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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.
According 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…
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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.
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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.
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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 teak support program by IUFRO, TEAKNET and FAO underway
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…
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EcoAdapt aims to enhance local communities’ engagement in innovative solutions to climate change adaptation.
The project, a joint undertaking by four research and five civil society organizations from Europe and Latin America, was initiated in 2012 and is being financed by the European Union for a four-year period.
Its overall objective is to develop ecosystem-based strategies for adaptation to climate change in three Latin American Model Forests – in Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. Read more…
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The stoplight tool is essentially a simplified presentation of complex restoration initiatives, and how they may contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation and vice-versa, in a specific local context. (Image by Yougen/iStock)
Forest landscape restoration (FLR) can be a major weapon in the battle against climate change.
FLR can contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation by increasing the productivity of landscapes and by enhancing the resilience of forest ecosystems and reducing the vulnerability of forest-dependent communities.
When one considers that about 25% of the world’s land surface is being degraded in one way or another and about 15% of that land surface is considered appropriate for forest landscape restoration, it underlines both the need for significant remedial action while, at the same time, pointing to a reasonable and beneficial way to achieve that restoration. Read more…
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Coppice woodlands once provided significant shares of biomass for thermal energy in the proximity to urban areas, while representing hotspots of biodiversity. Can we adopt traditional management practices to today’s needs and still ensure sustainable production? And how can we harmonize existing guidelines to achieve this goal? The image shows a Quercus-Carpinus dominated outgrown coppice forest that is situated within the city boundaries of Vienna, Austria. (Photo by Viktor Bruckman)
Renewable resources are critical to the sustainable future of our planet. That means biomass is being looked on, in many ways, as a potential game-changer.
It is seen as a mitigator of climate change, as a source of energy and as the source for a variety of bio-based products that range from wood to bio-plastics and composite materials.
Recognizing this, IUFRO’s newly constituted Sustainable Forest Biomass Network Task Force plans to explore the potentials and the risks of further development of biomass – specifically biomass from forests.
The Task Force is one of several organized to advance knowledge under five research themes in accordance with the IUFRO 2015-2019 Strategy. Read more…
John Parrotta, the national program leader for international science issues in Forest Service Research and Development, is a co-author of “Forests, Trees and Landscapes for Food Security and Nutrition: A Global Assessment Report” recently released by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations, or “IUFRO.” The report says that although conventional agriculture will remain the major source of food for people around the globe, the link between forests and food production and nutrition could be a key to ending world hunger. Read more…
International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) President, Prof. Mike Wingfield, hosted a gathering of 20 African forestry research leaders, senior IUFRO and postgraduate student representatives during the recent 14th World Forestry Congress 2015. Read more…
