THAILAND
4-11 MARCH 2007
This conference will follow up on the experience and the feedback of the hugely successful First International Agarwood Conference, held in Viet Nam in November 2003. The entire event will be organized along similar lines with two days of presentations in Bangkok, an optional excursion to agarwood shops in Bangkok and travel to the countryside, as well as field trips to agarwood plantations and an agarwood oil processing unit. We will then travel to Koh Chang, a tropical island and home of natural extremely endangered Aquilaria. The Conference will conclude with a day-long workshop on Koh Chang and an extra day for informal discussions. The formal conference part will include oral presentations and poster presentations.
The Conference will focus strongly on sustainable production, commerce and trade, while continuing to place emphasis on conservation, research and development issues.
* Conservation and sustainability
* Genetics/phylogeny of agarwood- producing species
* Nursery production
* Plantations
* Certification and legislation/Certification and trade/Certification and genetic research
* Agarwood markets and marketing
* Medicinal (and traditional) uses of agarwood - traditional and new markets
* Agarwood chemistry/terpenoids chemistry
* Agarwood (inducement) production technology
* International cooperation
* Quality assessment and grading
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
The Rainforest Project Foundation, Damrak 68, 1012 LM Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Fax: +31 (20) 624-0588; e-mail:
[email protected];
[email protected]
ROME, ITALY
13-16 MARCH 2007
Subjects to be discussed at this session of COFO include:
* forests and energy: new challenges in sustainable forest management
* forest protection
* putting forestry to work at the local level
* progressing towards sustainable forest management
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Douglas Kneeland, Secretary, Committee on Forestry, Chief, Forest Information and Liaison Service, Forest Economics and Policy Division, Food and Agriculture Organization
of the United Nations, Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy. E-mail:
[email protected]
GEORGIA, UNITED STATES
19-23 MARCH 2007
This symposium is designed to bring together medicinal/nutraceutical plant workers and researchers/scientists representing university/academic, government and private sector laboratories working with various aspects of medicinal/nutraceutical (medicinal and aromatics, herbs, spices and fruits and vegetables with health benefits) plant research in temperate, subtropical and tropical climates.
Participants will benefit from researchers who are active in the development of biotechnology tools for medicinal and nutraceutical plant species in temperate and tropical areas and a host of other horticultural species having health benefits. This is truly an under-researched and highly diversified group of economically important botanical species that receive only limited attention in major discipline-based conferences mainly because of limited participation by speciality plant scientists/researchers.
Areas to be covered include:
* ethnobotany, bioprospecting and conservation of medicinal and nutraceutical plants;
* biotechnology of applications in medicinal and nutraceutical plants;
* medicinal plant-based industries: challenges and opportunities;
* regulatory issues for plant medicines: familiarizing with regional and global levels;
* current trends in research on nutraceutical plants;
* botanical medicines and women's health;
* plant-based biomedical research: reports on current status;
* potential and future of medicinal/nutraceutical plant research;
* production, pre-/post-harvest technology and marketing of medicinal plants.
This symposium will also provide a platform for discussing the increasing global trend of using botanical medicines.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Dr Anand K. Yadav, Symposium Convener, Agricultural Research Station, Fort Valley State University, 1005 State University Drive,
Fort Valley, Georgia 31030-4313, United States. Fax: +1-478-825-6376; e-mail:
[email protected];
http://www.ag.fvsu.edu/ishsmanp.html
THE PHILIPPINES
19 JUNE-2 JULY 2007
The study tour aims to provide participants with the necessary exposure to the different community-based forest cottage industries and related project sites in the Philippines.
The field visit to selected sites will focus on the following subjects:
* current strategies of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and recent developments in the implementation of the community-based forest management programme;
* small-scale hand-made papermaking;
* household-based wooden novelty manufacture;
* rattan, bamboo and vine crafts, and other forest-based craft industries;
* small- to medium-scale furniture industries;
* cottage-based woodcarving;
* community-based and medium-scale industries for specialized wood products; and
* ecotourism.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Director, Training Centre for Tropical Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability (TREES), College of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of the Philippines at Los Baños, PO Box 434, College, Laguna 4031, the Philippines. Fax: + (63 49) 536-3340 or 536-2639; e-mail:
[email protected];
www.uplbtrees.ph
TENERIFE, CANARY ISLANDS
31 AUGUST-2 SEPTEMBER 2007
This meeting will emphasize basketry from the palm tree, in any form or expression of popular art. The organizers would like to contact basket makers, groups, institutions, museums, etc. that could contribute to this project, especially from around the Mediterranean basin. They are also interested in contacting museums, institutions and groups that are carrying out some activity for the recuperation, diffusion and promotion of work done with palm or other plant fibres associated with the art of basket making.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Rafael C. Gómez León, Technical Director of the Asociación Pinolere Proyecto Cultural,
Calle Alzados Guanches s/n, Pinolere 38310,
La Orotava, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. Fax: (034) 922 325 590; e-mail:
[email protected] or
[email protected] or
[email protected]; www.pinolere.org
WARSAW, POLAND
6-8 SEPTEMBER 2007
Forests and forestry contribute to rural development in multiple ways. Policy-makers and practitioners alike are faced with the growing and increasingly diverse social, economic and environmental demands of modern societies on forests and forestry. In addition, global developments such as climate change and urbanization influence and transform the ways in which forests are perceived, managed, conserved and used as elements of the rural landscape. More scientific knowledge is needed to understand better the complex relations between forests and other land uses and to overcome the different constraints to forestry in the context of rural development. The role of research as a foundation for the development of forestry and urban policies and planning and managing natural resources will be central.
The IUFRO European Congress aims to take a comprehensive and integrated view of the key issues within and outside the forest sector thatshape and influence the role of forests and forestry as a means of rural development. The current state of knowledge will be presented, and further research priorities 
identified. The congress will focus on the following four main themes.
* Policies supporting rural development
* Forests and rural development in the light of global change
* Social aspects of forests and forestry in the rural landscape
* Economic role of forests in rural development
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Prof. Dr Piotr Paschalis Jakubowicz,
Chair, Scientific Committee of the IUFRO European Congress 2007, Warsaw Agricultural University, Faculty of Forestry, Warsaw, Poland. E-mail:
[email protected];
http://conference2007.wl.sggw.pl/
NAPLES, ITALY
12-15 SEPTEMBER 2007
One of the sessions of the conference will cover “New interactions, exchanges and experimentation of genetic resources among small-scale societies in Southeast Asia”, which is being organized by Dario Novellino and J. Simon Platten of the Department of Anthropology, University of Kent, United Kingdom.
In Southeast Asia, population pressure and environmental transformations continue to represent an important factor of change for small-scale societies. By and large, semi-nomadic groups are diversifying their livelihood options with an emphasis towards more stable forms of agriculture and various strategies for livestock rearing.
On other occasions, because of progressive desertification and the recurrence of environmental disasters, communities of farmers have increased their use of non-domestic resources, often engaging in food procurement activities (e.g. honey gathering) that are not customary in their groups. As niches of specialization become more attuned to diversification, social relations, traditional institutions, mobility patterns and ethnobiological relations are also subject to reorganization. On the one hand, modernization followed by globalization, has altered traditional endogenous movements, exchanges and transmission of plant and animal resources. On the other, the introduction and exchanges of imported genetic resources have also created new conditions for local populations to open up to the global flow and negotiate freely with outside forces. Knowledge of introduced breeds and landraces has often been ingeniously transformed by local communities or added as an overlay to pre-existing ways of managing and interacting with the environment. In some cases, this has been orchestrated by cultivators themselves and has resulted in a strengthened expression of local identity and community cohesion within the market economy. However, where sociopolitical circumstances were unfavourable, the introduction of commercial breeds of animals (e.g. imported pigs and cows) and plants (e.g. rubber and oil palm) has created a distinctive cultural space controlled by lobbies and the elite.
As a result, imported breeds, bearing no relationship to the local ecology, have contributed to plundering peoples' territories, undermining the corporate basis of community life. Overall, experimentation with plant- and animal-related knowledge has coevolved within the context of complementary modes of food procurement. More important, through the movement of people, plants and animals, socio-economic and political organizations, ecological knowledge, representations of land and identity, forms of ownership and land management systems have been extended well beyond the medium of the local environment and engage with ever widening circles of knowledge that are, eventually, global. Generally speaking, the introduction of new species and breeds responds to both global and locally situated dynamics, and its localization via peoples' exchanges makes it the subject of constant reworking.
Today, many indigenous plants and animal breeds are at risk because of national agricultural policies. So-called “improved breeds” bring with them ideas and strategies for the accumulation of wealth and prestige, hence fostering patterns of inequality. On a parallel level, international treaties such as the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity push for the conservation of genetic resources in “the surroundings where they have developed their distinct properties” (article 8).
Overlapping agendas and new political and economic developments occurring across the region provide a rich context in which to examine emerging patterns of people, plant and animal interactions. The conference seeks to explore the many facets of this process, by bringing together a collection of case studies focusing on the exchange, experimentation and transmission of plant/animal resources and knowledge by indigenous societies and rural communities in contemporary Southeast Asia.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Dr Dario Novellino or Dr Simon Platten, Department of Anthropology, Marlowe Building, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent CT2 7NR, United Kingdom. E-mail:
[email protected] or
[email protected];
www.kent.ac.uk/anthropology/
TORONTO, CANADA
30 SEPTEMBER-3 OCTOBER 2007
On the occasion of its centennial celebrations in 2007, the Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto, has taken up a challenge to develop a comprehensive global vision of forestry in the twenty-first century.
The organizers of the congress aim to bring together invited speakers, poster presenters and participants from all interested groups such as 
policy-makers, forest managers, judges and legal experts, Aboriginal people, scientists and forestry experts from forest industry and international and non-governmental organizations.
Congress discussions will be organized under three themes.
* Global challenges, responsibilities and leadership in forestry
* Frontiers of science and a healthy and diverse forest environment
* Cultures, markets and sustainable societies
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Prof. Shashi Kant, Chair, Organizing Committee, Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto, 33 Willcocks Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3B3.
Fax: 416-978-3834;
www.forestry.utoronto.ca/ac_staff/current/kant.htm
