News

March 28 2023

Webinars on using the Restor platform for your restoration project

You need to get the word out on your restoration project to connect with collaborators, funders, and geo-relevant information. The Restor platform can help you with all three functions. By listing their restoration projects on the platform, ISTF members will gain visibility to both potential collaborators and funders. They will be able to explore site-specific ecological data for planning and monitoring their projects. Restor, the International Society of Tropical Foresters, and Terraformation are teaming up to offer a training webinar on how to load your restoration project on the Restor platform.

There will be four different occasions to maximize accessibility for different regions. The same content will be presented at each session. Find your time zone with this tool.

Sessions:

Monday 3 April 2023 – Africa / Europe

16:00 GMT, 12:00 Puerto Rico, 16:00 Senegal, 17:00 London, 19:00 Ethiopia.

_{https://terraformation.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dhFyVujzRqOxQypBZTAQpQ}

Monday 17 April 2023 – North America

23:00 GMT, 19:00 Puerto Rico, 19:00 New York, 16:00 Seattle, 13:00 Hawaii.

_{https://terraformation.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SSLHbvZCRfylb4ZMROI-Hw}

Lunes 10 de abril de 2023 – America Latina (español)

23:00 GMT, 19:00 Puerto Rico, 20:00 este de Brasil, 16:00 oeste de México.

Registrase para 10 de abril

_{https://terraformation.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__3IKzxDQRPW7WRZSjn2TWQ}

Monday 24 April 2023 – Asia-Pacific

08:00 GMT, 04:00 Puerto Rico, 13:00 Pakistan, 15:00 Jakarta, 20:00 Fiji.

_{https://terraformation.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_BZ7tAXSGR-mA0FgIwl9AQA}

You can register for any session, regardless of your region.

Session Plan:

Welcome by ISTF, Restor (3 min)

Introduction to the Restor.eco platform and how to use it (20 min)

How Terraformation uses Restor (2 min)

Q and A (10 min)

Breakout rooms for practice, with assistance (35 minutes)

Closing (5 min)

To do ahead:

We ask all those who register to participate to visit the RESTOR platform at Restor.eco and create an accoun t h e r e BEFORE the session you will attend. Also, familiarize yourselves with the website. This will allow us to devote the maximum time to helping you put your restoration project on the platform.

NOTE: Please have a mouse available to use for the webinar practice session. It is much easier to navigate the Restor platform with a mouse.

About Restor: Restor is a non-profit science-based organization that has been approved as a supporting partner for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. It is a major, open-source, global hub for restoration projects to list themselves for increased visibility to potential funders and collaborators. It also provides ecological information on just about any location in the world, to help restoration practitioners with planning and other operations.

For more information on Restor, please see this video and the videos at “About us” and “How it works” here.

About Terraformation: Terraformation is a global forestry tech company based in Hawai`i, USA. Its mission is to restore the planet’s forests to capture carbon, revive ecosystems, and build thriving communities. They are committed to biodiversity conservation and reversing climate change through global reforestation efforts. Currently, they are supporting reforestation projects with partners in 12 countries in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, North America, and Asia. They are actors for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration and launched the first-ever Seed to Forest Carbon Accelerator Program focusing on restoring tropical native forests.

About ISTF: The h International Society of Tropical Foresters is an information-sharing, collaborative network dedicated to the conservation and sustainable use of the world’s tropical forest resources. ISTF has applied to be a technical partner for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. With 2200+ members in 109 countries, ISTF can help you link to others with similar interests. It is free to join. Become a member today here!

March 12 2023

March Update: Calls and Opportunities

Regina Durst News, Scholarships, Proposals, Opportunities Forestry Scholarship, Monthly update

Welcome to March! With the International Day of Forests celebrated on March 21st, this month is often a lively time for the forestry community. Amidst the busyness, don’t forget to check out the following opportunities before their deadlines pass!

SAF Gregory Award

Every year, the Society of American Foresters (SAF) gives one or more Gregory Awards to outstanding international students (that is, students not currently enrolled in an educational institution in the United States) and early-career professionals, awarding them with a $3,000 scholarship used to attend the SAF Annual Convention. This year, the Convention will be in Sacramento, California, USA, from 25-28 October 2023.

Applications are due by 15 March 2023. See here for more information on eligibility and criteria.

See here for eligibility and criteria

Training Opportunity – Land Accelerator Africa 2023
Applications are now being accepted for the Land Accelerator Africa 2023, the world’s first training and mentorship program targeted specifically toward businesses that restore degraded forests, farmland, and pasture. This program is from the World Resources Institute (WRI). Applications close on 31 March 2023.

Apply now

ITTO Call for Project Proposals

The International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) call for project proposals for Autumn 2023 is now open. The deadline is 10 April 2023.

More information here

Additionally, the report on the updated ITTO Financing structure has been released. ITTO members wishing to submit a Concept Note can do so via the online Submission Form System.

Second Call: ISTF Newsletter March 2023 Issue

We need your contributions! The newsletter is an opportunity to showcase your work and share your concerns. We are seeking your contributions to the quarterly newsletter to be shared with the community/members. We invite members to submit general news items, articles, announcements, field practices, research abstracts, etc.

General News Items
- Announcements/Reports (past and future events) and Opportunities (trainings, workshops, conferences, etc.). If possible, please include 1-2 sentences about the event. 50-200 words.
ISTF Internal News/Updates
- Reports of chapter meetings, summaries of events held, etc. Let us know what your chapter has been up to! Up to 500 words.
Brief Articles
- Short and topical submissions: emerging issues related to forests, novel solutions, innovative research findings, and publication abstracts. Up to 500 words.
Member Profile
- A brief professional introduction of yourself. Up to 100 words.
Field Practices
- Short articles on methods that are useful for foresters working in the field, or new techniques based on personal experience. Does not have to meet the criteria for an academic/research journal; we want to hear about your first-hand observations! Up to 500 words.
Information on Open Access Publications
- Useful information in summarized form from open access sources on the internet or other sources with permission of publisher/author. These can include abstracts to journal publications. Up to 500 words.

Submission Guidelines

All articles must be submitted in Word format and include a title. Please do not send submissions in pdf format
Photos, images, and graphics are encouraged! (jpg preferred, but other formats accepted)

The deadline for this issue is 20 March 2023! Please send your contributions to Muhammad Irfan Ashraf, Chief Editor at: newsletteristf@gmail.com

Lastly, please note that the Dec 2022 ISTF Newsletter issue has been updated. It can now be found at this link here!

July 26 2022

Upcoming Symposium on August 5, 2022

Regina Durst News

Topic: Tropical Restoration-Reforestation – Pros and Cons

Friday, 5 Aug 2022, 11AM-2PM EDT, 3-6PM GMT

Join us on 5 August, 2022 for a virtual symposium on tropical restoration and reforestation!

We look forward to hearing some of the topics and debates connected to tropical restoration and reforestation to help sharpen our thinking about what works under what conditions, and why.

See the list of speakers scheduled below for a glimpse at our presentation lineup!

Agenda

Introduction to ISTF and the SAF International Forestry Working Party – Sheila Ward (USA); 5 min.

Presentations

Introduction to symposium: Pros and cons of tropical forest restoration/reforestation – Tom Geary (USA); 15 min.
Socio-economic and ecological sustainability of tree planting schemes governance in Ethiopia – Yitbarek Tibebe (Ethiopia); 15 min.
Seed banking for scaling restoration – Jill Wagner (USA); 15 min.
Eucalyptus: A non-native species grown in Uganda – Patience Jennifer Turyareeba (Uganda); 15 min.
Ecosystem restoration: Credibility and verification approach at the field level – Hernán Zaldívar, Richard Zell Donovan, (Perú, USA); 15 min.
The restoration funding ecosystem for large and small projects – Will Anderson (USA); 15 min.

Wrapup – John Welker (USA); 5 min.

Question and answer session – Christian Torres (Puerto Rico), moderator; 1 Hour+

Details on Speakers

1. PROS AND CONS OF TROPICAL FOREST RESTORATION/REFORESTATION

Tom GearyForest Scientist, Retired, US Forest Service, USA

ThomasGeary@hotmail.com

Greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, accumulating in the atmosphere, drive global warming. Trees also accumulate carbon, which they take from the atmosphere as they grow. Intuitively, trees seem ideal for removal of carbon from the atmosphere and storing it for a long time, and therefore, protect against warming. However, strong arguments exist that planting trees for this purpose will not be useful. Natural regeneration might be useful, but good reasons exist why that this too might not be useful.

The recent book by Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft Corporation, “How To Avoid A Climate Disaster, The Solutions We Have And The Breakthroughs We Need,” reinforces these views that trees are not the answer, other than trying to preserve existing forests. My purpose in the symposium is to open these arguments to discussion.

2. SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY OF TREE PLANTING SCHEMES GOVERNANCE IN ETHIOPIA

Yitbarek Tibebe Weldesemaet^a, John R. U. Wilson^b,c, Carlos Ferreira^d, Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz^a^aCentre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience, Coventry University, Coventry, UK
^bSouth African National Biodiversity Institute, Kirstenbosch Research Centre, Cape Town, South Africa
^cCentre for Invasion Biology, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
^dCentre for Business in Society (CBiS), Coventry University, Coventry, UK

yitbarekt.w@gmail.com

Ethiopia spends millions of US dollars annually promoting and implementing tree planting. These tree planting schemes are designed to achieve social, economic, and ecological goals. The achievement of these goals necessitates governance approaches that ensure the long-term viability of the socio-economic and ecological outcomes. Understanding schemes governance approaches through their implementation mechanisms and sustainable socioeconomic and ecological outputs helps to identify scalable best practices. In identifying these scalable best practice schemes the study selected 16 tree planting schemes in Ethiopia. To this effect, the schemes’ implementation mechanisms; socio-economic and ecological outputs; and their sustainability were assessed. The outputs of these assessments were scored to identify the best practice schemes and propose contextual scale-up of their governance approaches. Accordingly, the study found that most tree planting schemes have comparable implementation mechanisms, although the difference in their sustainable socio-economic outputs and beneficiary institutional empowerment determined the selection of best practice governance approaches.

3. SEED BANKING FOR SCALING RESTORATION

Jill Wagner
Hawaii Island Seed Bank, USA

Jillwagner3@icloud.com

Seed banking is a conservation tool that can help restoration projects all over the world to scale. Seed availability is a bottleneck for projects and the way to solve it is for land managers and nursery managers to collect seed regularly and bring it into a seed lab for near and long term restoration, as well as banking for the future. Proper handling of seed ensures viability and is a powerful tool that increases options and opportunity for land managers.

The criticisms of seed banking from some land managers is that they say they need the seed now, and bring it directly to the nursery for propagation. They also say that seed banking is expensive and don’t have the staffing, expertise or equipment to do the work. Ms. Wagner will address these topics in her presentation.

4. EUCALYPTUS: A NON-NATIVE SPECIES GROWN IN UGANDA

Patience Jennifer Turyareeba
Retired Forester/Tree Farmer, Uganda

patiencejt@yahoo.co.uk

Eucalyptus is a non-native tree species grown in Uganda. It has been grown since at least 1912, so most Ugandans believe it is indigenous. It was originally planted for the provision of firewood in urban areas. A number of forest reserves close to urban areas were planted with eucalyptus, such as Namanve Central Forest Reserve (CFR) close to Kampala City. Communities that were experiencing fuel wood shortages were encouraged to grow Eucalyptus. As the construction industry grew Eucalyptus became an important source of building poles, fencing posts, transmission posts and timber. It has been established that Eucalyptus trees above 18 years provide good timber for furniture making.

Eucalyptus is used for forest restoration, but other species are also used. There has been controversy about the planting of Eucalyptus with allegations of soil degradation. The choice of species for forest restoration depends on the final product a tree farmer is interested in.

5. ECOSYSTEM RESTORATION: CREDIBILITY AND VERIFICATION APPROACH AT THE FIELD LEVEL

Hernán Zaldívar, Richard Zell Donovan
Preferred by Nature, Global

hzaldivar@preferredbynature.org

pelicanzell@gmail.com

Preferred by Nature has developed a new verification tool, a standard that focuses on assessing the performance of ecosystem restoration at the field level, in several biomes, and of course with a special focus on the tropical forest. This Standard allows communication in a positive and credible manner regarding the restoration efforts and demonstrates that the resources are invested in the right direction. Through the combination of technical, environmental, social, and economic attributes, the Standard provides a structured approach and detailed checklist for verifying ecosystem restoration practices at the field level and help to help communities and project managers to direct the efforts and show that everything has been verified against a robust Standard.

6. THE RESTORATION FUNDING ECOSYSTEM FOR LARGE AND SMALL PROJECTS

Will Anderson
Land Restoration Projects Manager, World Resources Institute, USA

Will.Anderson@wri.org

Thousands of locally led land restoration projects and enterprises are looking for finance. Hundreds of donors and investors are looking to finance them. So, why aren’t billions of dollars moving to the ground? In this talk, Will Anderson will share World Resources Institute’s recent experience funding nearly 120 projects across Africa, Latin America, and South Asia through TerraFund for AFR100, the Land Accelerator, and the Priceless Planet Coalition. Ranging from grassroots initiatives that need less than $30,000 USD to kick off their work to multimillion flagships, he will explore what separates the funded projects from the dreamers.