Business Meeting Scandinavian Society of Forest Economics
Gilleleje, May 24, 2002

Minutes of Meeting

1. Professor Finn Helles, the chair of the meeting, opened the session at 8.50 o'clock. Riitta Hänninen (FI) was appointed the secretary of the meeting.
   
   
2. Election of the board and the coordinators of the working groups for 2002-2003 were as follows:
   
   The Board
   Denmark: Finn Helles and Carsten Smith Olsen (deputy)
   Sweden: Lars Lönnstedt and Anders Baudin (deputy)
   Norway: Hans-Fredrik Hoen and Sjur Baardsen (deputy)
   Finland: Heikki Pajuoja and Ritva Toivonen (deputy), Heikki Pajuoja will be
   the chair of the new board
   
   Finland is the host country for the next SSFE meeting in 2004.
   
   The new working groups and coordinators of the working groups
   Business Economics of Forestry & Forest Management and Planning:
   Hans-Fredrik Hoen, Norway
   Forest Policy: Jussi Leppänen, Finland
   Forest Industry & Forest Products Market: Anders Baudin, Sweden
   Tropical Forestry: Carsten Smith Olsen, Denmark
   
   Every country chooses also country-level co-ordinators for these working groups.
   
   
3. Revising the bylaws of SSFE
   Finn Helles presented the changes, which were not very many. From the earlier bylaws the reference to pragraph 8 was deleted since there is no paragraph 8. Paragraph 5 was changed to emphasize Nordic countries as the basis for membership: .....Membership is open for forest economists in the Nordic countries. The chair also stressed, that the board members must update the lists of members in their countries.
   
   
4. The proposals made at the Gausdal meeting in 2000 were presented by the chair. Reestablishing of the working group on Education in Forest Economics was not seen necessary. Making new edition of the Readings in Forest Economics was found to be an impossible task for the Board and also the meeting didn't want to take responsibility of it.
   
   
5. Richard Brazee presented the idea of the formation of the international association of forest economists. The purpose would be to promote contacts, information exchange, arrange meetings of researchers, etc.. Everyone interested was invited to contact him.
   
   
6. The proceedings of the conference was discussed. There will be two possibilities to publish the articles: Kluwer book where referee -procedure is applied and traditional
   proceedings. All abstracts from articles accepted to the the Kluwer book (including 250 p.+) will also be printed in the traditional proceedings publication. The dead line for the proceeding papers is 1st of July 2002. Nils Strange stressed, that the preferable lenght for the proceedings papers is 10 p. because of the tight budget.
   
   Appendices: The notice of business meeting and SSFE bylaws, Gilleleje 23052002