR) implementation, and options to address these. The session was organised as follows: Stephanie Mansourian introduced the subject of governance and FLR. She was followed by four case study presentations: Nadine Crookes from Parks Canada, John Crockett from the US Forest Service, Gérard Rambeloarisoa from the Madagascar Biodiversity Fund and Chris Buss from IUCN, and then 20 minutes of questions and discussion. A total of 30-40 participants attended the one hour session. Read more…

Interview with Professor Makoto Yokohari Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan

Keynote speaker at the IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania – Forests for Sustainable Development: The Role of Research


The Role of Forests in Urban Green Spaces

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Professor Makoto Yokohari, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Japan

Professor Yokohari, landscape and urban planning, urban ecology, and ecological landscape design are at the core of your academic interests. The IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania draws attention to the particular role that forests play for the sustainable development in urban and peri-urban areas and has identified “Urban forestry for human health and community well-being” as one of its key themes.

Q: Urban green spaces have significantly gained in importance worldwide in view of rapid urbanization of society and the development of megacities. What are the major benefits of urban green spaces in general?

A: Three clusters of ecological functions, or benefits, can be listed, which are “human comfort”, “conservation of physical environment” and “conservation of biological environment”. The first cluster includes functions as landscape conservation and recreational uses, the second includes microclimate control and water retention, and the third includes conservation of ecosystems and biodiversity. Read more…

Interview with Dr Elspeth MacRae, Scion, New Zealand

Keynote speaker at the IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania – Forests for Sustainable Development: The Role of Research

Forests and the Bioeconomy: challenges and opportunities

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Dr. Elspeth MacRae. Scion Photo

Innovative technologies for bio-energy, bio-materials and other products will be one of the major themes at the IUFRO Regional Congress for Asia and Oceania on 24-27 October 2016 in Beijing, China. Dr Elspeth MacRae leads wood and fibre processing activities, including biorefinery, biodiscovery and bioplastics at Scion, New Zealand. Her keynote speech will highlight state-of-the-art biotech research and the role of bioproducts. Read more…

IUFRO Spotlight #39 – Governments Reclaiming Role in Forest Certification

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Many governments are reclaiming a role that had been pretty well ceded to ENGOs and other private organizations over the past few decades – state governance of forest certification.

spotlight39-forest-certification-with-logosAccording to the authors of From governance to government: The strengthened role of state bureaucracies in forest and agricultural certification, this has become more noticeable following the recent rise of state-driven schemes for certifying timber legality as well as palm oil production in places such as Indonesia.

Their report sums up findings from a variety of recent studies and suggests, they say, that public administrations are beginning to reclaim certification authority through state-led mandatory schemes as part of a trend away from “transnational private governance to international state-driven governance.” Read more…

IUFRO Spotlight #38 – Climate Change and Invasive Alien Species Worsen Outlook for Forest Health

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As global trade has expanded, there has also been an accompanying increase in invasions of insects and pathogens into areas where they never before existed.

In many cases these invasions have caused significant forest damage, negative economic impacts and loss of forest ecosystem services.

Meanwhile, climate change is affecting the geographic distribution of host trees and their associated insects and pathogens. Increased pest impacts – both native and alien – can be expected.

Read more…

Fighting Wildlife Crime by Fighting Illegal Timber Trade

Rapid Response to Illegal Timber Trade – Global Assessment Under Way

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The theme of this year’s World Environment Day (WED), celebrated on 5 June 2016, is: “The Illegal Trade in Wildlife”. As timber and timber products fall into this very category, this is bringing a hot topic of forestry into the limelight: illegal timber logging. While there is plenty of scientific literature on this subject, a systematic assessment and synthesis has so far been lacking. Now the Global Forest Expert Panels (GFEP), an initiative in the Collaborative Partnership on Forests (CPF) under the coordination of IUFRO, is tackling this task in a Rapid Response Assessment on Illegal Timber Trade.

gfep-illegal-timber-blog-banner Read more…

IUFRO Spotlight #37 – Conserving Biodiversity While Managing Tropical Forests

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Measurement of tree dimensions in permanent sample plot in the Tapajós National Forest, Brazil. Photo: Angela Luciana de Avila

Managed forests are important landscape components in tropical regions. But an understanding of the response of the forests’ biodiversity to silvicultural interventions has been limited.

Finding out more about how that biodiversity responds was a fundamental question behind the research leading to the publication of Medium-term dynamics of tree species composition in response to silvicultural intervention intensities in a tropical rain forest. Read more…

Global Significance of Teak – Present and Future

Global teak support program by IUFRO, TEAKNET and FAO underway

apfw16-teak-event-1 Experts from the Asia Pacific region and from overseas convened in a side event at the Asia-Pacific Forestry Week, in Pampanga, Philippines, on 24 February, to discuss the way forward in promoting teak (Tectona grandis) as one of the major high-value tropical timber species. Current trends show that global demand for and importance of teak will significantly increase as a business opportunity for the private sector and as a means of income for smallholder farmers. Read more…

IUFRO - The International Union of Forest Research Organizations