Dear friends and colleagues,
As we cancelled the all-Division 7 conference in Istanbul that was planned for April 2016 (due to safety concerns), the Research Group coordinators, deputies and I have been thinking about options for a postponed or replacement all-Division conference.
We decided to use the opportunity to schedule our all-Division 7 meeting embedded within the upcoming
125th Anniversary IUFRO Congress next year (19-22 September 2017, Freiburg, Germany, see http://iufro2017.com/ ). This will be a special Congress, with participation from all of IUFRO,
celebrating the 125th Anniversary of IUFRO. A number of other IUFRO Divisions will be embedding their all-division meetings within the congress and we (Div. 7) were invited to do so too. It is indeed an excellent opportunity to meet in Freiburg, and joining
this helps to keep things simple because the congress organising team is helping with the organisational aspects and the venue. Incidentally, Sandy Liebhold (Deputy Div. 7 and Entomology RG coordinator) will chair the Congress Scientific Committee (for the
entire congress).
We are also planning a field trip and Hervé Jactel (INRA, France) offered to organise it. This will likely include visits to forests in the Vosges Mountains (to see and discuss some forest health issues) as well as wine tasting in the Rhine
Valley.
We encourage you all to consider submitting a session proposal for the all Div. 7 portion within the conference.
The deadline for session proposals is 15 June 2016 (see http://iufro2017.com/call-for-session/ ). In contrast to the IUFRO World Congress, IUFRO officers are welcome
to organize sessions at the Freiburg congress around working party themes. We also may propose the sessions that were planned for the cancelled conference in Istanbul at the 125th Anniversary Congress so organizers of those session are welcome to resubmit
them here too. When submitting a proposal online, be sure to check the box indicating that the proposed session would be in the embedded all-Division 7 meeting.
Regarding safety concerns in Europe, as Freiburg is a relatively small city and most probably not a prime target for any malicious activity, it should be safe enough to encourage your participation.
Regarding other options for Div. 7 meetings, there are already a number of working party meetings planned. An overview of the ones coming up has been given in our recently published annual report, seehttp://www.iufro.org/download/file/23800/2797/70000-annual-report-2015_pdf/ ).
More information on upcoming events is also given on the IUFRO website athttp://www.iufro.org/events/calendar/current/
Please get in touch with us if you have any thoughts or questions about this. And please consider submitting a session proposal for the 125th Anniversary Congress.
Eckehard ("Ecki") Brockerhoff, Coordinator IUFRO Division 7, Forest Health
eckehard.brockerhoff@scionresearch.com
On behalf of the Research Group coordinators:
Elena Paoletti, Coordinator IUFRO RG 7.1, Impacts of Air Pollution and Climate Change
Jolanda Roux, Coordinator IUFRO RG 7.2, Pathology
Andrew (“Sandy”) Liebhold, Coordinator IUFRO RG 7.3, Entomology