Dear colleagues and friends, As you know I will be leading Division 8 along with Jean Michel Carnus, Alexia Stokes from France and Shirong Liu from China. It will be a huge challenge to keep the Division as active as it has been over the years with the great commitment from Jean Michel and the experience from Shirong. I take this responsibility as a great honour and I will do my best to ensure success and joy for our IUFRO community. It seems that in 2018 will strengthen connections with South America which is great in order to be better prepared for our next IUFRO WC in Curitiba (2019). This year we have already a conference on forest and water in Valdivia, Chile and a conference on <https://www.iufro.org/download/file/27852/3483/posadas18-flyer_jpg/> Adaptive Management for Forested Landscapes in Transformation in Posadas, Argentina. Moving towards the North of the Americas will have the <http://www.cef-cfr.ca/index.php?n=Colloque.NAFSC-ISFS2018> North American Forest Soils Conference - for details: https://www.iufro.org/science/divisions/division-8/80000/activities/ I take the opportunity to remind everybody to keep the secretariat updated if you are planning an event so it can be listed at the "IUFRO activities and events" and also promoted by our social media channels. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you do have questions, concerns but also ideas that can enhance our community. I am looking forward working with you all, wishing you a great 2018 full of personal and professional success. My warmest wishes On behalf of IUFRO Division 8, Sandra Luque ***************************** Dr Sandra S. Luque Director of Research at IRSTEA National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture UMR TETIS Land, environment, remote sensing and spatial information 500 rue JF BRETON Montpellier 34000, France https://www.teledetection.fr/ ES Virtual Special Issue: http://explore.tandfonline.com/page/est/tbsm-vsi-ecosystem-services-nexus-th inking/ New books accessible in pdf format for free: The biodiversity sourcebook: GEO BON website: <http://geobon.org/products/books/> http://geobon.org/products/books/ Mapping Ecosystem services: <http://ab.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=12837> http://ab.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=12837