IUFRO
Declaration - Forestry science serving
IUFRO and FAO
A message from the children...
A brief congress report
The IUFRO scientific achievement award
The IUFRO honorary members
The post-congress scientific excursions
A brief history of IUFRO
IUFRO's special programme for developing countries
IUFRO news
From the keynote address
Future programme of IUFRO
18th IUFRO World Congress
Ljubljana, Yugoslavia 7-21 September 1986
International
Forestry problems and forestry research cross national boundaries: IUFRO includes 97 countries on all continents. English, French and German are Is official languages: Spanish is used increasingly. IUFRO has recently begun a special programme to identify urgent forestry research, training and development needs in Third World. IUFRO cooperates regularly with diner international organizations: FAO, ICRAF, ICSU, ISTF, IUSF, UNEP, Unesco, UNDP, the World Rank and diners.
Union of
IUFRO is a non-governmental, voluntary union formed to enable forestry scientists to communicate with one another throughout the world and to share ideas, methods, data and results in meetings, publications, field trips and informal contacts. Each year, members organize 60-80 workshops and excursions, publish dozens of reports and proceedings of meetings and exchange information quarterly in the IUFRO News.
Forestry
Six divisions carry out IUFRO's work:
1) Forest Environment and Silviculture
2) Forest Plants and Forest Production
3) Forest Operation and Techniques
4) Planning, Economics, Growth and Yield, Management and Policy
5) Forest Products
6) General Subjects, including recreation, information systems, remote sensing and forest history
Researchers in IUFRO speak the common language of forestry: at the same time, they collaborate actively with scientists in the various sciences.
Research
Research is the primary activity of those in IUFRO. Research occurs across the entire range of basic science, science applied to solving current problems and the transfer of technology to on-the-ground users. In IUFRO there are over 10000 scientists in more than 300 research groups and working parties, forming a network of information exchange among scientists around the world.
Organizations
The members of IUFRO are research organizations. These include government agencies, universities, private institutions, wood products firms, natural resource associations and any others who employ foresters. The dues of member organizations provide IUFRO's entire financing.
Considerations The very survival and welfare of man depend on the maintenance of trees and forests and the continuation of the products, services and benefits they provide.
The socio-economic and environmental impacts of loss of these resources are not yet fully appreciated by the public nor completely understood by scientists.
Dramatic losses of forests, with consequent losses of soil and decline of soil productivity, are occurring in tropical countries because of expansion of agriculture, urbanization, over-exploitation of forest resources themselves, and increasing demands for fuelwood and other products. Rapidly increasing sizes of human populations, changing conditions in land tenure, and lack of social stability are serious political and cultural issues impeding solutions.
Equally threatening is the increasing damage to temperate forests caused by the polluting effects on the air, water, soil and trees by various industries, traffic and heating of houses. Although scientists have sufficient information to suggest provisional remedies, exact cause-and-effect relationships are not sufficiently known. The great impact of forest fires should also be considered.
The importance of research in attacking these problems is not fully recognized, and research is often inadequate, poorly conceived or not applied because of lack of financial and human resources and inadequate mechanisms for transferring results into practical resource management.
Recommendations Governments and international development agencies, recognizing the socioeconomic importance of trees and forests, should provide the resources for research, development and application of appropriate, sustainable systems of resource management. They should re-examine urgently the social, political and economic issues underlying deforestation and pollution.
Forest services and professional foresters, recognizing the complexity of relations among forests, environments and national socioeconomic welfare, should appreciate the need for relevant research, particularly in tropical deforestation and temperate environmental pollution. Working together with researchers and extension foresters, they should mobilize and speed the transfer of scientific findings to hasten the solution of socioeconomic and environmental forestry problems.
Research and educational institutions, recognizing the limits of research resources, should develop methods of evaluating the benefits of research and of assigning priorities to research topics and should provide adequate training and career rewards for individual researchers. They should ensure that forestry research programmes are directed toward major challenges facing mankind to meet growing needs for food, wood and energy and to improve man's environment.
IUFRO, recognizing the threats to mankind posed by deforestation and pollution, should seek to expand its special programme for developing countries and to establish a parallel interdisciplinary programme on the causes, effects and integrated management of pollution.
New IUFRO programmes and existing research groups, recognizing the overriding international significance of these two major problems, and working with other research agencies as appropriate, should collect and synthesize existing information, define standardized methods for monitoring, study short-term management measures to keep forests living, initiate long-term research on causes and effects, determine the relevance of knowledge to countries in which the problems are not yet apparent, and inform governments, administrations and the public.
· The theme of the recently concluded 18th IUFRO World Congress, "Forestry Research Serving Society", could not have been better chosen. The dynamics of rural development are already leading to permanent new challenges in the field of forestry research. Institutional capabilities in developing countries to meet these research needs are sadly lacking at a time when forests and forestry are increasingly called upon to fulfil a variety of important development goals, including the satisfaction of social, economic and environmental needs.
IUFRO stands at the forefront of this challenge. With its capacity to mobilize and direct forestry research toward concrete goals and objectives, IUFRO can play an important role in accelerating the process of development. FAO, which has always been represented on IUFRO's Executive Board, is actively pursuing the complementary task of providing technical assistance to resolve the problems of hunger and malnutrition, and in particular to those problems provoked by deforestation and erosion.
In close cooperation with the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme and the World Resources Institute, FAO is overseeing the implementation of the Tropical Forestry Action Plan (TFAP), a long-range plan designed to heighten the contribution of me forestry sector to economic development and to conserve and develop forests in developing countries. An important element of TFAP is forestry research.
The tropical forest resource includes many forest types, ranging from the closed moist rain forest to open savannah forests, deserts and special forest types such as bamboo and mangrove. What happens in these forests has direct Impact upon more than half of the world's people. The people affected come from widely differing cultural, ethnic and linguistic origins and they live in a great variety of socio-economic environments. Forestry research, to be successful, must address not only the technical questions concerned with different species and ecosystems but also the profound social and economic factors arising from hundreds of different cultures. Only In this way can the great potential of forest, and its diverse resources be harnessed for the benefit of local peoples everywhere.
The present issue of Unasylva contains this special 16-page report on the 18th IUFRO World Congress held in Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, from 7 to 21 September 1986. Issue no. 156 will feature several comprehensive articles on various aspects of forestry research, particularly as it affects developing countries.
This undertaking will constitute only one small part of a long-term effort to mobilize forestry research for conservation and development. But it can serve to symbolize the cooperation required in the future by FAO and IUFRO Such cooperation needs also to involve close consultation with governments, other international bodies, and non-governmental organizations. We must make every effort to ensure that it succeeds. Our future depends on it.
M.A. Flores Rodas
Assistant Director-General
FAO Forestry Department
Dear participants of IUFRO
We children from Ljubljana, Slovenia and Yugoslavia wish you a hearty welcome. We also send our best regards to your children. On behalf of all the children of the world we ask you to ensure us a safe life, a better tomorrow - life in a healthy environment where we will be able to play free from cares among flowers, green trees and meadows.
Ljubljana
The Congress venue, Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, is a medieval city built on the remnants of the old Roman Emona. It has about 300000 inhabitants. Historically, the city spread around the castle and rapidly across the river of Ljubljanica. The IUFRO World Congress was the largest congress ever to be held in Ljubljana. The whole town lived for the Congress and with the Congress throughout the week. Many social events, such as the opening of the IUFRO Path in the town park, the international light music concert NORDRING and exhibitions, including children's paintings, were organized in honour of the Congress.
Cankarjev Dom Congress and Cultural Centre
The venue of the 18th IUFRO Congress, Cankarjev Dom, opened in 1980 and has since been the centre of Slovene cultural life, a scene of congresses, theatrical productions, concerts, exhibitions, films, etc. It can accommodate up to 4000 visitors. The Large Hall itself can seat 2000 people and is famous for its organ, one of the largest and most modern instruments of its kind in central Europe. Two hundred and sixty people work at the Dom.
Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is a socialist and self-managing community in which six nations and several nationalities are freely united, each enjoying equal rights in the management of all spheres of the social, political, economic and cultural life of the country. The Republic has 22 million inhabitants in an area of 255804 km2. Its capital is Belgrade. Bordering on Italy, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania, Yugoslavia lies along the Adriatic Sea and has six republics - Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro - and two autonomous provinces, Vojvodina and Kosovo. The languages spoken are Serbo-Croat, Slovene, Macedonian and those of the autonomous provinces and minorities.
The forest area in Yugoslavia covers 92000 km2, with 30 percent private forests and 70 percent public forests. About 48 percent of the trees are European beech, 23 percent fir and spruce, 13 percent oak, 5 percent pine and 11 percent other broad-leaves. Among private forests smallholdings (of about 4 ha) are predominant. Two-thirds of the forests are preserved and one-third are degraded.
The 18th IUFRO World Congress was divided into two parts: first, meetings, including a number of divisional and interdivisional ones, held in Ljubljana from 7 to 13 September at the Congress Centre; and second, post-Congress scientific excursions throughout Yugoslavia. A total of 2131 participants from 73 countries took part: 1876 were active participants and 255 were visitors. Of the participants, 520 (24.4 percent) were from Yugoslavia.
The Congress was opened on 9 September by the President of the Federal Executive Council of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Branko Mikulic.
Five keynote speakers, scientists outside the field of forestry, addressed the congress participants:
Tuesday, 9 SeptemberN.C. Brady (USA)
The role of research in arresting forest degradationR. Jim (Yakima Nation, USA)
Indigenous people - caretakers of the earthWednesday, 10 September
M. Khalid (World Commission on Environment and Development, Geneva)
Environment and the forester's responsibilitiesThursday, 11 September
B. Loetsch (Austria)
Learning from lifeFriday, 12 September
Trstenjak (Yugoslavia)
Anthropological approach to forests
There were four interdivisional sessions:
Tuesday, 9 SeptemberA - Forestry Research for Socioeconomic Development
B - The Changing Character of Wood Resources and Implications for Future World DevelopmentWednesday, 10 September
C - Deposition of Air Pollution
D - Forestry and Energy
Four satellite meetings were held:
· 14th Session of the FAO Advisory Committee on Forestry and Education· International Academy of Wood Anatomists
· Students in Forestry Research (organized by the local students of forestry together with their colleagues abroad)
· International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis
There were two 90-minute poster sessions bringing together an interesting variety of 381 posters covering all six IUFRO divisions.
The IUFRO International Council met twice during the Congress in order to discuss subjects important for the future of IUFRO The IUFRO Executive Board met twice, four days before the Congress at its regular annual meeting and again after the Congress when the outgoing and incoming members discussed the past, present and future of IUFRO
The Congress closed on 13 September with the reading of the 18th IUFRO World Congress declaration, the presentation of the 1987-1990 IUFRO Executive Board, and the official statement that the 19th IUFRO World Congress will take place in Montreal, Canada, in August 1990.
There were over 600 contributions to the Congress, divided as follows:
|
IUFRO division |
invited papers |
Voluntary papers |
|
1. Site and Silviculture |
72 |
35 |
|
2. Forest Plants and Forest Protection |
101 |
42 |
|
3. Forest Operations and Techniques |
39 |
42 |
|
4. Planning, Economics, Growth and Yield, Management and Policy |
45 |
69 |
|
5. Forest Products |
56 |
35 |
|
6. General Subjects |
43 |
26 |
|
TOTAL |
356 |
249 |
The IUFRO Scientific Achievement Award recognizes distinguished individual research achievement in the fields of forestry, forest operations and forest products, all of which are included within the programme of IUFRO Scientific Achievement Awards are given to research workers under the age of 45, working within a IUFRO member organization. Sixty-seven young scientists were nominated for the Award. A special committee appointed by the IUFRO Executive Board selected the nine recipients.
The IUFRO Scientific Achievement Awards were presented during the Opening Ceremony of the 18th IUFRO World Congress:
Dr Wladyslav Chalupka
Chief, Laboratory of Population Genetics
Institute of Dendrology
Polish Academy of Sciences
Kornik, Poland
Achievement Extensive research on the physiology of flowering in coniferous trees for the management of forest seed orchards
Dr Wolfgang Glasser
Professor, Wood Chemistry
Department of Forest Products
School of Forestry and Wildlife Resources
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, Virginia, USA
Achievement Investigations on the utilization of lignin in high-value products
Dr Hamish Kimmins
Professor, Forest Ecology
Faculty of Forestry University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia
Canada
Achievement Development of a simulation model to investigate the consequences of intensive forest management on site productivity
Dr Niels Koch
Project Leader
Forest Recreation Research
Danish Forest Experiment Station
Klampenborg, Denmark
Achievement Completed a comprehensive ecological and sociological investigation of the use of Danish forests by the public
Dr Mitsuhiro Minowa
Associate Professor
University of Tokyo
Tokyo, Japan
Achievement Developed a fundamental growth model theory to explain the relationship between forest growth and stand treatments
Prof. Sten Nilsson
Professor, Swedish Univ. Agricultural Sciences
Garpenberg
Sweden
Achievement Extensive research in harvesting, forest planning, forest economics, marketing and forest sector modelling
Dr Jacqueline Robertson
Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, USA
Achievement Development of laboratory bioassay, analytical and statistical techniques for evaluating and predicting response of forest insects to chemicals
Dr Roger Sands
Reader in Silviculture
School of Forestry
Univ. Melbourne
Creswick, Victoria
Australia
Achievement Extensive research on stress physiology of trees and on the relationship between soil physical factors and tree growth
Dr Tho Yow Pong
Senior Forest Entomologist
Forest Research Institute
Kepong, Selangor, Malaysia
Achievement Research on biology and taxonomy of termites and on important insects of tropical forests and plantations
· The IUFRO Honorary Membership is conferred by the IUFRO International Council upon persons who have rendered particularly important service to IUFRO
During the 18th IUFRO World Congress the International Council elected the following as IUFRO Honorary Members:
Dr W.E. Hillis, former Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO, Australia, was elected IUFRO Honorary Member for his extraordinary activity in IUFRO which has always been based on the conviction that IUFRO is one of the few strictly international organizations in the world today that works for the real improvement of conditions for all mankind and for future generations as well.
Academic Professor I.S. Melehov, member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, was elected IUFRO Honorary Member for his substantial contribution to IUFRO He helped a great deal in developing the relationship between IUFRO and the socialist countries. He also promoted IUFRO among forestry scientists in important forestry countries worldwide.
IUFRO Honorary Members previously elected are:
R.Z. Callaham, USA; A.D. Philippis, Italy; V.L. Harper, USA; W. Liese, Germany, Fed. Rep.; J. Parde, France; D.R. Redmond, Canada; I. Samset, Norway; J. Speer, Germany, Fed. Rep.
· Twenty post-Congress scientific excursions lasting four to seven days each were organized for Congress participants. The entire Yugoslav forestry public was involved in the preparations for the Congress and the excursions. The aim of the excursions was to present Yugoslav forestry, to discuss both failures and successes, to show the present situation and point to future orientations and, above all, to welcome Congress participants at institutes, at forestry schools and in the field. Every excursion also had a touch of culture and tourism. The 16 excursions actually carried out had the following themes:
· mountainous forestry and forestation of the sub-Mediterranean· harvesting and processing of high-value Slavonian oak
· genetics and improvement of forest tree species
· watershed management
· wood products and wood processing plants
· cross-section of forests and forestry between the alpine timber line and the lowland in the north of Yugoslavia; die-back of forests
· small ownership forests and forestry
· cross-section of forests and forestry along the Pannonian Plain, the Dinaric Limestone Alps and the Adriatic Coast
· forest operations and techniques in mountainous mixed forests
· mixed natural forests of Bosnia and Montenegro
· mountainous forests of hardwood and softwood species and reforestation of degraded lands in Serbia and Montenegro
· national parks of Macedonia, beech forest ecosystems and forestry in southern Yugoslavia
· forestation of semi-arid land and natural parks in the south of Yugoslavia
· forestry and mixed deciduous inland forests and the forestry of the sub-Mediterranean area
· transition from classical monoculture forestry to multipurpose forestry; harvesting in dying forests
· air pollution of the forests
IUFRO,, one of the oldest scientific organizations in the world, was founded to unify forestry research and to monitor existing problems through a continuous, close international cooperation and non-political collaboration among forestry research scientists.
In 1890, the initiative to found the Union was given at the International Agricultural and Forestry Congress in Vienna. Two years later, in 1892, the International Union of Forestry Research Establishments was set up in Eberswalde, Germany. In 1893, the Union held its first congress in Vienna. In 1929, the Union was named the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations. In 1973 a permanent Secretariat was established in Vienna, by courtesy of the Austrian Government.
IUFRO 1987 - 1990
President Robert Buckman
School of Forestry
Oregon State University
Corvallis, Oregon, 97331
USA
Vice-president: Dr Mohd Nor Salleh
Institut Penyelidikan Perhutanan
Kepong, Selangor
Malaysia
Past-president (ex officio): Prof. Dusan Mlinsek
Biotehniska fakulteta
VTOZD za gozdarstvo
Vecna pot 83
61000 Ljubljana
Yugoslavia
Permanent Secretariat:
IUFRO Secretariat
Schoenbrunn - Tirolergarten
A-1131 Vienna, Austria
Tel.: (43 222) 820 151
IUFRO, congresses
|
|
Year |
Place |
President |
|
1 |
1893 |
Vienna (Austria) |
Friedrich (Austria) |
|
2 |
1897 |
Brunswick (Germany) |
Dankelmann (Germany) |
|
3 |
1900 |
Zurich (Switzerland) |
Burgeoais (Switzerland) |
|
4 |
1903 |
Vienna (Austria) |
Friedrich (Austria) |
|
5 |
1906 |
Stuttgart (Germany) |
Bühler (Germany) |
|
6 |
1910 |
Brussels (Belgium) |
Crahay (Belgium) |
|
7 |
1929 |
Stockholm (Sweden) |
Hesselmann (Sweden) |
|
8 |
1932 |
Nancy (France) |
Guinier (France) |
|
9 |
1936 |
Budapest (Hungary) |
Roth (Hungary) |
|
10 |
1948 |
Zurich (Switzerland) |
Lönnroth (Finland) |
|
11 |
1953 |
Rome (Italy) |
Burger (Switzerland) |
|
12 |
1956 |
Oxford (UK) |
Pavari (Italy) |
|
13 |
1961 |
Vienna (Austria) |
Macdonald (UK) |
|
14 |
1967 |
Munich (Germany, Fed. Rep.) |
Speer (Germany, Fed. Rep.) |
|
15 |
1971 |
Gainesville (USA) |
Jemison (USA) |
|
16 |
1976 |
Oslo (Norway) |
Samset (Norway) |
|
17 |
1981 |
Kyoto (Japan) |
Liese (Germany, Fed. Rep.) |
|
18 |
1986 |
Ljubljana (Yugoslavia) |
Mlinsek (Yugoslavia) |
|
Next congress | |||
|
19 |
1990 |
Montreal (Canada) |
Buckman (USA) |
· The 18th IUFRO, World Congress was dedicated to developing countries and the problem of forest destruction.
In the past three years, IUFRO, has been paying special attention to developing countries, with the primary aim of offering specific support to forestry research. Within its Special Programme for Developing Countries, which has been generously supported by donor agencies, IUFRO, has organized the following:
· a workshop in July 1984 for Asia with the theme, "Increasing Productivity of Multipurpose Tree Species in Tropical Asia"· a workshop in January 1986 for the Sahelian and north-Sudanian zones of sub-Saharan Africa with the theme, "Increasing Productivity of Multipurpose Lands"
· a forthcoming workshop in mid-1987 in tropical Latin America with the theme, "The Role of Multipurpose Species in Social Forestry".
During the Congress, sessions dedicated to forestry research in Latin America, Africa and Asia were held. IUFRO, intends to continue with its Special Programme for Developing Countries after having carefully considered a number of options, including the proposed INCOFORE (International Council on Forestry Research and Extension). Here, and with regard to efforts by other agencies, IUFRO, could act as either a coordinator or a collaborator.
· IUFRO News is a quarterly newsletter published in English, French and German to exchange information inside and outside IUFRO, It is the chief means of communication within IUFRO, Each issue contains information on developments in IUFRO, divisions and regions, a list of IUFRO, meetings and publications, articles by officers, and all other necessary information required by IUFRO, scientists for better collaboration with colleagues.
For the past two years IUFRO News has also been translated into Spanish and distributed among Spanish-speaking countries.
IUFRO News welcomes contributions from inside and outside IUFRO.
Democratizing development
· The report of the World Commission's Advisory Panel on Food Security, Agriculture, Forestry and Environment states that an ability to meet man's primary basic need, the need for food, is directly related to the fate of the forests. This panel has made some preliminary recommendations which I believe are relevant to your work as forestry scientists. It urges the United Nations and the professional community to draw up an action plan to halt environmental degradation and to promote development without the destruction of natural assets. Such a plan would embody three basic principles:
· sustainable livelihood security for the poor should be the foundation for all development programmes;· economic policies must be reoriented and project-design criteria reexamined and modified to assure accelerated economic growth without harming life-support systems, and at the same time to promote livelihood security for the poor;
· this new orientation by local authorities and national governments must involve people's participation in the formulation and implementation of development plans.
The last point Is what I call the democratization of the development process Man is not only the tool of, or beneficiary from, development. He is the finality of the development process. Development is too important to be left to the politicians, nor is it a religion, as some would wish to think, that should be left to its high priests in university lecture halls and the cubicles of international organizations.
Dr Mansour Khalid
INCOFORE: a proposal
· IUFRO is stimulating long-term global research network development in the tropics by formulating a concept for an International Council for Forestry Research and Extension (INCOFORE). INCOFORE would foster coordination among Third World forestry research and extension programmes and among the bilateral and multilateral donor agencies that support them. The proposal builds on the Tropical Forestry Action Plan being coordinated by FAO. It also draws on the success of the international agricultural research centres. As a non-governmental organization, INCOFORE would emphasize those activities that existing institutions and donors are unable to achieve by themselves.
Inside Cankarjev Dom, the site of the 18th IUFRO World Congress
The objectives of the proposed INCOFORE include:
· strengthening of national forestry research and extension capabilities
· development of forestry extension services;
· identification of opportunities for donor funding of needed research and extension;
· development of regional networks to focus on major forestry research problems; and
· fostering of "twinning" arrangements between developed and developing country institutions.N.C. Brady
Indigenous people - caretakers of the earth
· Our sacred mountain lies on the western end of the Yakima Indian Reservation in Washington State... With the everyday humdrum of contemporary life in the lowlands and agricultural areas, we find solace in the high country, in the timber and the trees. We listen to the trees. It is important for us to realize the indigenous people's concern when they learn more of what is happening not only to their own reservations, but also what is happening around the world.
We constantly are aware and are taught that there is much food and medicine that grows in the timber... We have access to 70 different foods that come out of the ground; even the black moss that hangs from the pine trees in the high countries is a food to us. It has a particular way of being prepared, as do all the other foods. The forest also provides us with the greatest pharmaceutical drugstore that we know of. We hope that we can maintain all of the foods and medicines that we are dependent upon.
The trees provide an element to the people that is beyond explanation in this borrowed tongue that I speak to you in. We speak our own language, we try to preserve and protect our language.
In our forest management practices, we try to dissuade clear-cutting. We try to maintain the protection, first of all, of the resource itself; next, the protection of the environment; and then, the protection of the animal habitat. The animals are part of the cultural lifeline and a web of life that we all weave. The next is aesthetics, which we wish to see as the old way of looking at the forest. And the bottom line is the natural foods and medicines. When continue to manage a forest for economic reasons only, you grow trees a certain distance apart to allow more of the sun, to allow that trees perhaps expand faster, then you are forgetting about the numerous foods and medicines that are necessary to preserve and protect a culture. I hope that this great organization and all of you can assist in a manner to dissuade putting a continuing burden upon Mother Earth, that disallows any destruction of the great environment that our ancestors witnessed.
This reminds me of an old Kenyan saying I read one time, and I was deeply moved by it. It is something parallel to what my ancestors were saying. And it is: "We did not inherit this earth, this land, from our ancestors. It was loaned to us by our children."
Russel Jim
Learning from life
· Real needs exist in developing countries - all you have to do is to identify them and to adapt to the specific lifestyles of the trading partner, just as an organism adapts to a particular symbiotic relationship. Ecology could provide numerous ideas - e.g. a low-pollution, low-noise bicycle powered by batteries or by a tiny gas-oil four-stroke engine, or tricycles designed to carry small loads in the narrow lanes of oriental cities or along urban cycle-ways. The development goals must be less noise, less pollution, less space, and less fuel instead of aggressive hot rods and complicated, costly and violent high technology.
Forestry experts have long known that mixed forests are more stable than bleak monocultures, which are, for example, more susceptible to pests. Richly structured riverbanks are not only more beautiful but also more functional than dead rivers entombed in concrete; they are more useful in terms of groundwater balance, biological self-purification and fisheries...
Sincere respect for the cultural identity of others - an important educational goal - would also be the best guarantee for a development aid carried out with caution and understanding and the best safeguard against nationalist aggressiveness.
Bernd Loetsch
An anthropological approach to forests
· Only in a natural symbiosis with the forest can man live a healthy life. The more he deprives the forest of its living cells, the weaker are his own cells and his strength to live.
This deep and strong bond between man and the forest has always been the source of man's creativity in all fields of art. What the forest offers and means to man is not only a refreshing strength to live and a certain economic value, which by numerous modern technologies can be considerably increased; it also represents a special kind of music and poetry, architecture and beauty and through all this, also an unknown mystery.
Anton Trstenjak
Future research in forestry
· Since the Second World War, conditions In the forest and around them have rapidly been worsening in all continents. The 18th IUFRO, World Congress took place at a time when this situation has become potentially fatal. The Congress fully recognized the disastrous situation in the forests. It evaluated me underlying causes for this situation. Now, however, IUFRO, needs to evaluate critically its own role in the mistreatment of forests. During this Congress we have seen clearly what and in what way forestry science should contribute to the salvation of the forests.
There is no salus in fuga - no salvation in ignoring the crucial problems in forestry, which at the same time are the crucial problems of society in general. Forestry science is a part of general sciences and has to follow the basic sciences. The present, very sad, situation calls for even more: not only for new knowledge, but for wisdom which, when combined with the improved knowledge, is the only means to bring forests back into an ecologically and economically sound condition.
Traditionally, in forestry research, we have changed the character of forests. We must no longer do this. We have to preserve their real character, only slightly modifying it within the frame allowed to us by nature. We must return to trees, celebrating them as creators of earth's fertility. We have to change our philosophy and give up the industrial way of thinking, which has heavily spoilt the forests. We are at the turning-point. We have to create new forests and to maintain what remains of existing ones. This is the sacred duty of forestry and of its research.
Prof. Dusan Mlinsek
IUFRO, President
· Sir Isaac Newton wrote, more than three centuries ago, "If I have seen further... it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." It is in that spirit that I want to offer several observations about where the Union might be headed.
First, the internal management and operation of IUFRO, has become increasingly difficult as we have grown larger and the issues we address more complex. We must find still better ways to streamline business operations and to communicate with each other.
Second, we need to seek ways to collaborate better with other organizations that are working toward similar ends - FAO, the World Bank, the regional banks, Unesco, UNDP and other international organizations; with the entire bilateral donor community; and with the professional and scientific societies of the world. All our efforts combined are pitifully small in relation to the needs of forestry around the world. We need to reinforce our efforts, not to compete with one another.
Third, we must address still again the question of major programmes that involve not only scientific issues, but social, environmental and political ones as well. What should the Union's position be in relation to tropical deforestation or atmospheric pollution, both major topics at this Congress? Should IUFRO, seek a larger or smaller role? Should we comment publicly on the scientific merits of various political questions?
Fourth, IUFRO, must be concerned about the continuing need to provide an independent and unbiased forum, as it has for nearly 100 years; a forum for scientists and users of science to meet, to exchange information, to cooperate on research and to address emerging issues. The Union, as a non-governmental, nonpolitical body, provides an opportunity for free and unfettered discussion of a variety of technical issues in forestry, and it must stay that way. We need to remind ourselves that the least costly and the most rapid way to acquire new information is to share freely what has already been created - and IUFRO, has and will continue to provide a means to do so.
And finally, let me borrow from the theme of the 18th IUFRO, World Forestry Congress - "Forestry Science Serving Society". I have a deep and abiding faith that science offers a major strategy to address the social, environmental and economic problems of the world. We need only to look at the success of agricultural research or the medical sciences to appreciate the importance of technology to an improved quality of life. I hope the Union will do its share to better the lives of all people who derive their spiritual, aesthetic and economic well-being from forests of the world.
See you in Montreal in 1990!
Robert E. Buckman
President-elect
The 19th IUFRO World Congress will be held in Montreal, Canada in August 1990
