The conference will consider a wider range of issues relating to the issue of global policies verses local knowledge. The following are a selection of topics of high interest:
- The manner in which forest practices adapt to both local constraints/opportunities and global objectives
- Critical analysis of the positive and negative impacts that global policies have had on small-scale and community forestry at a local level
- The role for traditional forest knowledge in developing global level policies, how best to include this knowledge and factors influencing its consideration
- The extent to which small-scale rural forestry can adapt and respond to changes in global level policies at a local level and the whether these changes are opportunities or threats
- Examples of where, when and why small-scale rural forestry can be efficient and sustainable from a triple bottom-line perspective and thus deliver benefits at a local level and also achieve broader regional, national and international policy objectives
- Critical assessment of the role that traditional forest knowledge has played in guiding small-scale forestry practices at the local level and the extent to which these have been influenced by research and policy developments from outside the local area
- The main criteria and indicators for sustainable rural forest management and use and the implications of their application at a local level
- Linking traditional forest knowledge to decisions by public administrations and policy makers about small-scale and community forestry
- Where and when forest use by rural people at a small-scale level forms a consistent mode of management, and not just depend on occasional immediate needs; and how this process contributes to local development and sustainability
- The role of forestry education and extension in allowing local people to better understand and respond to global policies at a local level and in providing owners of traditional knowledge with an appreciation of the value of this knowledge
The above represent some of the basic issues to be addressed by the papers and posters to be presented at the symposium. Proposals for presentations can include local and national case study descriptions, as well as theoretical frameworks and conceptual debates. The symposium will be an arena for discussions among the participants, and will encourage the dialogue between scientists, managers and public decision-makers.
The conference is a joint initiative between the IUFRO 3.08 Small-scale Forestry, IUFRO 6.12 Analysis and Evaluation of Forest Policies and Programmes and IUFRO Task Force on ‘Traditional Forest Knowledge’.
Papers which span the interests of at least two and preferably all three of these groups will be highly regarded and are the ones most likely to be allocated to plenary sessions of the conference.
