Mr Wulf Killmann was appointed as Director, Forest Products Division, effective 1 January 1999.
Mr Killmann, a national of Germany, holds a degree in Forest Products Wood Technology and Economics from the University of Hamburg. He has a post-graduate degree in Tropical Agriculture from the Technical University of Berlin and he obtained his Ph.D. with a thesis on wood biology from the University of Hamburg.
He started his professional career as assistant to the scientific staff of the Museum of Ethnology in Hamburg where he became Acting Head of the Eurasian Department in 1973. From 1976 to 1979, he worked as consultant in the areas of wood technology and forest products. In 1979, he joined FAO and worked in the Coconut Research and Development Project in the Philippines. In 1982 he was appointed Wood Technologist in the German project for Forest Engineering and Forest Products in Peshawar, Pakistan. In 1984, he was appointed Team Leader of the German Forestry Research Projects at the Forest Research Institute in Malaysia. From 1989 to 1995, he managed GTZ-assisted projects in Malaysia and from 1992, he was Coordinator of the Malaysia-German Forestry Programme consisting of six projects in the areas of forest management, forest research and nature conservation. In 1995, he became Project Manager and Adviser in forest policy of the GTZ Social Forestry Programme in Honduras, which comprised five projects dealing with forest policy, sustainable forest management, and communal forestry and nature protection.
FAO Forestry Paper No. 117, Mangrove Management Guidelines, 1994, provides more information of interest.
Mr François Ndeckere-Ziangba 
was appointed as Forestry Officer to the Forest Harvesting, Trade, and Marketing Branch. A national of Central African Republic, he holds a M.Sc. degree in Forest Harvesting and Economics from Institut Supérieur de Développement Rural de Mbaiki, Central African Republic, 1982 and a M.Sc. degree in Natural Resource Management and Economics from Humboldt State University, Arcata, California, USA, 1990. He started his professional career as Deputy Director of Forest Division of Ombella-Mpoko in 1983. He has held several positions with the Ministry of Environment, Water, Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries in his country. He was the Chargé de Mission coordonnateur in the Cabinet of the Minister, Chairperson of African Region and Member of COP3 of UN-Biodiversity Convention and President of African Experts of the African Ministerial Conference on Environment before joining FAO in July 1997.
