Norbert Winkler joined FAO on 1 August 1997. He works with FOPH in the field of environmental impact assessment related to forest utilization. Before joining FOPH Mr. Winkler served at the Federal Forest Research Centre-Vienna, Austria. He holds a doctorate in forest engineering and has experience with forest harvesting practices in Bhutan, Brazil, and USA. His professional background in forest inventory has served well for the forest harvesting case-studies he has done.
Forest harvesting and transport operations foment conflict. He believes it is imperative to assess the environmental impact of current utilization practices around the world. The understanding of the proper role of harvesting in the sustainable management of forests is essential.
FAO Forestry Department has been working hard to make information more accessible on the internet. The full text of many documents is now available on the FAO web site. You can get to the Forestry Department at www.fao.org/fo. For example, you will find:
· formal publications such as Unasylva,
· the latest news on Forestry Department efforts,
· working papers from the Global Fibre Supply Study,
· proceedings from the XI World Forestry Congress held in Antalya, Turkey, October 1997,
· summaries of Forest Harvesting Case Studies.
Of course the traditional bibliographic information is still available. More sources are now accessible with the many links to other institutions.
Raffaele Spinelli, CNR/IRL, has put together a database that consists of a worldwide bibliography on the impacts of harvesting operations. This database of more than 2500 records, called Impact, can be found on the CNR/IRL web site at www.area.fi.cnr.it:/irl/impact.htm.
There are many excellent sources of information on the web today. The FAO site gives many links. A few interesting examples are:
The Forestry Research Institute of Sweden
· www.skogforsk.se
The Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
· www.feric.ca
The Finnish Forest Research Institute
· www.metla.fi
Liro Limited in New Zealand
· www.liro.co.nz
