7:37 a.m.
Extended deadline for abstract submission: February 25th
IUFRO – Research Group “Forest History and Traditional Knowledge”
“Cultural values and traditional knowledge in the context of global
change”
IUFRO Division 9 Conference
Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, 8-10 May 2012
During the IUFRO World Congress in Seoul, Korea in August 2010, the Research
Group on Forest History expanded its scope by creating two new Working
Parties to continue the work of the IUFRO Task Force on Traditional Forest
Knowledge (2005-10). This conference will be the first meeting of our new
Research Group.
Forest and agricultural landscape management practices of local communities
based on their traditional knowledge offer insights into principles and
approaches that may be effective in coping with, and adapting to, climate
change in the years ahead. Efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change,
however, have not yet given adequate attention either to the forest-related
knowledge and practices of traditional communities, or to the interests,
needs and rights of local communities in the formulation of policies and
programmes to combat climate change.
The new draft of the European Common Agricultural Policies 2014-20,
promoting the diversification, rural practices characterized by lower
greenhouse gas emissions, and the conservation of traditional landscapes,
has clear potential for recovery of traditional knowledge and their
landscapes in Europe. However, there is the need to develop appropriate
planning tools for integrating environment and landscape into rural policies
taking into account the cultural identity . At the global level the
development of agreement between the Research Group 9.03.00 and the Food
and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to expand the FAO
project on rural heritage systems to include forest and woodlands, as well
as the work of UNESCO on biocultural and immaterial heritage, present new
research fields and challenges that need to be explored. For forestry and
foresters this will require approaches for integrating natural and cultural
values in a new paradigm that bridges the gap between nature and society,
both in research and in development policies, and improving the uneasy
relationship between, traditional knowledge and formal forest science. This
new perspective seems particularly needed especially in view of the 20th
anniversary of the Rio Declaration on environment and development and the
need for a revised post-2012 strategy for meeting global environmental and
sustainable development goals that pays greater attention to cultural
values.
Topics to be considered for the meeting: traditional knowledge, planning and
management, history, rural and forest policy, biodiversity, socieconomic
development, monitoring..
Submission of Abstracts: An abstract of approximately 500 words may be
submitted to the session organizing committee c/o Dott. Valentina Marinai,
landscape(a)unifi.it. Please include the full name of authors, their
affiliations and e-mail address. The extended deadline for abstract
submission is February 25th.
The papers presented at the conference will be considered for publication
in the international journal “Global Environment”, while the new book
series on environmental history by Springer Verlag may publish the
proceedings of the meeting.
For more information on the IUFRO Division 9 Conference, please see
http://www.iufro.org/download/file/7245/4677/all-division9-sarajevo12-1st-an
nouncement_doc/ .
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posted on behalf of Division 9 by Brigitte Burger, IUFRO Headquarters