IUFRO News
Issue 7/8, 2020

 

IUFRO NEWS 7/8, 2020

Dear Reader of IUFRO News:

We are happy to present to you double issue 7&8 of IUFRO News 2020, volume 49.

Although many IUFRO activities and events scheduled for 2020 had to be postponed to 2021 or even cancelled, we are encouraged by the extraordinary level of communication that continues among IUFRO units via email, social media and online conferencing.

These activities, along with your continued communications with IUFRO Headquarters, keep our global network thriving despite the uncertainties of these times. For this, we are most grateful.

IUFRO News Double Issue 7&8 is also available for download as a PDF or Word file at: https://www.iufro.org/publications/news/electronic-news/

You are welcome to share this newsletter with your colleagues and publish the link on your organization's website!



Best wishes,

Alexander Buck
IUFRO Executive Director

______________________________________________

To find out more about IUFRO, just visit  https://www.iufro.org and follow our blog https://blog.iufro.org/, Twitter: @iufro and IUFRO Facebook entries.

IUFRO News is widely distributed among IUFRO Members, officeholders and other interested groups. If you would like to publish in IUFRO News, contribute to the IUFRO website content or promote a publication via IUFRO Spotlight, do not hesitate to contact us at IUFRO Headquarters: office@iufro.org
 

Ozone Affects Plant, Insect, and Soil Microbial Communities and Threatens Terrestrial Ecosystems and Biodiversity

Photo showing Effects of elevated ozone on aboveground ecosystem processes. Source: Agathokleous et al. (2020).

In a new study published in the journal Science Advances, authors, including IUFRO Officeholders, provide the first comprehensive assessment of how ozone pollution can alter the structure and function of terrestrial ecosystems, and, thus, threaten biodiversity. More

 

 

 

 

News from IUFRO Headquarters: Welcoming New GFEP Team Member Nelson Grima

Nelson Grima joined the Global Forest Expert Panels Programme (GFEP) on 1 September as one of two GFEP Project Managers. Nelson will follow Andre Purret, who has held this position for several years and will continue to work in IUFRO Headquarters. More

 

 

 

 

Mark Your Calendar: 24-26 September 2021 - IUFRO Regional Conference in Russia

This IUFRO regional conference, organized in collaboration with IBFRA and IFSA, will bring together scientists, educators and students from throughout Russia, countries of the Central and Northeast Asian region, and around the world. More

 

 

Forests and Transformative Pathways to Sustainability

The IUFRO-WFSE Side Event at the 2020 High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) on 9 July 2020 event discussed the role of forests and forestry in transformative change, the levers of change across complex systems and ways to accelerate the progress towards sustainability. More

 

Two Important Surveys on Forest Education: Your Opinion Counts!

Both the EFI-IFSA-IUFRO project and the FAO-ITTO-IUFRO global forest education project have launched surveys on educating towards forest-related employment and the status of forest education, respectively. More

 

IUFRO Values Ongoing Close Collaboration with IFSA

The first digital General Assembly of the International Forestry Students' Association took place from 17-22 August 2020. IUFRO President John Parrotta delivered a welcome address and underlined the longstanding and excellent relationship between IUFRO and IFSA dating back to 2002. More

 

 

Awards

Congratulations to Prof. Mike Wingfield!

IUFRO's Immediate Past President Mike Wingfield, University of Pretoria (UP), won the "Special Annual Theme Award: Plant Health", one of this year's National Science and Technology Forum (NSTF)-South32 Awards, also known as the "Science Oscars" of South Africa. More

 

 

 

 

Dr. Richard Guldin to Receive 2020 Sir William Schlich Memorial Award

This award of the Society of American Foresters (SAF) recognizes broad and outstanding contributions to the field of forestry with emphasis on, but not limited to, policy and national or international activities. The award is presented at the SAF National Convention and will be presented this year on Oct. 29.  More

 

 

 

Wangari Maathai Award - Call for Nominations

In 2021, the CPF will award another individual for her/his outstanding achievements for forests during the XV World Forestry Congress on 24-28 May 2021, in Seoul, Korea. Nominate your candidates! More

 

Marcus Wallenberg Prize - Postponed to Autumn 2021

The 2020 Marcus Wallenberg Prize event will be held in the autumn of 2021. The Prize event was planned for October 2020. The Marcus Wallenberg Foundation has however decided to postpone the ceremony and symposium due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More

 

Obituary: Professor Nikolai Alexandrovich Moiseev

We are sad to inform you that the active IUFRO officeholder and promoter of IUFRO in the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation, Professor Nikolai Alexandrovich Moiseev, passed away on 23 July 2020 at the age of 90. More

 

 

 

 

The Distinguished Service Award (DSA) of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations: 1981 - 2019

This book by Victor Teplyakov presents biographical sketches of recipients of the IUFRO Distinguished Service Award. More

 

 

 

 

 

The Wicked Problem of Forest Policy - A Multidisciplinary Approach to Sustainability in Forest Landscapes

Stopping deforestation is crucial for the future of our planet. This book edited by William Nikolakis and John Innes, both of UBC, Canada, addresses the problems with balancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, which inevitably have crosscutting effects on initiatives to address deforestation. More

 

 

 

 

 

Newsletters

What's on in IUFRO Division 4?

IUFRO Division 4 - Forest Assessment, Modelling and Management - has started a newsletter to keep everyone connected and updated on Research Group and Working Party activities – as well as IUFRO-wide news. More

 

IUFRO-JAPAN News No. 128

Photo showing mountain in Japan. Photo by Thanapat Pirmphol on Pixabay.

IUFRO-J now has a New Chair, Dr. Tohru Nakashizuka. News Issue No. 128 contains a message from him. Reports of the IUFRO International Council Meetings in Curitiba and an annual report of IUFRO-J activities are also included in this issue. More

 

 

New on the IUFRO Blog

SPOTLIGHT #80 - Becoming Visible – Non-timber Forest Products and a Sustainable Economy

Photo showing Becoming visible - here leaves of Cinnamomum tamala, traded in thousands of tonnes. Photo by Carsten Smith-Hall.

IUFRO put the Spotlight on the IUFRO Task Force on Unlocking the Bioeconomy and Non-Timber Forest Products, which aims to support the integration of non-timber forest products into bioeconomic approaches worldwide. More

 

 

Lignin from Wood and Agricultural Waste to be used in Automotive, Mass Timber (CLT) and Construction Applications

Photo showing MSU Forestry doctoral student Saeid Nikafshar formulating lignin-based polyurethane adhesive. Photo credit: Michigan State University.

MSU and Michigan Tech researchers study using lignin from wood and agricultural waste to replace petroleum-based polyols in polyurethane foams and adhesives. Guest blog by Lauren Noel, Communications Manager for the Department of Forestry at Michigan State University (IUFRO Member Organization) More

 

 

Harnessing Synergies between Agriculture and Forest Restoration: Communities work together to restore forests - an example from Nepal

Photo showing Local people preparing field for plantation in a Mikania cleared area. Photo by Lila Nath Sharma.

Communities work together to restore forests - an example from Nepal: Jalthal forest is a 6,000 ha forested land in the densely populated region in the lowland of Southeastern Nepal. For the last two decades the forest has been vastly invaded by Mikania micrantha, which is among the 100 worst invasive species. Guest blog by Lila Nath Sharma, PhD, from IUFRO Member Organization ForestAction Nepal.  More

 

 

The World is Fighting Forest Fires in the Midst of a Pandemic

Photo showing a fire burning. Photo by Skeeze on Pixabay.

Read this interview with Dr. Andrey Krasovskiy published in French. Dr. Krasovskiy is a Research Scholar working with the Ecosystems Services and Management Program (ESM) of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and a member of the IUFRO Task Force "Fire$: Economic Drivers of Global Wildland Fire Activity": More

 

 

More News from Members

"Detecting Tree Pests in under Two Hours with PCR Test", and "Deforestation Is Not Inevitable, but a Political Choice"

Photo showing scientist/researcher Richard Hamelin, UBC, in forest. Photo credit: Paul H Joseph/UBC.

Read about a new rapid DNA detection method developed at the University of British Columbia can identify certain tree pests and pathogens. Also find an article entitled "La déforestation n'est pas une fatalité, mais un choix politique" published by CIRAD researchers in the French newspaper "Le Monde".  More

 

 

Research Papers

The Ethics of Isolation, the Spread of Pandemics, and Landscape Ecology

Photo showing Deforestation and landscape encroachment in the South of Chile, Araucania Region (@S. Luque)

This editorial of ‘Landscape Ecology' by João C. Azevedo, Sandra Luque, Cynnamon Dobbs, Giovanni Sanesi, Terry C. H. Sunderland is motivated by a webinar organized by the IUFRO Forest Landscape Ecology Working Party held on June24th, 2020. More

 

 

COVID-19-induced Visitor Boom Reveals the Importance of Forests as Critical Infrastructure

Photo showing hikers in a forest. Photo: Silviu Costin Iancu on Pixabay.

This article in 'Forest Policy and Economics' by Jakob Derks, Lukas Giessen, Georg Winkel (EFI, Bonn, Germany) aims to illustrate the impact that the measures against the spread of COVID-19 have on forest recreation. More

 

 

IUFRO Website Features

IUFRO Blog
Noticeboard
Proceedings Archive
Scientific Summaries
RSS Feeds
Newsletter Archive

______________________________________________


IUFRO News Double Issue 7&8, 2020, published in early September 2020
by IUFRO Headquarters, Marxergasse 2, 1030 Vienna, Austria.

Available for download at: https://www.iufro.org/publications/news/electronic-news/
Contact the editor at office(at)iufro.org or visit https://www.iufro.org/ 

If you wish to unsubscribe from IUFRO News, please reply to this newsletter by e-mail (burger(at)iufro.org).

Imprint: https://www.iufro.org/legal/#c10402