Keynote speakers
Andrew Liebhold
Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Morgantown, WV, USA
Theme 1 Strengthening forest resilience and adaptation to stress
Title Insects and diseases pose a growing threat to forest health worldwide
Summary Forests are increasingly important for the crucial services they provide but at the same time they are facing increasing threats to sustainability as a result of climate change and biological invasions. Though native insects and diseases play important roles in forest ecosystem processes, globalization and a changing climate are disrupting biogeographic patterns, resulting in novel biotic associations and altered environmental conditions that are unstable and may have long lasting effects on the services that forests provide.
Biosketch Andrew “Sandy” Liebhold has been a research entomologist with the US Forest Service Northern Research Station, Morgantown, WV since 1988. His research focuses on the ecology and management of biological invasions and the spatial dynamics of insect outbreaks.
Liebhold received his PhD in Entomology from the University of California, Berkeley in 1984 and worked as a postdoctoral at the University of Massachusetts before joining the Forest Service. He currently also serves as a scientific leader with the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Science, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague. Liebhold has published over 300 papers in peer-reviewed journals and currently serves on the editorial boards for the journals Population Ecology and Biological Invasions.
He has held various officer positions in IUFRO and chaired the scientific Congress Committee for the 125th IUFRO Anniversary Congress in Freiburg, Germany, in 2017. He received the IUFRO Scientific Achievement Award in 2010 and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2015 and a Fellow of the Entomological Society of America in 2021.
Listen to Andrew in the IUFRO podcast “Branching out“.
To be confirmed
Theme 1 Strengthening forest resilience and adaptation to stress
Title Pending
Summary Pending
Biosketch Pending
Anne Toppinen
Professor, Vice Dean of Research, Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki
Theme 2 Towards a responsible forest bioeconomy
Title of presentation Forest bioeconomy in the era of sustainability transition
Summary The keynote underlines forest bioeconomy as a process in which virgin and recycled bio-based resources are utilised more efficiently in industrial processes to create value. Further, how is the transition toward sustainability shaping industrial actors and the future of markets? And how can the levers of change toward more sustainable social-ecological systems be embedded at the nexus of bio- and circular economy.
Biosketch Anne Toppinen is Professor in forest economics and business since 2008. Her research interests focus on responsible business management, new bio-based business models and sustainability pathways, as well as resilience of wood-based value networks.
She is Member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters, Member of Finnish Research Council of Biosciences, Health and Environment, and Coordinator of IUFRO Research Group 5.10.00 Forest products marketing and business management.
Anne is also a co-founder of multidisciplinary research group Forest Bioeconomy, Business and Sustainability
Listen to Anne’s participation in the IUFRO podcast “Branching Out”.
Martin Forsén
Chairman of the Board SilviPar SA
Theme 2 Towards a responsible forest bioeconomy
Title of presentation Potential of impact investing in forestry
– an example from South America, South America Impact Forestry Fund, Paraguay
Summary Today almost half of the global population lives in poverty. However, the situation is improving, and the middle class is growing from 3,6 billion to a predicted 5,3 billion people before 2050 and their consumption will increase. At the same time our emissions from fossils are soaring, threatening our planet. This can be mitigated with trees. Forest investments fight poverty, enable sustainable consumption and sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Biosketch Martin Forsén is the Chairman of SilviPar AB and has over 21 years’ experience in the forest sector globally. SilviPar AB is the portfolio manager for the South America Impact Forestry Fund that is currently investing over 250 MUSD in Paraguay. Before joining SilviPar he was the CEO of Burapha Agroforestry, a Swedish-Lao Joint venture that establish sustainable forest industry with integrated plantations in Lao PDR.
Before moving to Laos in 2015, Martin Forsén was CEO of Domsjö Fiber, a wood- and biofuel procurement company with an annual turnover of US$100m. Martin has had several board assignments in forest industry companies and today he is the chairman of the board in SilviPar AB, and a member of the board of Malwa Forest AB and Burapha AgroForestry.
He holds an MSc in Forestry from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and an Executive MBA at the Stockholm School of Economics. Mr Forsén has been awarded Guldkvisten, given by HM the King Carl XVI Gustaf to individuals who have made valuable contributions for sustainable utilization of forestry resources.
Sally Aitken
Professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia, Canada
Theme 3 Forest biodiversity and its ecosystem services
Title Valuing diversity in uncertain times
Summary With unprecedented rates of climate change and uncertainty around future abiotic and abiotic conditions, species and seed-source decisions for reforestation are challenging. At the same time, we are counting on healthy managed forests to provide carbon sequestration, habitat for biodiversity, and a multitude of other ecosystem services. New approaches informing forest management and conservation decision-making will be discussed that integrate climate, species distribution, and genetic models.
Biosketch Sally Aitken is a Professor in the Department of Forest and Conservation Sciences, Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia. Her research integrates phenotypic, genomic and climatic data to understand the processes driving local adaptation to climate in trees.
She has led two multi-institutional large-scale applied research projects, AdapTree and CoAdapTree, focussed on developing genomic approaches and tools to guide reforestation, restoration and breeding for new climates. She co-authored the textbook Conservation and the Genomics of Populations (Oxford University Press, 2022).
Dr. Aitken received the Canadian Forestry Scientific Achievement Award in 2009, the International Union of Forest Research Organization’s Scientific Achievement Award in 2014, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2017.
Fran Raymond Price
Global Forest Practice Leader, WWF International
Theme 3 Forest biodiversity and its ecosystem services
Title Pending…
Summary Fran Raymond Price will lay out WWF’s vision on pathways to achieve a healthy planet and forests while ensuring a just and inclusive world in 2050, drawing on the work around the different Forest Practice areas of work/“gamechangers”, the challenges we face, and the opportunities arising. She will talk about examples on how we leverage on the best available science to advance these our agendas across all these different areas, emphasizing the importance of building collective action from the global to the local, and mobilizing resources that reach the right people/right places. She will ask for better integration of research into the work of conservation/development organizations and how to move faster in implementation and advocate for more inclusive science, and a greater acknowledgment of indigenous and local knowledge in how to shape forest futures.
Biosketch Fran Raymond Price has spent her career working to protect forests and improve forestry around the globe. She joined the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in June 2020 after 18 years at The Nature Conservancy (TNC), where she helped guide the organization’s adoption and promotion of responsible forest management and certification.
Before joining TNC, Fran directed the Forest Monitoring Project, hosted by the Izaak Walton League of America, where she evaluated forest practices on industry lands throughout the U.S. Prior to this she helped coordinate philanthropic investments in forests and renewable energy at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Fran has served on several boards and task groups, including the FSC International Board; the Tropical Forest Foundation board; High Conservation Value Resource Network Steering Group; and WWF’s North American Forest and Trade Network Advisory Group.
Fran holds a master’s degree in forestry from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a B.A. in History and Government from Cornell University. She began her forestry career as a Peace Corps community forestry volunteer in the Dominican Republic.
Harini Nagendra
Director and Professor, Research Centre and Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability, Azim Premji University, India
Theme 4 Forests for sustainable societies
Title of presentation Thinking ecologically about cities in the Global South
Summary Cities in the Global South are on a breakneck path to growth. With climate change impacting these dense, fast growing urban settlements, we need to critically understand the importance of urban forestry in historical and contemporary times, to re-design cities to accommodate ecology, ensuring human wellbeing as well as resilience to climate change.
Biosketch Harini Nagendra is Director of the Azim Premji University Research Center and leads the University’s Center for Climate Change and Sustainability. Over the past 30 years, Professor Nagendra has been at the leading edge of research examining conservation in forests and cities of South Asia from the perspective of both landscape ecology and social justice.
For her interdisciplinary research and practice, she has received several awards including the 2009 Cozzarelli Prize from the US National Academy of Sciences, the 2013 Elinor Ostrom Senior Scholar award, and the 2017 Clarivate Web of Science award.
Professor Nagendra was a Lead Author of the IPCC AR5 reports, and a Science Committee member of DIVERSITAS and the Global Land Programme. She engages with international science and policy through her involvement as a Steering Committee member of the Future Earth Programme for Ecosystem Change and Society, and the Future Earth Urban Knowledge Advisory Network. She is on the Advisory Board of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology’s Climate-KIC and the WRI Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities.
Cécile Ndjebet
Founder of the African women’s network for community management of forests
Theme 4 Forests for sustainable societies
Title of presentation From Classroom to Canopy: Enriching Forestry Education of Secondary School Students through the School Forest Project and IFSA TreE-Learning
Summary Forestry education is often not adequately integrated into school curricula, leading to a limited understanding of forest ecosystems and sustainable forest management among secondary school students. Together with the Forests for Tomorrow (Stiftung Wälder für Morgen) and Gymnasium Carolinum Neustrelitz, IFSA is taking part in the “School Forest Project” to integrate TreE-Learning forestry-related modules in secondary school curricula in Northern Germany and evaluate its effectiveness in influencing the students’ perception, knowledge, and behavior towards forestry and natural resources management.
Biosketch Cécile Ndjebet is an Agronomist and Social Forester by profession; she is one of the well-known leaders of CSO in Africa, an international women’s rights advocate and gender specialist. Cécile has been devoted to women’s rights issues for the past 25 years.
Cécile is a member of a good number of networks and professional societies at national, regional and global levels.
In September 2000, she co-funded Cameroon Ecology, a local NGO to promote community forestry; In May 2009, she co-funded REFACOF, a Sub-Sahara women’s Platform of the forest sector.
Cécile is COMIFAC Climate Change Champion, Wangari Maathaï Forests Champion, UNEP Champion of the Earth and Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity 2023 Winner.
Photo: PIK/Krakow, 2020Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
Professor
Theme 5 Forests for the future
Title Pending
Summary Pending
Biosketch Hans Joachim (’John’) Schellnhuber studied physics and mathematics at the University of Regensburg, Germany, where he also completed his doctorate in quantum physics. Following a postdoctoral position at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara, he held full professorships at the Universities of Oldenburg and Potsdam, as well as at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.
As the founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Schellnhuber led the institute from 1992 to 2018. He also served as research director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in Great Britain from 2001 to 2005. He is the founder and managing director of Bauhaus Erde and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Tsinghua University (Beijing). In December 2023 Schellnhuber became Director General of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria.
Throughout his career, Schellnhuber has received several notable awards and recognitions. In 2022, he was awarded the Honorary Edition of the German Sustainability Prize for his “enormous influence on science, politics, and business by developing and communicating sustainable solutions to the global environmental crisis”.
Isabelle Claire Dela Paz
President of the International Forestry Students Association (IFSA)
Theme 5 Forests for the future
Title of presentation From Classroom to Canopy: Enriching Forestry Education of Secondary School Students through the School Forest Project and IFSA TreE-Learning
Summary Forestry education is often not adequately integrated into school curricula, leading to a limited understanding of forest ecosystems and sustainable forest management among secondary school students. Together with the Forests for Tomorrow (Stiftung Wälder für Morgen) and Gymnasium Carolinum Neustrelitz, IFSA is taking part in the “School Forest Project” to integrate TreE-Learning forestry-related modules in secondary school curricula in Northern Germany and evaluate its effectiveness in influencing the students’ perception, knowledge, and behavior towards forestry and natural resources management.
Biosketch Isabelle Dela Paz is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Bachelor of Science in Forestry at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños (UPLB) with a specialization in Urban Forestry, and a former Merit scholar by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).
Currently, Isabelle works as a Communication Associate in CIFOR-ICRAF for the “Sustainable Farming in Tropical Asian Landscapes” Project. She serves as the President of the International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA), an international network of forestry students where she had 2 years of prior service as the Internal Councilor.
In 2021, Isabelle was the Vice President of the Association of Filipino Forestry Students – UPLB (AFFS-UPLB), a duly recognized academic-environmental organization in the Philippines.