How does one decide how to manage a forest ethically?
One could simply say: do the right thing. But, the right thing for whom? And defining right and wrong – concepts that can vary according to moral climate or individual circumstance – is not all that simple.
Read more…Because of climate change, forest tree species have three options. They can adapt, migrate, or extirpate.
“The outcome depends upon the tree species and population, its genetic variation, its reproductive biology and flowering synchronization, its migration potential and whether the environments in the areas it can migrate will be hospitable enough to allow it to survive,” said Dr. Paraskevi Alizoti of the Laboratory of Forest Genetics and Tree Improvement in the School of Forestry and Natural Environment at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Since the 1980s most deforestation globally has occurred in tropical countries – Africa, South America and Asia. The high rate of deforestation and degradation contributes to the disappearance of 13 million hectares of tropical forests each year.
Managing a mixed forest in the context of environmental and social change is the focus of a recent publication put together by members of IUFRO Research Group 1.09.00 (Ecology and Management of Mixed Forests).
The structure, dynamics and functioning of such forests are increasingly relevant topics for researchers.
Read more…NOTE: This text is reblogged without any changes from the Joint IUFRO-IFSA Task Force on Forest Education blog post “Forest Education Needed in all Schools Around the World” at https://foresteducation.wordpress.com/2019/05/10/forest-education-needed-in-all-schools-around-the-world/.
Dr. Mika Rekola, representing the University of Helsinki and IUFRO, was featured on a panel discussion where he presented his background paper co-authored by Dr. Monica Gabay. The paper highlighted three key messages.
Read more…
“In recent years gender equality in forestry has received a lot of attention – or lip service, anyway – but that’s not good enough. There exist a lot of loose ends at the practice and at the policy level,” said Dr. Purabi Bose, author, social environmental scientist, filmmaker and deputy coordinator of the IUFRO Gender and Forestry Research Group.
Read more…NOTE: This text is reblogged without any changes from an article written by Hugh Biggar (Landscape News) about IUFRO Occasional Paper 32 – Global Fire Challenges in a Warming World, at https://news.globallandscapesforum.org/34468/burn-notice-fires-reality-in-the-21st-century/.
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As a result of the extreme weather driven by climate change, fires are an increasingly common fact of life globally – one that calls for new approaches to living with fire, according to a report developed by a multinational team of experts.
“Data shows a trend of increasing frequency and intensity of uncontrolled fires adversely affecting biodiversity, ecological systems, human well-being and livelihood, and national economies,” says the report from the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and the World Bank’s Program on Forests (PROFOR). Read more…
IUFRO Spotlight issues up to September 2019 will primarily focus on the XXV IUFRO World Congress that will take place on 29 September – 5 October 2019 in Curitiba, Brazil.
Individual Congress sessions will be highlighted in order to draw attention to the broader Congress themes, the wide variety of topics that will be addressed at the Congress and their importance on a regional and global scale.
Visit the Congress website at http://iufro2019.com/ or https://www.iufro.org/events/congresses/2019/.
For the first Spotlight in this series we have invited Dr. Jerry Vanclay, Chair of the IUFRO World Congress Scientific Committee, to offer a sneak peak of the attractive and comprehensive technical program and talk about his personal expectations of the Congress.
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The Society of American Foresters held seven small group dialogues throughout the United States. One of the questions discussed was how natural resources professionals—resource managers and policy-makers—find the science they need to do their jobs. 66 people attended the dialogues. Over half represented non-governmental organizations and public agencies. Elected officials, university faculty and industry practitioners were also represented.
Six Key Findings Emerged
Figure 1. Word cloud of the 68 coded and indexed major points that emerged from all seven dialogues.
On-line searches are the most popular approach. Google Scholar and ResearchGate are the favored applications. Google Scholar is a web-crawler, indexing content across most peer-reviewed on-line academic journals and many other technical documents. ResearchGate is a networking site for researchers, who upload publications to share, seek and provide answers to questions, and search for potential collaborators. Read more…
By Helinä Poutamo, IUFRO and IFSA
Community members and representatives of the Sri Lanka Forest Department share their experience with community-based agroforestry teak plantations using the taungya system–a form of agroforestry system in which short term crops are grown in the early years of the plantation of a woody perennials species in order to utilize the land, control weeds, reduce establishment costs, generate early income and stimulate the development of the woody perennials species. Photo © IUFRO 2018.