Collaboration and outreach
CIFOR is committed to strengthening the capabilities of developing country scientists, governments, civil society organisations and communities. The ultimate aim is to help them develop and promote their own solutions to a wide range of forestry problems. CIFOR does this through collaborative research, and by providing high-quality, unbiased and timely information to everyone from policy-makers to local communities, from forest-related industries to research scientists.
During 2005, CIFOR scientists played a prominent part in the12th World Congress of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), and many contributed to a major new IUFRO publication, Forest in the Global Balance. CIFOR scientists played a leading role in the Crawford Fund conference in Canberra on ‘Forests, Wood and Livelihoods’, and two members of CIFOR’s board of trustees and a programme director served on the 15-member panel responsible for overseeing the technical work of the UN’s Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, whose key findings were published in 2005.
CIFOR continued to encourage net-working among research institutes. CIFOR’s West Africa team played a leading role in establishing a new network for scientists working on the productivity of arid woodlands – vital for fuelwood and livestock grazing – in countries like Mali and Burkina Faso.
The Information Services Group had another busy year. Besides publishing over 40 Occasional Papers, reports and books, it continued to seek a wide audience for CIFOR’s research findings by using the international and national media. During 2005, over 500 separate stories appeared in newspapers and on the internet, radio and television, either about CIFOR’s research or quoting CIFOR scientists.
Auditing planet earth
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
2005 witnessed the completion of the most ambitious audit ever undertaken of our impact on Planet Earth. Launched in 2001 by the United Nations’ Secretary General, Kofi Annan, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment provides an exhaustive analysis of how humans have affected the ability of ecosystems to provide us with goods and services, such as fresh water to drink, timber for building and food to eat. Much of the 2500-page assessment makes bleak reading, but it is by no means all doom and gloom, and the report offers a range of responses which could help us to overcome some of the most pressing problems we face.
Over 1300 scientists from 95 countries were involved in the assessment. The 15-member Assessment Panel, which was responsible for overseeing the technical work, was co-chaired by Angela Cropper, chair of CIFOR’s Board of Trustees. Panel members included Doris Capistrano, Director of CIFOR’s governance programme, and Christian Samper, Director of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and a member of CIFOR’s Board of Trustees. All three were closely involved in the writing process. A number of other CIFOR staff also served as authors and reviewers of different chapters.
The assessment has already had a significant impact on various international processes, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, and it has been widely used by governments, especially of those countries in which sub-global assessments were carried out, for example in the Caribbean, South Africa and China.