Dear colleagues, It is my pleasure to send you my congratulations to your position as officeholders in our new Division 9 on Forest Policy and Economics in IUFRO (which has been approved by the Board this week). Thanks to all of you who have been willing to take over the positions but as well to those who supported to establish the structure and identifying person with the experience and background to support the Division. You can find the structure and officeholders at the IUFRO web pages, http://www.iufro.org/science/divisions/division-9/. Recent changes will be done after the next IUFRO Board meeting. The aim of Division 9 is to strengthen the social dimension in IUFRO and I guess we all have the aspiration to do so. To meet the challenge a few responsibilities are linked with the IUFRO position. These responsibilities can be summarized under the following headlines: a) Lead the Unit (Research Group or Working Party) in its scientific and business activities, b) Initiate and organize meetings (ideally at least one) between the IUFRO World Congresses, c) Prepare and distribute periodic reports (which will be requested in January), d) Initiate publications and to maintain contact with the members of the group (email list, web page). I especially would like to stress the last point as IUFRO is a network and the main aim is to collaborate and to network communication is essential. For this reason I would like to ask you to use the webpage and fill in the requested information (especially those on state of the art and activities) and keep it updated as well as for using the email list of our Division. If you would like to establish own email lists for your groups, please use the IUFRO facilities as well (I would be very happy to become member of your email lists as well - that would keep me updated about the activities in the group). The use of the communicative tools supports to emphasize the activities, need and use of the different groups within IUFRO. For technical support regarding the webpage and the email list please contact Brigitte Burger ( <mailto:burger@iufro.org> burger(a)iufro.org) from the secretariat who kindly supports these facilities. The planning for the groups, aims and activities for the time from now to 2014 are the next steps that needs to be taken. Thus, I would like to ask you to finalize the aims and (rough) planning for your group. If not done already I would like to ask you to send your planning to me until the 10th of January 2011. Please send a copy as well to Brigitte Burger to get it posted on the webpage (if not done already). I will come back soon to you with more information on the planned all Division 9 meeting. Please let me know if you have any further comments or questions. You are of course welcome to contact as well the Deputy Coordinators of Division 9 Margaret Shannon ( <mailto:Margaret.Shannon@efi.int> Margaret.Shannon(a)efi.int) or Konstantin von Teuffel ( <mailto:konstantin.teuffel@forst.bwl.de> konstantin.teuffel(a)forst.bwl.de). With best wishes for the season Daniela Kleinschmit Assoc. Prof. on Forest Policy/SLU Daniela.kleinschmit(a)sprod.slu.se ---------------------------------------------------------- circulated on behalf of Daniela Kleinschmit by Brigitte Burger, IUFRO HQ