Bimonthly Board Reports
March – April 2023
General maintenance of the association
1. International Day of Forests 2023 Webinar Series
For the entire month of March, IFSA celebrated the 2023 International Day of Forests with the theme “Forests and Health” by conducting the first instalment of the Webinar Series!
Three episodes were done in collaboration with partners and alumni. The first episode titled “The Role of Forests in Carbon Sequestration” took place on the 11th of March 2023 with speakers Dr. Shalini Dhyani from IUCN and Prof. Jan Joseph Dida from the University of the Philippines Los Baños. For the second episode, a panel discussion between Daniel Sánchez (Reforestamos, Latin America), Janalezza Esteban Thuaud (RECOFTC, Asia Pacific), and Dr. Marcus Lindner (EFI, Europe) took place on the 17th of March 2023 for the second episode titled “Local Carbon Policies as Pillars for Global Implementation”. Finally, the webinar series was wrapped up on the 1st of April 2023 with the third episode titled “Healthy Forests for Healthy Humans” with Sjerp de Vries (Wageningen University & Research). To watch the sessions, you may visit this link.
This is one of the many collaboration projects between the Internal, External, and Membership Departments this term to instill forestry-related skills and knowledge among IFSA members—and it was definitely a success!
2. Interdepartment Hangout
On the 8th of April, the Internal, Membership, and External departments gathered for the first-ever Interdepartment Hangout where they were able to meet with other officials and get to know the general structure and functioning of other departments.
3. Career Dinner with IFSA SAN
After a long time, IFSA and IFSA SAN (Supporter and Alumni Network) organised another Career Dinner on the 28th of April, 2023. The aim of Career Dinners is to introduce different career opportunities for forestry students after graduation. For this, IFSA and IFSA SAN invite IFSA Alumni that are working in different fields to share their story and career steps before reaching their current jobs.
At this Career Dinner, we welcomed three incredible speakers to our event: the first speaker we invited was Mikko Nivala to talk about his IFSA past and his career. Mikko currently works as a Solution Owner at UPM Biofore (UPM Forest) and focuses on sustainable forestry. The second speaker we welcomed was Sarah Dickson-Hoyle, who is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia. The third and last speaker we welcomed was Florent Kaiser, CEO of Global Forest Generation and passionate “Ecopreneur.” After each presentation, the participants had the opportunity to ask the speakers questions or ask for advice for their own situation.
Overall, around 35 participants from various regions joined the event. Based on the positive feedback, IFSA and IFSA SAN are planning to organise the next Career Dinner within the next few months.
Check out the full article on the IFSA website: https://ifsa.net/career-dinner-organized-by-ifsa-and-ifsa-san/
4. Development Fund – IFSS Special – March 2023
In March, the Board launched a Development Fund Special aiming to support IFSA members to attend IFSS 2023 in Germany. Many applications were received and after carefully reviewing all of them based on the established criteria, two successful applicants were selected. In total, IFSA will support the two successful applicants with 2.350€.
If you missed the first Open Call in March, you still have the opportunity to apply for the current Open Call of the Development Fund until May 15th. More information in the next section.
5. Plans for the next period
1st Heads of Commissions Meeting
In the next bi-monthly period, the Board is planning to organise a meeting with the Heads of Commissions to discuss preparations for the Commissions Guidelines and other concerns related to their respective commissions.
Development Fund – 2nd IFSS Special
We have been accepting applications for financial travel support for IFSA members to travel to IFSS 2023 in Germany. Applications are still accepted until May 15th. After the deadline, the Board will review all applications and select a few recipients for travel support. If you have been accepted to go to IFSS, you still have the chance to submit your application here until the deadline: https://ifsa.net/partial-funding-for-ifss-2023/
EFI-IFSA session at the WCEF 2023 in Helsinki
Together with EFI, IFSA is organising a session at the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF) 2023 in Helsinki at the end of May. The topic of the session is “A more diverse role for forests” during which IFSA will moderate a roundtable discussion with young representatives from different fields of circular economy. Polina, HoSC EFI, and Johanna are currently working on the session, together with the EFI coordinators. Alina Lehikoinen was also invited to moderate the entire session. Online participation is free and open to everyone! More information: https://wcef2023.com/
ForestNavigator – Stakeholder Group
Johanna was asked to join the stakeholder group of the EU-funded project “ForestNavigator” to represent the young generation and especially the IFSA community. The ForestNavigator project assesses the climate mitigation potential of forests and forest-based sectors by modeling robust policy pathways, aligned with climate goals, and supporting EU and national decision-makers. The first stakeholder workshop will be in June at which all stakeholders will meet for the first time and will discuss the goals and milestones of the stakeholder group. More information about the project: https://www.forestnavigator.eu/
Board’s work in:
a) Internal sector
1. Monthly Internal Heads of Commissions Meeting
Every month, the Internal Councilor meets with the Heads of Commission in the Internal Department to discuss updates in their respective commissions and plan the month ahead. This month, they discussed the work plan; how to proceed with filling out the Strategy Indicators; planning for the upcoming Capacity Building Workshop; and more!
2. 4th Internal Department Meeting
In the last week of April, the Internal Department officials met for the 4th Internal Department Meeting. During the meeting, the officials assessed the progress or improvements of their commissions and sub-commissions after the recently concluded hybrid Internal Department Meeting in Indonesia last February 2023. The officials also prepared for the March-April Internal Department Bi-Monthly Report; the Annual Report that is planned to be presented at the end of the term during the 51st IFSS in Germany; and the upcoming Job Fair in May 2023.
3. January-February Bi-Monthly Report
The January-February Internal Department Bi-Monthly Report is finally here! Every bi-monthly period, the Internal Department releases a report to share what they are working on behind the scenes and what activities are in store for the next months!
You may read the report here. Stay tuned for more reports in the coming months!
4. Representation at Asia Pacific Regional Meeting 2023
The Asia Pacific Regional Meeting 2023 took place from the 9th to the 15th of April 2023 in the Philippines. Isabelle Dela Paz, IFSA’s current Internal Councilor, gave her welcome remarks on the first day of the event alongside distinguished guests where she was able to give a brief overview of IFSA and its structure and functioning.
On the second day, Isabelle also led the IFSA workshop titled “How to Become an IFSA Official” where she shared with the delegates how IFSA helped her hone her skills and gain unforgettable experiences and opportunities. She also shared the detailed structure of IFSA that can guide them to decide which official position suits them the best, including a brief background of all the Board positions. Isabelle also shared the step-by-step process for the application. Watch the session here and to watch the entire regional meeting, visit this link.
5. Plans for the next period
IFSA Virtual Job Fair 2023
As a sequel to the first-ever IFSA Virtual Job Fair in 2022, IFSA is once again inviting you to the 2023 IFSA Virtual Job Fair with the theme “Transcending Regional Boundaries”.
Last year, global organizations IUFRO, Youth in Landscapes, YPARD, Forest Stewardship Council, and Forest Europe participated as presenters during the event while speakers Juliet Achieng (Forest Europe) and Andre Purret (IUFRO) presented during the plenary sessions.
This year, it will be a regional job fair—regional and local organizations and companies will be presenting at the Job Fair to discuss their job/internship opportunities! Participating organizations include:
- Asia Pacific: RECOFTC (Thailand), PFOlsen (Australia), Forest Products Commission (Australia), and HVP Plantations (Australia)
- Africa: Environmental Conservation Network, and Bôndy International (Madagascar)
- Latin America: Reforestamos (Mexico), and Maderacre (Peru)
- Europe: Connecting Natural Values and People/CNVP (North Macedonia), European Forest Institute (Finland), and Forest Stewardship Council
We will also have plenary sessions during the event, so stay tuned for more information about it!
More details about the event will be announced soon. In the meantime, you may register here.
5th Internal Department Meeting
Following the 4th Internal Department meeting, the department will meet again in June 2023 to discuss plans and activities before the end of the 2022/2023 term.
b) External sector
1. IUFRO Board Meeting and ICFRE Simposium
IFSA President Agustin Rosello (Chile), former President and Head of Subcommission IUFRO Magdalena Jovanovic (Serbia), and Head of Joint IFSA-IUFRO Task Force on Forest Education Annie Biju (India) were invited to the meeting.
This meeting is a yearly event organised by the International Union for Forest Research Organizations and is where all the decisions regarding the organisation are taken. The event took place at the Forest Research Institute (FRI) in Dehradun, India. The IFSA delegates participated in the discussions of the bidding for the IUFRO World Congress 2028 and the election of the new direction.
The amount of similarities that IFSA and IUFRO have are huge, the way how the General Assembly works, the way of interacting and the discussions were highly encouraging.
The Board Meeting lasted 3 days and after this an IFSA delegation with the FRI LC members attended the International Symposium on Intersectoral Cooperation for Resilient Landscapes. This event was really interesting and well organised by the host, Annie Biju and Aditi Mishra (former External Councilor) had the opportunity to participate as speakers.
You can see more details about this event in the newsletter https://ifsa.net/iufro-india-2023/ and the official web page http://www.fri-iufro2023.in/.
2. YIL SC Meeting
The yearly Youth in Landscapes Steering Committee meeting took place in Bonn at the Global Landscapes Forum. At this event, IFSA was present through the President together with the representatives from the partner organizations of YIL, Young Professionals for Agricultural Development (YPARD), and Youth for Nature (Y4N).
The biggest outcome of the 3 days meeting was the work plan for this next year, which includes the renewal of the MoU that consolidates the Youth in Landscapes Initiative and the MoU between YIL and GLF. In addition to these formal tasks, the discussion centered around the engagement of YIL in the GLF Nairobi (October 2023) and the commitment to keep developing initiatives such as the project teams and the restoration stewards.
During this meeting, a 4 episode blog was created which explains in first person the experience of attending a meeting like this. This blog can be found on the GLF social media and soon on the IFSA Youtube channel and website. You can also watch the blog here!
3. Related Meetings
As we already had Agustin Rosello in Bonn we were able to organise several meetings with partners such as Forest Europe, Global Landscapes Forum, and FSC. This made IFSA present and helped to strengthen the relationship between IFSA and our partners.
During these different meetings, we had the opportunity to discuss the engagement of our partners in the International Forestry Student Symposium which will happen in Germany this year and will have one day in Bonn, together with several other initiatives that are being planned.
We are happy to say that all of our partners are incredibly excited to meet the IFSA members and share the different perspectives that these highly relevant international organisations represent for the forestry sector as a whole.
4. Plans for the next period
During the next period IFSA will have several delegations going on, the most important one being the 18th session of the United Nations Forum of Forest that will take place in New York during the second week of May.
Another important event in which IFSA will take a mostly North American-based delegation will be the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) in Vancouver during the third week of May.
Both of these conferences have different objectives but are highly relevant for IFSA, the first one is the highest level of forest policy discussion and will have all the country representatives and stakeholders discussing the future of the forest sector, and the second is the conference in which the private sector of North American forestry companies get together to discuss emerging topics.
It is important to be present at these kinds of events, this is the first time that we will participate in the SFI/PEFC conference (with a speaker and side event) and we will transition from one delegate to 15 delegates at the UNFF to make sure that the youth perspective is taken in account for the years to come.
c) Membership sector
1. Membership Department meetings
In March and April, the Membership Department had its monthly meetings. The April one was special in the way that the new pre-selected RRs for the term 2023/24 were invited to join so that they can start getting orientation in the department.
2. Applications review
In this period, IFSA received one new membership application from a potential future LC. This application has been reviewed and comments sent back to the applicant.
3. Accepting new LCs
At the same time as commenting upon the new application, we have received updated versions of the applications from the previous periods. There are three new LCs during this period. They are PAFASG (Panama), BUFA (Malawi), and FLawen – UACH (Chile). Both PAFASG and BUFA are at the same time located in countries where IFSA didn’t have any LCs before, FLawen – UACH is the fourth LC in Chile.
After this period, Latin America has 16 LCs, Southern Africa 12 and in IFSA in total, we now have exactly 140 Local Committees from 64 countries. At the same time, it is the first time in the last four years that there is a new LC in Southern Africa.
PAFASG, BUFA, and FLawen – UACH, welcome to the family!
4. LC Project of the Month
In March, we did not receive any submission for the LC Project of the Month and hence, there was no award. In April, there were two submissions of really nice LC projects. It was difficult to choose the winner since both projects would deserve the award. In the end, the Forestry Versatility organised by LC Brno from the Czech Republic was awarded. Congratulations and keep up the great work!
5. LC Data Collection
Same as the last year, in this term the Membership Department has prepared an IFSA-wide survey to find out how many individual members we have in the LCs, what is their gender distribution or how many projects our LCs organise. This year, we also added the study level distribution (bachelors, masters, PhDs) and a basic information update (university, faculty, physical address, social media, logos of the LCs).
The data is being collected till the end of May, so we ask all the LC boards to check the official LC email and fill in this form to help us get a better overview of our LCs. At the same time, it is needed to say that Northern African LCs have already all filled out the form and became the first region to be done by 100%. A huge applause goes to all of you, thank you so much! Which region will be next?
6. Summary of the accomplished plans from the previous period
All the plans from the previous bimonthly period have been fulfilled – Membership Department meetings took place, the LC data collection has started as mentioned above, incoming membership application has been reviewed, and the March submissions for LC Project of the Month were evaluated and the awardee chosen.
7. Plans for the next bimonthly period
Membership Department meetings
As mentioned above, the Membership Department meetings will continue on a monthly basis also in the next bimonthly period.
Revision of incoming membership applications
The Council will continue to review the incoming applications and further the process.
Finishing LC Data Collection
The LC data collection period will finish at the end of May. We once again ask all the LC boards to fill in the LC data collection form. At the beginning of April, all LCs received the link to the official LC emails. After this period, we will start to analyse the results and prepare the report to be launched during the IFSS 2023 in Germany.
LC Project of the Month
Each of the following months, the Membership Department headed by the Membership Councilor will evaluate the incoming LC projects and award one each month as the LC Project of the Month. For more details and LC project submission, check this web page.
