The January 2023 issue of IUFRO-Japan News features: - a Participation Report on the ALL-IUFRO CONFERENCE 2022 KOHSAKA Ryo, The University of Tokyo; - a Report on IUFRO OKINAWA 2022: Progress in Small-scale Forestry beyond the Pandemic and Global Climate Change MAEDA Chiharu, University of Hyogo; - a Participation Report on the IUFRO Okinawa 2022 HAYAFUNE Masato, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute; - Participation Report on the IUFRO Conference Division 7 – Forest Health, Pathology and Entomology Lisbon 6-9 September 2022 NAKAMURA Katsunori, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute; - Report on Participation in the 5th International Conference on Radioecology & Environmental Radioactivity in 2022 KOMATSU Masabumi, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute; - Information of "XXVI IUFRO World Congress 2024"; and - a Notice from the Secretariat.

These exceptional scholarships are awarded to Ukrainian scholars to enable them to carry out scientific research on environmental change and biodiversity loss, and/or human socio-cultural responses to them at the University of Oulu. Funding covers living costs in, and travel to/from Oulu, and is currently available for stays of up to six months. Open to researchers holding a PhD or currently enrolled in a doctoral programme. Grantees will work in Oulu, conducting research on environmental change and biodiversity loss, and/or human socio-cultural responses to them. For an application, a CV and a 2000-word research plan are required.

Read about the International Symposium on Intersectoral Cooperation for Resilient Landscapes in Dehradun, find out about recent and upcoming Forest Mensuration and Modelling Chats, other IUFRO meetings and more…

Contributions are invited for a special issue of the journal Forests, on the topic of 'Modeling Aboveground Forest Biomass: New Developments'. Forest biomass modelling is crucial to its monitoring and storage. However, biomass in stands and forests varies according to the species, stand structure and site. Biomass models can be developed using data obtained destructive sampling, forest inventory, remote sensing and ancillary. There is a wide range of data science methods and techniques currently applied in order to fit the models and evaluate their uncertainties. Biomass models can be utilized in order to produce management alternatives. This Special Issue aims to offer an overview of the various data sets and modelling methods currently employed to develop biomass functions, as well as their applicability at both the tree and area levels.

Mendel University in Brno announces a selection procedure for the position of Academic Research Fellow for the Department of Forest Protection and Wildlife Management. The successful candidate will work in the research fields 'plant ecophysiology', 'root physiology' and 'root ecology'. S/he will: - Engage in research and teaching activities within the Czech Republic and on the EU level; - Publish research results in high-impact journals; - Supervise MA and PhD theses in the selected scientific domain; - Teach MA-level and PhD-level courses; - Participate in dissemination activities; - Organise research and development activities; - Building research collaborations inside the MENDELU and developing fruitful partnerships with research groups outside of MENDELU; - Actively seeking research and development funding and leading grant projects.

Forests are increasingly under pressure. More frequent disturbances due to climate change, such as wildfires and windthrows, but also impacts from invasive pests and extensive use are affecting the health of forest communities. Seed production of tree species plays an important role in the adaptation of natural and commercial forests to the new reality, as it drives both the spatial and temporal spread of natural regeneration, but also influences afforestation using seedlings from tree nurseries. In the temperate zone, seed production of common tree species tends to be highly variable between years and synchronized spatially, a phenomenon termed masting. The aim of this symposium is to bring the current state of research on masting to a broad professional and lay audience and to discuss how monitoring of seed production in European forests can be improved, to what extent forecasts can be developed based on historical relationships with weather and other factors, and how such data and forecasts can benefit forestry, conservation, and public health.

Effect of climate change on northern ecosystems, carbon balances of forest soils, remote sensing of ecosystem change, modelling of climate change responses using empirical models, field measurements of forest stands, open data resources for climate change, spectral responses of plants in response to stress. The course is an international collaboration arising from the Eco2adapt EU project. The training will include theory lectures, on climate resilience and remote sensing, practical exercises and a field trip to disturbed areas. Other subject studies are dynamics of boreal forests and forestry in the boreal region. Participants will have the opportunity to work in groups, learning how to retrieve remote sensing data, detect and analyse forest change, classify data, as well as making predictions of forest damage (i.e. disturbances).

The Chair of Tropical and International Forestry grants a "Forest Governance Scholarship for PhD" dedicated to research on "Forest Farmers’ Organizations in timber value chains: Financial performance, power, and governance". The funding period of the scholarship is 36 months, starting ideally in October 2023. The candidate will be associated with the Velux Stiftung-funded project "EmPOWERing forest farmers’ organizations for driving landscape restoration through timber value chains in the tropics (emPOWER)", with envisaged research options at partner universities in Vietnam and Tanzania. Project background: The emPOWER project aims at the empowerment of forest farmers’ organizations (FFOs) as actors within timber value chains and wider value networks in Vietnam and Tanzania. This comprises various work packages at the farm forestry, forest farmers’ organization, and value chain levels to analyze the trade-offs in the study landscapes. It includes power analyses among value chain actors and their networks.

The candidate will ideally focus on forest farmers’ organizations as the unit of analysis. This could analyze the organizational decision-making, financial profitability and financing mechanisms of selected FFOs, with the view to determine practical potentials for their improvement in the governance of timber value chains. The PhD candidate will need to travel for fieldwork, publish peer-reviewed articles, and employ knowledge transfer methods. The detailed research will consider the candidate’s background and interest, and guidance of the supervisors Prof. Dr. Lukas Giessen and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Pretzsch, and the postdoctoral researcher/coordinator Kendisha Hintz. Beside publications, research results may be transferred to the MSc program "Tropical Forestry", envisaged knowledge transfer workshops with timber value chain actors, and policy briefs for the study countries.

The BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards recognize and encourage world-class research and cultural creation, prizing contributions of singular impact for their originality and significance.

Candidates may be one or more natural persons of any nationality, without limitation of number, that have made independent or convergent contributions to a given advance, whether due to a formal collaboration (with the nominees belonging to one or more groups) or parallel working. The awards are also open to scientific or cultural organizations that can be collectively credited with exceptional contributions to sci- entific knowledge, cultural creation or the fight against climate change.