Dear Colleague, I've realised that I should have sent you more of the "forest-stories" sent out by the IUFRO in advance of the upcoming World Congress. I believe you got the two first stories with the season's greetings that the beech coordinator team sent out about two month ago. Here you have the 3rd story and two more will follow shortly after this. Best Palle Madsen Dear Palle, 2010 is a very important year for IUFRO since the XXIII IUFRO World Congresses will be convened from 23-28 August 2010 in Seoul, Republic of Korea. The IUFRO World Congress will also be one of the largest global forest events in 2010. In this context I am pleased to announce the release of the third story relating to the XXIII IUFRO World Congress: CLIMATE CHANGE ADDS TO FOREST THREAT. It contains information about the services that forests provide to us and in what manner climate change is affecting the health of our forests and trees. For additional information about this or any previous IUFRO news stories don't hesitate to contact us. I would like to wish you a successful year 2010 and hope to see you at the IUFRO World Congress! Peter -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Peter Mayer - Executive Director International Union of Forest Research Organizations IUFRO Headquarters - Secretariat Mariabrunn (BFW), Hauptstrasse 7 - 1140 Vienna, Austria Tel.: +43-1-877 0151-0 - Fax: +43-1-877 0151-50 Website: http://www.iufro.org - Email: mayer(at)iufro.org -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- CLIMATE CHANGE ADDS TO FOREST THREAT 3rd in a series of releases related to the XXIII IUFRO World Congress English (pdf) - Spanish (pdf) - French (pdf) - German (pdf) (Vienna, 11 January 2010) - Only healthy forests can provide many important services upon which we rely - air quality and water cycle regulation; biodiversity and soil protection; carbon sequestration and mitigation of climate change, and social and cultural value. Forest health has long been threatened by insect pests and diseases accidentally moved to new areas. More recently, climate change has become one of the greatest threats to forest and tree health, says Elena Paoletti, senior scientist at the Institute for Plant Protection of the National Council of Research of Italy. She adds "Climate change and air pollution pose new threats to forests and change their ability to tolerate stressors." Historically, climatic extremes, air pollution, insects and disease have been the main factors adversely affecting forest health. Understanding how these stress agents are affected by, and respond to climatic change is fundamental to our efforts to mitigate the impacts of a changing environment. Adaptive forest strategies must be developed. She notes that, among other issues, climate change is resulting in the expansion of distribution ranges of some insect pests and pathogens. These range shifts have the potential to be permanent and to have significant implications on the future health of the world's forests. Dr. Paoletti will coordinate a sub-plenary session at the 2010 IUFRO World Congress in Seoul. The aim will be to update forest scientists and managers regarding new breakthroughs in the field of forest tree health and especially to better understand the multi-faceted aspects of climate change. You may find the original date of release for each story with a link including translations, media contacts and illustrations here: http://www.iufro.org/media/iwc2010-news-stories/jan10-forest-threat/.