Emerging Issues Impacting Indonesian Forests

Political, economic and social changes are impacting on Indonesia's forests. This seminar will allow for discussion of these changes and I will invite participants to present their own reactions to several of my suggestions, including the idea that natural-forest harvesting is no longer an attractive investment, that plantation-wood production is expanding in Indonesia, that low- and middle-elevation forests may evolve into agroforestry systems linked to international supply chains, and that Indonesia has a very high proportion of forests (over 22%) allocated to protected areas. I will discuss these and other pithy issues relating to Indonesian forest conservation.

Professor Jeff Sayer | Faculty of Forestry, University of British Columbia, Canada

Jeff Sayer began working In African savannas, working on the interface between impoverished people and nature. This led to further nature-conservation work in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Thailand and throughout Africa, where conflicts between conservation and poverty alleviation were widespread. In 1983 he initiated the IUCN Global Forest Conservation Programme, and in 1993 he was appointed founding Director General of CIFOR (Centre for International Forestry Research). He has also worked for the World Bank, WWF-International, Utrecht University, and James Cook University, prior to his current appointment at UBC. His work on nature conservation under conditions of extreme poverty continues to this day.

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