EFIPLANT at the XXV IUFRO World Congress 2019
The EFIPLANT team was very active at the IUFRO World Congress 2019 in October being involved in a number of presentations and in the organisation of the C9B session, 'Planted Forests for a Greener Future and achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)'.
Chaired by Christophe Orazio (EFI), the C9B session was organised on the behalf of the IUFRO Task Force on Planted Forests and with the support of the Brazilan Tree Industry (ibá).
The topics that were explored in the session included how to implement precision silviculture in USA and Brazil, the return on investment in various parts of Europe and economic gain induced by genetic gain. Of special interest was the work demonstrating the role of plantations in poverty alleviation in Brazil.
Speakers from the COST action, NNEXT, highlighted the benefits of non-native trees species and that, in most of the cases, the use of these species is associated with a gain in growth of 20-30%.
The session ended with a presentation by the International Commission on Poplars and Other Fast-Growing Trees Sustaining People and the Environment (IPC) of its work on the fast growing cottonwood (Populus deltoides) and other fast growing species to illustrate how forests can help achieve SDGs. The ICP will hold its 26th session from 6 to 9 October 2020 in Rome.
EFIPLANT was also busy sharing the unit's work in other sessions at the congress; including the Interreg Sudoe project, PLURIFOR, and its innovative application, SilvAlert, which reports forest damages in South West Europe, as well as the methodological issues, outputs and first results of the REINFFORCE arboreta network.
The IUFRO world congress is a four yearly major networking event attracting 2500 persons from 92 countries. This year’s 25th edition took place in Curitiba in Brazil from 29 September to 5 October.
Photo by Patricia Machado (ibá)
