| European
Tropical Forest Research Network |
SOURCES OF FUNDING FOR ACTIVITIES IN THE FORESTRY SECTOR
Adrian Whiteman
As part of the international dialogue on forestry, countries have concluded that international organisations could play an important role by disseminating information about sources of funding for sustainable forest management (Report of the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests - fourth session, paragraphs 20 to 31). In response to this, FAO has started a small pilot project to improve public access to information about sources of funding for activities in the forestry sector. As a first step, a small database had been produced, describing some of the types of funding that are available. Currently, it only includes a very small number of funding organisations and it is limited to organisations that have placed information about funding on the internet. However, in addition to funding for "traditional" forestry projects, the database also includes information about funding for a range of other activities that could contribute to sustainable forest management (e.g. grants for overseas study and training, grants for feasibility studies). We estimate that this could grow to 200-300 sources (and probably twice this if national sources of funds were to be included).
The database has been loaded
onto the FAO website for demonstration purposes, testing and evaluation and
can be accessed at:
http://www.fao.org/forestry/finance/sources
Before taking this any further, FAO would welcome comments about how useful
this information might be and suggestions for improvement. For example: should
it include national as well as international sources of finance; is the classification
system right (by country, by type of funding, by subject/activity, by target
group etc.); are the descriptions (under "more information") too long or too
short; should it include non-web-based information sources; should it be disseminated
by other means as well (hard-copy, CD-Rom)? We would, of course, also welcome
any suggestions for other sites to include in the database.
Please send any comments that you might have to catarina.moore@fao.org. Thanks.
CARBON CYCLING TERMINOLOGY IN INTERNATIONAL PROCESSES - CONTRIBUTION OF TERMINOLOGY SCIENCE FOR A BETTER MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING ON INTERNATIONAL LEVEL
IUFRO's terminology project SilvaVoc calls for co-operation in a forest terminology project on carbon cycling. The aim is to prepare a multilingual glossary on carbon cycling of approximately 300-400 terms in the official IUFRO languages: English, French, Spanish and German.
Special emphasis is placed on terms and definitions, which may cause confusion because of diverging national interpretation. An invitation letter calling for co-operation and input is presently circulated to International Organizations and Processes and forestry institutes. In order to assess the regional differences in definitions and meaning it is most important to identify partners and colleagues with different linguistic environments and mother tongues. Please inform the SilvaVoc Coordinator Renate Prüller at prueller@forvie.ac.at about your expertise and interest to contribute in this initiative.
PCTOC INVITES REVIEW ARTICLES ON FOREST TREE BIOTECHNOLOGY
By S. Mohan Jain
Plant biotechnology, including genetic modification, plant molecular and developmental biology and plant tissue culture, is making tremendous progress. The micropropagation industry produces worldwide hundreds of millions of high–quality, disease-free plants per year. Transgenic plants are in the field and genetic maps of several crops have been developed. Many useful mutant varieties have been obtained by induced mutations, and molecular markers are becoming an indispensable tool in the breeding of many crops. At the same time, public concerns have been raised about ethics, environment and health, and about patenting and commercialisation of biotechnology.
Large numbers of research papers are being published in numerous international and national journals. Often it is difficult to keep track of publications in the large pool of journals. Review articles are immensely helpful to researchers and students in updating their knowledge on a given subject, in integrating the present body of knowledge and in directing implicitly or explicitly future research.
Therefore, Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC) will publish review papers under the name "Reviews of Plant Biotechnology and Applied Genetics". Most will cover biological and agricultural aspects. However, the reviews will also deal with ethical, socioeconomic, and environmental dimensions of plant biotechnology, as well as with current debates on future lines of research and short commentaries on recent scientific events.
We aim to include one or two reviews in each issue of PCTOC. The present, double issue contains only reviews. We call upon colleagues to contribute review articles to PCTOC.
For advice or any further
information please contact the science editor of PCTOC responsible for reviews:
S. Mohan Jain
FAO/IAEA
Joint Division International Atomic Energy Agency
Room A-2206, Box 100, Wagramerstrasse 5
A-1400 Vienna, Austria
Phone + 43 1 2600 21623, Fax + 43 1 26007
Email: S.M.Jain@iaea.org