Welcome to the GFIS Blog!

Session 6.7 Forest Information, WFC2009, Buenos Aires, 20th October, 2009, http://www.cfm2009.org

The Assistant Director-General of FAO, Jan Heino, welcomed the participants of the meeting stressing the importance of it for our times when we are interacting with a large amount of information. For the first time in the history of WFC the forest information professionals, communications specialists and engineers had a session specifically devoted to discussing the status of forestry information in the world. The meeting was attended by exhibitors from Europe, Central and South America.

The presentations gave an overview of the current situation and trends in forest area, such as evidence-based study of forestry, issue of early development in the field of forestry. The development of this methodology can be a tool to improve the quality of research in forestry.
This presentation was corroborated by the exhibition "communicating forest science", a research conducted in 2006, which analyzed the behavior of forest scientists towards information. According to the results the forest scientist are not interested in communicating with the media nor do they see benefits in it but have a traditional view. The other two presentations shared practical experiences of development of informational capacities and networking of libraries, as examples to follow in other institutions and regions.

As a result of the discussion the participants made the following recommendations:

1. Creation of mechanisms to capture local and communal knowledge as an information resource to enrich the global forest knowledge and potentially improve decision making and science
2. Establishment of an informal forum for continuing and improving global information networks and advocate the vital importance of forestry information and its adequate funding
3. Identifying effective leaders to explore practical solutions to encourage the building of sustainable global and regional networks
4. Generation of proposals for formal discussion at regional and international levels

Nilda Fernandez and Roger Mills

Presentations given at the session

A) Invited postion papers
1. Gillian Petrokofsky: The role of librarians and information specialists in evidence-based forestry

B) Selected voluntary papers
1. Federico Sancho: Hacia un servicio de información forestal: la ampliación de la experiencia SIDALC en A. Latina y Caribe
2. Daniela Kleinschmit, Alejandra Real: Communicating Forest Science
3. Lucrecia Felquer, Ing. Agr. Claudia Luna: Uso del recurso bibliográfico forestal en la biblioteca agropecuaria de la universidad nacional del nordeste: propuesta de un nuevo servicio

See also the final declaration of WFC2009.