All Division 5 Conference

Every four years the Division holds an All-Division 5 conference. The most recent took place in Taipei, October 29th to November 2nd 2007. This time the attendance reached 340, with representation from 40 countries. A total of 365 papers and posters were presented in Plenary, Sub-Plenary and Group sessions.

Keynote Speakers were chosen to represent a mix of science and industry, all addressing different aspects of dealing with forests and wood products in our daily lives. The topical nature of the conference theme was underlined by presentations on technical issues around conservation values of the diminishing forest resource, and the need to maintain diversity in an increasingly industrialised world.  A somewhat contrasting view concerning globalisation and industrial competition was presented by the Chairman of Stylution International, a large furniture company based in Taipei but manufacturing offshore. It reminded scientists of the symbiosis between science and industry.

A pleasing feature of the meeting was the high level of sponsorship secured from both international and local sources, which allowed a strong Scientist Assistance Program to aid the attendance of over 50 scientists and 21 students from around the world.
Recommendations were made to expand the cover of Division 5 to include Pulp & Paper, since IUFRO is in a good position to provide an international as opposed to a regional forum, with a focus on tropical as well as temperate woods. Another topic discussed was the need to incorporate activities related to Wood Culture in a new Research Group. While this was not seen as a scientific group, it was considered to compliment the other activities very well and to support the beneficial nature of forestry and wood use around the world.

The theme of the conference reflected the increasing awareness of the role of trees and forests in supporting human activities. This is, of course, well recognised by forest scientists, but the message needs to be relayed more clearly to politicians and this is greatly aided by public perception. Hence a plea from Division 5 to promote the benefits of forestry and wood use wherever possible.

Howard Rosen expressed the feelings of attendees well:
“How important is the forest to the human environment?  Forests cover about 30 percent, 3.9 trillion hectares, of the total land area of the world.  Each hectare averages about 110 metric tons of biomass from which 6.6 billion of the world’s people consume a significant variety of products.  As our world population and forest products consumption continues to grow, the symbiotic relationship between forest products and the environment becomes more complex”.

Click here or go to the 'events and activities' section to view the conference documents and powerpoint presentations.