MINUTES OF THE 2nd IMACFORD MEETING IN LISBON
ON DECEMBER 2nd and 3rd 2002
SESSION ON DECEMBER 2, 2002
MORNING
SESSION:
José G. Borges chaired the morning session of the meeting,
and he explained some changes in the programme for the first day. All presentations
were to be done in the morning session, whereas in the afternoon group
discussions and presentations would take place. The presentation of Joâo S.
Pereira had to be cancelled.
First presentation: Pere Riera presented the
activities and Network of MEDFOREX and IMACFORD. This and subsequent
presentations are available at http://www.medforex.net/imacford.
He referred to the last IMACFORD Task A meeting that took place in Paris the
previous week, where three Commission officials mentioned that up to one
project in forestry would be accepted and granted under the EU VI Framework
Programme. Therefore, in this Task A meeting was agreed to try to prepare a
common project to be submitted. Pere Riera emphasised that these projects were
objective driven, which means that several people from various disciplines can
be put together in order to achieve this objective. Additionally, he pointed
out that there were 2 new tools in the EU VI Framework Programme, in addition
to the traditional ones: networks of excellence and integrated projects. He
also mentioned that the first call for projects will come in 3 weeks time, and
the second one (which will be more appropriate for the meeting topics) will
come around Summer.
Second presentation: Americo
Mendes made the first end-users presentation on behalf of the ‘Associação Florestal do Vale do Sousa’. He gave a
general view about forestry in Portugal and presented the forest owners
association in Vale do Sousa. Firstly, he focussed on the forest ownership in
Portugal, which is mainly private and small-scale, and on the increase of
forested land in the last decades due to increase of uncultivated land and
decrease of agricultural land. Secondly, he emphasised the reliance of forest
owners on public transfers in order to manage their lands, as it is not
economically feasible any more. Also, he highlighted the need of forests owners
to act collectively in associations (which are increasing in numbers, but not
in their activity) and of the involvement of society in forestry and the
relevance of their willingness to pay for the maintenance of forests.
Fernando Sequeira made a comment on the need not only to focus
on forest management, but also on the improvement of the marketing of forest
goods and services. He made the point that considering the multifunctionality
of forests implies the necessity of obtaining funding for this sector. Americo
Mendes answered that their organisation was still young and that it was
located in an area where tourism is not very much developed, as forests are
part of a farm or the forest owner lives in a bigger city. However, they have
now started with cleaning tasks, etc., and there is potential for tourism in
the area, which will hopefully be taken into consideration in the future. José
G. Borges added that Instituto Superior de Agronomia (ISA) is now involved
in some projects in Vale do Sousa that try to balance forest management
objectives and landscape objectives, which will be helpful in this sense.
Third presentation: Fernando
Teigâo focused on the research needs
on forestry according to GEOTA (Environmental and Land Use Planning Study
Group), which is a Portuguese NGO specialized in environmental policy and
development issues. He first explained the important role of NGOs in producing
and transferring information to the general public and their activities in the
political, technical and educational spheres. He pointed out the main obstacles
and challenges that the forest sector faces nowadays from the political,
technical, economic, social, institutional, legal and environmental point of
view. Finally, he made some suggestions concerning the mechanisms for the
improvement of the current situation in forestry and also concerning future
research needs in the environmental, economic and social spheres. He stressed
that the lack of clear goals and strategies in the forest sector, together with
overlapping functions and frequent gaps in communication between researchers
and end-users and between other actors.
Pere Riera commented
that in the last IMACFORD Task A meeting in Paris WWF representatives also
pointed out economics as a main topic for future forest research, and they
especially emphasised the issue of law violation regarding forestry. Fernando
Teigâo answered that it was necessary to use reliable and high quality
information in the economic field in order to discuss with politicians.
However, he said that there is little information available on law violation in
Portugal. Fernando Sequeira pointed out that there is no long-term
integrated research in Portugal in order to quantify the value of forests and
to contribute to sustainable development. Therefore, he said that it is
necessary to change the research system. Americo Mendes and José G.
Borges introduced some optimism to this point by saying that some
cooperation exists between universities and pulp companies (for example) and
there already some positive results. So, there is potential for cooperation and
research, although maybe the timimg of
research projects are short.
Fourth presentation: Ana Rita Azebo made a presentation of the
activities and work (especially concerning the Montado project) carried out by
Associaçâo Terras Dentro (which is a local development NGO) and their point of
view regarding forest research in the Mediterranean basin. They have been
undertaking various activities in order to preserve and increase the value of
the Montado forestry system, focusing on forestry production, product
valorisation and environmental education. She stressed the difficulty of
reaching and understanding forest scientific information from society.
After this presentation, there was a debate
about the difficulty to explain certain scientific terms to farmers and forests
owners and the need to show them concepts through experimentation and plots in
the field. Also, the lack of data in certain fields was manifested by some
participants, together with the need of integrating data and information in
order to communicate it to forest end-users and the general public.
Fifth presentation: Emídio Santos presented the work done and
perspectives of Direcçâo Gral das Florestas, which is the department of the
Portuguese government dealing with forestry. He focused on the main constraints
of the current forest policy instruments in Portugal: the CESE report, the
Forest Policy Act, the Sustainable Development Plan of the Portuguese Forests
and the National Plan of Forest Research.
After this presentation, a comment was made
about the necessity to see forests in a larger framework. According to Teresa
Pinto-Correira, research should also deal with agriculture and rural
development and not only with forestry. On the other hand, Fernando Sequeira
thought that there should also be more research in the field of the wood
industry and furniture. Also, it was also pointed out that there was little
information and studies about certain species (such as Castanea sativa
or Quercus pirenaica), although very good research had been done with
other important species, such as cork oak, pines and eucalyptus. A reflection
was made in the fact that research is often focused on those issues where
funding is available, as it is the case of the cork and eucalyptus research.
However, public debate in order to identify forest research should be promoted,
as well as a real Plan of Forest Research and the will to implement it. The
current research system needs a big revision in order to share and produce
information, as there is a lack of data in a usable form and a lack of communication.
According to José G. Borges, the mentioned obstacles were identified by
the MEDFOREX project and in order to overcome them, we should promote
multidisciplinary studies, growth and yield models, economic models and
management models, develop technology to implement them and, last but not
least, involve end-users and make knowledge available to everyone.
Sixth presentation: Luis Leal made a presentation on behalf of
CELPA - Associaçâo da Insdustria Papeleira. He started with the current
situation of forestry in Portugal, emphasising the private ownership and small
size regimes, and pointed out the relative importance of the paper industry in
this country. Although forest policy is a new arena, he stressed the importance
of communication and agreement between different actors involved in forestry,
the need to take into account forest owners’ objectives in research as well as
to communicate with the rural audience and to put into practice research
results. He pointed out the power of the way you use knowledge, rather than
knowledge itself.
After this presentation, it was manifested that
although forest industry not always invests in research, there are good
experiences of partnerships between the industry and university. Also, a
question was raised on whether certification would make a difference in the
paper industries. Luis Leal thought that companies are concerned with
certification because their customers ask for it, although it is more important
than certification the fact of having internal negotiation and reflection
processes, continuous progress and the will to do a better, more effective,
innovative and sound work.
AFTERNOON SESSION:
Group discussions: In the afternoon, the participants
were divided in two groups and were given the following list of topics (which
was the output of the first IMACFORD meeting in Barcelona):
•
Property rights assignment and violation (wood, truffle, pine nuts...)
• Extended markets for
marketable products
• Recreation, including
hunting and fishing, bird and
plant watching, and alike
• Biodiversity conservation
• Green corridors
• Land use options
• Rural development,
decline, and land abandonment
• Climate change
• CO2 sequestration
• Water regulation
• Erosion control and
desertification
• Hazard and risk assessment
• Valuation and perception of
forest functions
• Equity issues
• Integrated management
• Information systems,
databases...
• Communication and media
Participants were asked to
answer the following questions concerning the previous list of topics:
–Could you list the main
topics of social and research concern in relation to forests?
–Could you rank the items by
blocks, according to your perception of end-user relevance?
– And by your perception of
research needs?
The participants in each group were:
GROUP 1: Americo Mendes, Fernando Teigâo,
Nazaré Toureiro, João Pinho, Carlos Machado, José Rosendo, Amélia Palma, Teresa
Pinto Correia, Clara Araújo, Margarida Tomé and Jaime Sales Luis.
GROUP 2: Ana Rita Azebo, Emidio Santos, Luis Leal, Eugenio Sequeira,
Nuno Calado, Nuno António, Fernando Páscoa, Carlos Almeida, Maria Simion, Pere
Riera, Maria Fernanda Rodrigues and Susana Brigido.
Group Presentations: Margarida Tomé presented the results reached by group 1 after discussion. As a final
result, group 1 built a table with the more important topics for end-users (new
social demands and socio economic changes) and topics important for both
researchers and end-users on one side, and on the other side they placed
the basic research needs and research
tools.
Luis Leal presented the results of the
group 2 discussion. They first completed the list of topics, and ranked the
items according the perception of forest owners and industry, general society
and NGOs and hunter organisations and other recollectors. Finally, the most
important issues for research were valued by each participant.
Both
presentations of group 1 and 2 are can be found at the IMACFORD webpage
(mentioned above).
General discussion:
Margarida Tomé chaired the last section of
the day. It was pointed out that participants in group 2 had in mind both the
importance for research and the fact that not enough attention had been paid to
those issues so far, when selecting the most important topics for research.
Also, a reflection was done about the difficulty of the exercise and the
need for further revision.
Latin languages were used in this session, mainly Portuguese and
Spanish, and José G. Borges chaired the session.
First presentation: Pere Riera made a presentation of the MEDFOREX
and IMACFORD projects, similar to the one on the previous day.
Second presentation: José G. Borges presented the
research strategy and activities of the Forest Resources Management Research
and Outreach Program and ‘Grupo de Economia e Gestâo dos Recursos Naturais’ of
the Instituto Superior de Agronomia. He emphasized the importance of putting
research into practice and fostering the links between different organizations
concerned with forestry (such as universities, private companies,
administration, associations and other organisms). Also, he referred to the
various steps in order to generate, treat and implement knowledge (thanks to
models and technology), as well as to the relevance of communicating and
disseminating research results.
Third presentation: Rui Pedro Ribeiro made a
presentation of their work on “Information Systems to support decisions in the
field of Natural Resources Management”. He stressed the usefulness of
information systems as a tool to gather data from the field concerning various
inventories (fauna, flora, etc), to integrate and make available this
information and to generate models to assist decision-making in natural
resource management. He gave some examples of information systems in several
geographic areas currently in use, as well as of integration of various
systems. In addition, he mentioned future developments and potential uses in
this field. Finally, he showed a practical application of the information
systems.
Fourth presentation: André Falcaô made a
presentation on “Modelling of the Forest Resources Management”. He referred to
strategic models, territorial models and risk modelling. He stressed the
ability of the models to include the preferences of forest end-users into the
management model and of take into account landscape and environmental values,
too.
Discussion among participants: After the coffee break, Margarida
Tomé chaired the following session, which was based on commenting the table
of topics relevant for future Mediterranean forest research that resulted from
the previous day. A table was given to all participants so that they could tick
the 3 most important topics according to the research needs from society’s
demands and to the research needs from the participant’s own perspective, and
it contained the following issues:
|
Policy design
and evaluation (including research on financing) |
|
Property rights and violation (wood, truffle, pine
nuts...) |
Extended
markets for marketable products
|
|
Recreation
(hunting and fishing, bird and plant watching, and alike) |
Tourism and
urban pressure
|
Biodiversity
conservation
|
Green
corridors
|
Land use
planning and options
|
|
Rural
development, decline, and land abandonment |
Climate
change
|
|
CO2 sequestration |
Watershed
regulation
|
Erosion control
and desertification
|
Forest fires
|
|
Other hazards
and risk assessment floods, pests, windstorms…) |
Invasive
alien species
|
Valuation
and perception
|
|
Participatory
appraisal (including Interactions between stake-holders) |
Social
education
|
Communication
and media
|
Equity and
distributional issues
|
Information
systems, databases…
|
Forest
community and population dynamics
|
Forest
operation
|
Genetic
resources
|
Integrated
management
|
Transfer of
technology
|
Long-term
integrated research organization
|
Participants were asked to share their opinions about the importance of
the listed topics according to their points of view.
Fernando Páscoa said
that, due to the lack of success of political measures, the participation of
end-users in forest policy and objectives was necessary, as well as redesigning
forest policy. On the other hand, he considered essential the topic of extended
markets for marketable products. Also, he
considered that the opinion of forests owners and forest associations should be
taken into account, regarding their needs and interests.
Margarida Tomé thought
that researchers should find out first what society wants and needs from
forests
Americo Mendes chose the following 3 topics regarding the
research needs from society’s demands:
These are topics relevant for specific social groups with specific
interests, although the first one refers to a national level and the other ones
are topics relevant to smaller scales (regional and local levels). Regarding
the research needs from his own point of view, he ticked:
André Falcâo made a
comment on the topic of biodiversity conservation, as it is sometimes not only
needed to preserve biodiversity, but to enhance it. Also, biodiversity is
continuously evolving; not only biodiversity, but the factors that influence
upon it need to be studied deeply. Margarida Tomé clarified that
biodiversity conservation referred to the study of the mechanisms that affect
biodiversity.
Regarding end-users, João Pinho said that the topic of policy
design and evaluation was essential for the central administration so that it
can provide support to forest associations and assist forest services. However, the administration needs more
information on land use, society’s needs and socio-economics. Therefore, the
topic of land use planning and options is also important.
A debate was raised about the topic regarding CO2 sequestration,
as it was considered to be crucial nowadays due to climate change effects and
the lack of regulation. However, this topic was considered to be included in
other more general ones.
Susana Brígido chose the
issue of land use planning and options and also biodiversity conservation. She
thought it was important to also pay attention to information systems and
databases, which are able to influence sustainability and productivity.
José Rosendo highlighted the issue of looking for new ways
of funding research, as in 4 years time funds will decrease. Secondly, he
emphasised the need of social education in rural development. Thirdly, he
referred to the relevance of information and the need of making it available to
forest owners and the general public. In his opinion, Integrated management was
a topic of great concern.
André Falcâo detected a topic missing in the list of
research needs according to society’s demands, namely “ forest ecosystem
modelling”. He pointed out that modelling is not only related to forest growth,
but also to other forest dimensions (as explained in his presentation).
Additionally, he mentioned that policies are not a valuable tool, unless there
models to implement them. In Portugal, there is a relevant lack of models to
support decision-making. Margarida Tomé added that modelling is an
integrating topic, which also includes biodiversity.
Rui Pedro Ribeiro selected
topics closer to reality. He highlighted the importance of having a policy that
integrates research so that it could guide the way forward and could also
organise the knowledge transfer from researchers to the general public. In his
opinion, we should be concerned first of integrating knowledge in order to
inform end-users afterwards.
According to Sonia Fragoso, it is essential
to have well defined forest policies and to research about the various land use
options. This will hopefully lead to an integrated management of the overall
system. Looking at the local needs and associations, information and knowledge
should also reach them, and associationism should be forested.
Joâo Freire pointed
out the importance to research deeply on the economic mechanisms that make
forests profitable in order to prevent rural decline.
Margarida Tomé asked
participants to fill in their tables in order to select the 3 most voted
topics, which were the following ones:
o
according
to the research needs from society’s demands:
1.
Policy
design and evaluation (including research on financing)
2.
Land
use planning and options
3.
Rural
development, decline and land abandonment.
o
according to the research
needs from the participant’s own perspective:
1.
Land use planning and options
2.
Information systems,
databases
3.
Integrated management.
The complete exercise with the table and the results are shown at www.medforex.net/imacford