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
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
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…
IUFRO Spotlight #38 – Climate Change and Invasive Alien Species Worsen Outlook for Forest Health
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.
Fighting Wildlife Crime by Fighting Illegal Timber Trade
Rapid Response to Illegal Timber Trade – Global Assessment Under Way
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.
IUFRO Spotlight #37 – Conserving Biodiversity While Managing Tropical Forests
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
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 Spotlight #36 – Responses to climate change? All knowledge counts!
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…