Presentation by Frances Seymour, Director General of CIFOR The forests and climate change task force: Take Two IUFRO Forest and Climate Change Task Force, February 2011 at Vienna, Austria.

1. The Forests and Climate Change
Task Force – “Take Two”
as o ce a e o
Frances Seymour and Markku Kanninen

2. Thematic content: Agreement to retain focus on
special emphasis areas
• Climate change impacts on forest ecosystems (including insects and
Cli h i f (i l di i d
pathogens) and forest‐dependent people
• Feedbacks between land cover dynamics, forest disturbance
processes and climate change
d li h
• Options for adaptation and trade‐offs between adaptation,
conservation, and/or socio‐cultural needs
• REDD and other opportunities for carbon mitigation, including
governance and institutional arrangements

3. Climate change impacts on forest ecosystems
(including insects and pathogens) and forest‐
(including insects and pathogens) and forest‐
dependent people
Suggested specific topics:
• Division 8 input on regional winners and losers, dynamism (“hot
spots and hot moments”
• Division 7 + other divisions on forest biology and climate change
• Division 6 on impacts on forest dependent peoples
• Division 5 on impacts on wood production
Division 5 on impacts on wood production
• Division 4 inputs re modeling of climate change impacts on growth
and hazards
• Link to Division 1 temperate forest adaptation initiative
Link to Division 1 temperate forest adaptation initiative

4. Feedbacks between land cover dynamics, forest
Feedbacks between land cover dynamics, forest
disturbance processes and climate change
Suggested specific topics:
• Di i i 7 i
Division 7 inputs on climate change as one of multiple/interactive
t li t h f lti l /i t ti
stressors on forests; risk and uncertainty assessment
• Division 3 inputs on potential increase in salvage harvesting
operations
ti
• Division 8 inputs on “What is really new/unique with climate
change?”

5. Options for adaptation and trade‐offs between
adaptation, conservation, and/or socio‐cultural needs
Suggested specific topics:
• Input from Division 6 on social issues, e.g., willingness/capacity of
Input from ivision 6 on social issues, e.g., willingness/capacity of
tourism and recreation sectors to adapt; gender issues; role of urban
forestry in the adaptation potential of cities
• Input from Division X on stand vs. system/landscape level adaptation
p y / p p
approaches
• Focus on adaptation strategies for the forest sector itself

6. REDD and other opportunities for carbon mitigation,
including governance and institutional arrangements
Suggested specific topics:
• Division 9 input on governance processes, role of the state, REDD
discourses, etc.
,
• Division 5 input on role of wood products in sequestration

7. Early task:
• Need to map the issues across different regions and forest types
• Need to identify actors/processes already active in each
• Identify niche of IUFRO Task Force accordingly to avoid
duplication

8. Possible products:
• Syntheses of “the scientific consensus” for policy makers – e.g.,
results of panels focused on specific policy‐relevant questions (no
ambition to produce new science)
• “What do policy‐makers need?” syntheses based on intelligence
coming out of negotiating and other forums – fed back to
Divisions
• Also “What SHOULD policy‐makers be asking for?”
• “Toolkit” on forests and climate change, with initial target
audience of the forestry research community itself (?)

9. Agreement on proposed “piggy‐backing” strategy:
• We do not anticipate any “stand alone” events organized by the Task
p y g y
Force; instead, strategic insertion of panels/workshops in conjunction
with other events
• Tactical use of “internal” events and possibly Wiki‐like discussions
(where forestry people talk to each other) to generate “the scientific
consensus” for projection into “external” events
• Complement IPCC activities, e.g., with downscaling scenarios, and
more frequent What do policy‐makers need from science?
more frequent “What do policy‐makers need from science?”
summaries

10. Inputs to the next IUFRO World Congress 2014:
– Agreement on featuring IPCC lead authors as speakers in the sub‐
plenary session
– Compilation and mapping to IUFRO Divisions of “What do policy‐
makers need” as a future research agenda

11. Membership: Propose to “cast a wide net”:
Members nominated by IUFRO Divisions ‐‐ D dli M h 10th
– M b i d b IUFRO Di i i Deadline March 10
– Members invited from key global processes – e.g., IPCC – for
intelligence on “what policy‐makers need”
– Members selected to improve regional balance