Report of a Panel Discussion at the 20th IUFRO World Congress
Background
Two major initiatives are currently underway: a) the Inter-Governmental Panel on Forests of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development and (b) the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development. Both of these initiatives are highly dependent on material supplied by others, since they have a broad scope and a very limited amount of time available to them. Both are faced with complex issues such as the assessment and prediction of the effects of sustainable forest management, the underlying causes of deforestation and forest degradation, improvement of the efficiency and coordination of bilateral and multilateral assistance, the sustainable and equitable use and management of forests, the effects of global change on forests and the role of science in conflict resolution. These are all issues to which IUFRO could make a significant and influential contribution and it is important to know if the Union is achieving this and the views of the other organizations of the role and potential activities of IUFRO. To determine this, a panel discussion was organized at the 20th World Congress in Tampere, Finland, with panellists coming from a variety of international organizations with information needs.
Participation
The following organizations were represented:
Views were expressed by other organizations, including UNEP; International Society of Tropical Foresters; Subtropical Forest Institute of China, International Plant Genetic Resources Institute; and the Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forestry (BELF), Germany. After the meeting further views were expressed in writing by the World Conservation Monitoring Centre and these are incorporated here.
A number of points were raised by the Panel members and participants in the ensuing discussion. Rather than reproducing each panellist's points individually, they have been summarized in the following listing. The needs and wishes expressed by the panellists have been indicated here by suggestions as to the actions that IUFRO might take.
Pro-Active Role for IUFRO in International Discussions
IUFRO needs to participate more actively in international discussions. Often, there is a need for the rapid provision of scientific information, and although IUFRO could be in a position to supply this, groups such as the Commission of the European Communities feel that the supply of expert scientific information has been inadequate. IUFRO should be present in international fora, and should help set the agenda for groups such as the Inter-Governmental Panel on Forests. IUFRO should achieve this through a formal presence in fora where such issues are being discussed or through representations to national delegates. The IGPF is clearly one such forum, but others include the FAO, ITTO, World Forestry Congress and regional groups. IUFRO may have to actively seek to participate in such fora, rather than waiting to be invited, so as to ensure that forestry interests are represented by forest scientists.
Provision of Information
Many policy-makers are influenced by the large amounts of information that they receive from special interest groups. IUFRO is in a strong position to ensure that policy-makers receive unbiased information based on the current scientific state-of-the-art. At the same time, IUFRO should raise its visibility by organizing issue-related conferences in conjunction with meetings of policy-makers. IUFRO needs to look at the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) process and see if it can learn from that experience, particularly concerning the relationship between the IPCC and the IGBP (International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme). As a non-governmental organization, IUFRO has an important role to play in ensuring high scientific standards during discussions.
Another information issue is the development of suitable information systems to assist scientists and others using appropriate information technology including the Internet, CD-Rom and GIS as well as the value-added information processes of manuals and monographs on specific topics.
Criteria and Indicators for Sustainable Forest Management
Although the development of criteria and indicators has until now been essentially a political process, it was a common theme among several of the panellists. Politically, the use of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management is seen today as a particularly important question: their definition, weighting, temporal and spatial constraints and the methods by which they are monitored are all important issues. These can be broken down into several themes:
IUFRO should take a pro-active role in the assessment of criteria and indicators and should be ready to determine the likely ecological, economic and social impacts of any changes in forest practices.
Cross-Disciplinary Research
Many issues today involve multi-disciplinary research, particularly between the socio-economic and cultural sciences and the ecological and physical sciences. For example, forest policy issues requiring attention include the elaboration of participation mechanisms, decision-making processes and the incorporation of cultural values in forest planning. Five cross-cutting areas of particular interest (to UNESCO) are biodiversity, rehabilitation, intensification of production, education and multiple production services. IUFRO needs to address these through time-bounded, regularly-reviewed Task Forces.
Problem-Oriented Research
There is a need to conduct science that is relevant to international issues, which may require an independent review of research activities. IUFRO officers should ensure that the work of their Divisions and Research Groups is relevant. In particular, at a global scale, land use is a major issue. Specific problems include:
a) The rehabilitation of degraded land needs to be considered at much greater (>100,000 ha) scales than at present. IUFRO should develop links with engineers who are accustomed to working at such scales. The availability of land to farmers (with or without tenure) needs to be studied. Rehabilitation of degraded land (through restoration of soil fertility and the development of increasingly intensive and diverse farming systems) is important, as is increased carrying capacity and the promotion of social well-being.
b) Intensification of production has occurred in agriculture but not in forestry, with crop yields being improved 7-8 fold. IUFRO should draw up a list of about 10 tree species which could be improved and should look at further domestication of tree species. In addition, greater attention should be given to agroforestry systems.
c) Issues of tenure need to be addressed. Why aren't farmers planting more trees? Social, cultural and economic issues need to be considered such as establishing tree tenure for farmers. Farmers need to have economic disincentives removed and policies that promote non-sustainable or inappropriate land use need to be stopped.
d) The forest margin needs to be stabilized through multi-strata systems, and young agroecosystems need to be diversified so as to enhance biodiversity.
e) Conflicts between different types of land use remain a central issue in many areas.
The Role of Forests in Global Issues
The role of forests in contributing to the solution of global problems needs to be determined such as the role of forests in mitigating increases in carbon dioxide. The World Commission is focussing on the role that forests play in the functioning of the biosphere, and IUFRO should contribute scientific information to this question.
Partnerships
IUFRO needs to develop partnerships as it becomes more active - this process has already started. IUFRO needs to develop links with the biological research community, especially DIVERSITAS, and other disciplines, including geography, anthropology, meteorology and sociology. The large network of long-term forest research plots represents an important resource that needs further assessment, both those in international networks e.g. SI/MAB and those established by national forest services. Other partnerships that could be further developed are with CIFOR, EFI, ETFRN, ICRAF, ISTF, IUCN, IUSF and WCMC.
Can IUFRO Respond to these Challenges?
Many of the points made above have already been discussed within IUFRO.
IUFRO has a structure that enables it to be responsive to outside
needs, and this should not be seen as being absolutely fixed. For example,
a change adopted at the 20th World Congress in Tampere was the conversion
of all Subject and Project Groups to Research Groups so that cross-disciplinary
(= inter-divisional) issues could be
better addressed at all levels.
The President and Executive Board of IUFRO are empowered to establish
special Task Forces to address particular issues that cannot be addressed
through the normal IUFRO structure. A Task Force on "Forests,
Climate Change and Air Pollution" has just finished its work, but
the continuing need for information at the global level on forest-biosphere
interactions suggests that these issues remain very important. The development
of criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management is another
area where a Task Force might provide a significant input.
Problem-oriented research appears to be best approached through existing
or new Research Groups within the IUFRO structure. Of course, the existence
and success of these is dependent on the willingness of individual scientists
to participate in specific activities. Recognizing the role of women in
resource management, and their impacts on the next generations understanding,
IUFRO should seek to address gender issues more intensively and identify
and support more female scientists in its structure.
The issue of information provision and a more pro-active role for IUFRO is perhaps the most difficult issue to address, since this involves a change in the position held until now. There is no reason why individual scientists from within the IUFRO umbrella cannot present scientific information in the type of fora discussed by the Panellists. Forests scientists owe it to the governments of the nations of the world to provide the information which they can use to improve the condition, extent and productivity of their countries' forests in a manner that is understandable by non-scientists. Without action at local and national level we can expect no results at a global level. However, the provision of a IUFRO "viewpoint" concerning particular issues is rather more difficult, especially when these may be extremely controversial. One possibility is that such statements, with suitable caveats, be made by IUFRO officers: the chairpersons of Task Forces should be in a particularly strong position to present balanced summaries of the available science. Given the importance attached by the Panellists to this issue, a change in the current policy seems to be needed, with formal delegation of responsibilities to specific individuals.
OE Nov 21, 1996