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Activities and events

TF Resources for the Future: Transformation in Forest Use

No upcoming meetings found for Task Force on Resources for the Future: Transformation in Forest Use.


Calendar of Meetings

Task Force events

Planned

  • Workshop at the University of British Columbia; Vancouver, BC, Canada; October 2018.
  • Workshop at the Federal University of Technology; Akure, Nigeria; May 2018.


Past

Sessions at:

  • XXV IUFRO World Congress; September/October 2019; Curitiba, Brazil.
  • IUFRO Anniversary Congress; September 2017; Freiburg, Germany. 
  • Commonwealth Forestry Conference; Dehradun, India: April 2017.
  • IUFRO Asia-Oceania Congress; Beijing,  China; October 2016.
  • XIV World Forestry Congress; Durban, South Africa; 9 September 2015.Session flyer - Session programme - Report - Meeting Notes 

Proposed Task Force activities, deliverables and timelines

A roundtable of experts will be formed to discuss and further dialogue on sustainable transformation in forest use, entitled 'Resources for the Future: Transformation in Forest Use.' Invitees will include leading global experts from government, industry, academia, NGOs and Indigenous groups, to be held in Dehradun, India, University of British Columbia, in 2016. Invitees will not be restricted to IUFRO affiliates, since we wish to engage not only scientists, but also practitioners, decision makers and policy makers.. Coordinators (or their chosen delegates) of relevant IUFRO Working Parties and Research Groups will be invited to this meeting. Potential participants (identified to Research Group only) are listed in the following table:

Unit NameUnitName
1.00.00J.P. Skovsgaard5.12.00R. Deal
1.03.00S. Chauhan6.01.00F.S. Jensen
3.04.00W. Chung6.10.00D.H. Anderson
3.05.00S. Berg8.02.00A. Mosseler
4.04.00R. Marusak9.02.00M. Kallio
5.07.00H.J. Bae9.04.00S. Kant
5.10.00E. Hansen9.05.00L. Giessen
5.11.00A.L. Hammett



The Wicked Problem of Forest Policy will be published by Cambridge University Press in October 2018. There are 15 chapters in the book, which examine important topics such as the political drivers of deforestation, the potential for forests to solve complex economic and social problems, and solutions to complex and wicked problems. Authors include Arild Angelsen, Jeffrey Sayer, Esteve Corbera, David Kaimowitz, Marlene Elias, Anne Larson, and Frances Seymour (among others). The book offers important advancements to knowledge and practice."

A special issue was prepared in June 2016, for the journal Environmental Conservation, focused on the development of payments for forest environmental services and other institutions that enable a transformation in forest use. Details at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/63E323995101A2B73F73836EFFEF372A/S0376892917000017a.pdf/evaluating_incentivebased_programs_to_support_forest_ecosystem_services.pdf

Budget table listing major activities and funding sources, if known – indicate if these funds are already secured.

At present, no funding has been secured. Funding for the activities of the proposed Task Force (specifically the Round Table) will only be sought after it is known that IUFRO has approved its creation.

Locally, there are various funding sources available, including through the University of British Columbia, the Province of British Columbia and Natural Resources Canada, but these can only be accessed once the Task Force has been confirmed. It is likely that multiple funding sources will be needed as the cross-sectional nature of this Task Force means that very different groups are involved (for example, the funding from British Columbia and Canada is restricted to understanding the transformation of the Canadian forest sector, and could not be applied to understanding transformation in other parts of the world. (It is precisely this narrow-minded approach that the Task Force is seeking to change). 

NARRATIVE

The 2-year Task Force will work from the premise of 'interconnecting forests, science and people", by actively encouraging inter-disciplinary thinking. The Task Force will be focused on outcomes. These will aim to identify ways to directly address social, economic and ecological dynamics through the creation of institutional and governance arrangements to encourage successful transformation in resource use to address the challenges confronting forests. The Task Force will aim to support the ideal of evidence-based policy by actively linking forestry practitioners, scientists and policy makers. In doing this, the Task Force will support the institutional goals of IUFRO's 2015-2019 Strategy, these being: research excellence, network cooperation, and policy impact. A particular emphasis of the Task Force will be the linking of individuals from different parts of the forest sector, especially forestry practitioners and policy makers. In a previous Task Force, a good working model was established, and it is intended to maintain the momentum that this has established.

Cooperation with the IUFRO Divisions and their various sub-groups, as well as with some of the other structures within IUFRO (such WFSE), will be essential. With email communication being less successful than anticipated, the April Board meeting will be used to develop further contacts with the existing IUFRO structures. The anticipated involvement of Divisions in different aspects of the Task Force is described below.

With its focus on developing adaptive and transformative institutions and governance structures, as well as instruments, the Task Force will encourage knowledge mobilization on forest governance, forest for livelihoods, and social values for forests, which are emphasis areas in the theme, 'Forests for People.' This will bring together IUFRO Divisions 1, 4, 5, 6, and9.

The Task Force will also bring insight to ways to adapt to climate change, a focus of theme 'Forests and Climate Change'. In particular, the Task Force will help identify adaptation and mitigation strategies in the development of institutions, as well, with its focus on market-based instruments, the Task Force will bring insight to ways to deal with biodiversity and invasive species, and identify pathways to address the impacts of climate change for forest-dependent peoples. This part of the Task Force will bring together IUFRO Divisions 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.

Market-based instruments, which are an important focus for the Task Force, and the results from which will be published in a special issue of Environmental Conservation, will also address the themes of 'Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Biological Invasions' and 'Forest, Soil and Water Interactions.' The Task Force will draw on the expertise and experience of forestry practitioners and policy makers who have developed payments for forest environmental services programs, and identify lessons in the design of such arrangements. The development of payments for forest environmental services represents a transformation in the recognition of what were once non-market values, now being recognised and treated as market values, in decisions over resource use. This approach has the potential to enhance sustainability, especially economic and social outcomes for forest-dependent peoples involved in these programs, and ecological outcomes as externalities are priced into decisions over resource use. This part of the Task Force will bring together IUFRO Divisions 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9.

The Task Force will identify institutions, governance arrangements, policies  and instruments that can influence forest resource use, with focus on transformation in the kinds of forest products derived from forests, which comes under the ambit of 'Forests and Forest-based Products for a Greener Future'. This includes products to compete in the bio-economy with non-renewable products, in response to the challenges facing the globe and its forests. This part of the Task Force will draw on the work of industry experts, scientists and policy makers, and their experiences, in order to understand the kinds of institutions and instruments that can help facilitate a transition to the bio-economy. This part of the Task Force will bring together IUFRO Divisions 2, 5, 6, and 9.

While the Task Force will draw on the wealth of experience and knowledge in the Divisions of IUFRO, it will not attempt to replace or duplicate the knowledge that is being developed by them. Instead, it will focus on working primarily with forestry practitioners and policy makers, with a particular interest being to bring the extensive knowledge that has been developed outside the academic environment to the scientific community. Experience indicates that this is a seriously neglected area, yet for forest science to be useful, it must be applicable. In recent years, there has been a divergence between the work undertaken by much of the scientific community and on-the-ground forestry (in areas as diverse as REDD+, climate change adaptation, community forestry, forest governance, GMOs, etc.), and the Task Force will focus on bringing together these disparate groups.

The Task Force will link in with broader processes with governments, and institutions such as the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), and Australian and Canadian Government initiatives, and the Commonwealth Forestry Association. The Task Force will also link in with the FAO's State of the World's Forests: Enhancing the Socioeconomic Benefits from Forests in 2016; the World Forestry Congress 2016, where we plan to hold an event entitled: 'Resources for the Future: Transformation in Forest Use'; and the European Union Forestry Strategy. Opportunities exist to collaborate with other policy processes or interdisciplinary science-policy initiatives such as Natural Resources Canada's Pulp and Paper Green Transformation Program, and climate change initiatives.


Send comments to John Innes (Task Force Coordinator)