Your monthly dose of IFSA Updates
December Issue
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Hi IFSA Friends!
As we have mentioned in the previous newsletter, there are some important changes coming up in the way we collect newsletter contributions, and how we manage the content. Previously, information about events were published under the Tree news on the website which has now been removed and converted into a new platform called the IFSA News Factory.
Henceforth, our very new platform for publishing online content - IFSA’s News factory will be common for both the students and all IFSA officials (Regional representatives, Liaison Officers, Board) as this would hereafter be a primary gateway for any/all information to be screened and further be published on the website (later on social media). The link to this platform is to be found here.
The different types of content received from students and IFSA officials will be screened, categorized and published online under the following topics:
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Opportunities - This section is exclusively for all IFSA members and officials to make announcements for specific events.
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My IFSA Experience - This section is common for students, Officials and Alumni to share their personal experiences with IFSA.
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Internal - This section is to reach out all IFSA members, hence the name internal. It includes all communications within IFSA and not individual experiences.
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Public Relations - This section includes all official information which goes public and can be accessed by all.
The categorized information will later be posted on various social media platforms to reach out to the forestry student community and partner organisations such as FAO, CIFOR, EFI, IUFRO and ITTO etc. Additionally, an IFSA newsletter will also be published every month with only selected content (based on the significance of the topic) from various categories.
For questions about how to hand in your content, please contact communications@ifsa.net or publications@ifsa.net.
We're so glad to see you are all aiming for:
A World That Appreciates Forests!
IFSA-Hugs, the Communications Commissions
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Experts Workshop on forest sector employment, green jobs and forest education
What is the future of forest employment and the green economy in general? How can we make predictions, when sufficient information on the state of forest education globally as well as career options for forestry students after graduation is lacking? How can curricula be adapted to both students’ expectations and markets’ needs? What are the main drivers of changes in employment?
We discussed these and more questions on 18-19 November 2019 with a group of more than 20 forestry students’ representatives and senior experts from several countries worldwide in the framework of the “Experts Workshop on forest sector employment, green jobs and forest education”. The workshop was organized by the joint ISFA-EFI-IUFRO project and took place im EFI’s Bonn Office.
The selected countries Brazil, China, Finland, Germany, Indonesia, South Africa and the United States of America covered all continents, and albeit they differ in many regards, they all share a high importance attributed to forests and the forest sector, and can provide data availability.
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Poonam Ghimire, our Liaison Officer to CIFOR, was awarded with the Sir Gregory Award by the Society of American Foresters (SAF) during the annual convention of SAF on 1 November in Kentucky, USA. The award is provided every year to one international student or young professional outside of USA and Canada.
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Hello IFSA people, CDC Commission is calling!
We are very excited for having the “Webinar on Higher Education Opportunities” held on 15th of November! During this webinar, we hosted some alumni who spoke about the programs they have participated in, and we covered these three topics: how was the life in the places they fulfilled their program, the financial requirements and also the program they followed!
Time to present the alumni that honored us with their presence and shared their insight! Rodrigo Mendes & Janice Burns shared their experiences over the same program, which took place in different countries for each of them. Sam Adeyanju shared his experience about his program participation at UBC in Canada!
Crucial questions, such as “How to apply”, “How much funding is required” and “Where to get funding from” were answered. And we dare to say that people that attended this webinar were thrilled and more than satisfied.
But, we won’t stop here! Stay tuned, because our goal is to create a multiple webinars. Let’s just say that this is some sort of way to give something back to all IFSA members, in exchange for all these years of motivation, hard-work and personal-time investment.
Special thanks to: Maximilian Schubert, Junaid Peters, Chew Jia Yi, Esmari Wessels and Marsia Moutzouri for their assistance and, of course to the dear Alumni who spared some of their time to make this project happen.
Until next time… warm hugs to whole IFSA World!
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Short updates on....
UNEP Finance Initiative Regional Roundtable Europe on Sustainable Finance
Takeaway messages from the UNEP FI Regional Roundtable Europe included the general motivation of all stakeholders to move faster than in the past when allocating money towards forest landscape restoration (FLR) and sustainable finance projects. Additionally, there are promising pilot projects and best practices of sustainable landscape finance, but these need to be scaled up and mainstreamed. A last important outcome of the roundtable was the call for policy frameworks that are consistent with what is demanded.
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GLF Youth in Landscapes Sustainable Finance Workshop
On the 29th we enjoued a workshop on Sustainable Finance. We were around 40 students from all over the world ready to learn more about finance. After the welcoming everyone we have a presentation from Cora van Oosten on the landscape approach, where we learnt the main challenges related to landscapes and finance. Then we had three experts in the finance sector sharing their experience about sustainable landscape finance. We heard about blended finance, fundraising strategies and risk mitigation. We also had the chance to ask a lot of questions to the speakers.
After we had our business case ready Salina Abraham (President of IFSA 2017-2018), had a presentation on how to do a successful pitch. Using the tips and tricks we had just learnt, we developed our pitch...
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What is the future of jobs and education in a changing forest sector: Highlights from the European Forest week, 2019
On 4-7th November 2019, the United Nations Offices in Geneva hosted the 5th edition of the European Forest Week under the theme “Forests and the Circular Economy”.
The European Forestry Institute (EFI), International Forestry Students’ Association (IFSA) and the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) Project co-organized a side event together with UNECE/FAO Team of specialists on Green Jobs in the Forest sector. The one-hour session was titled “Next Generations Perspectives on the Future of Forest Work”. It was well attended by senior professionals, decision makers among others from several organizations within Europe. Also present was the IFSA delegation led by Stipan Čupić, IFSA’s Liaison Officer FAO and Frederik Buchholz who is IFSA’s Liaison Officer UNFF - Major Group for Children and Youth.
Juliet Achieng Owuor presented preliminary literature review results and focus group discussions on the future of jobs and education in a changing forest sector. The aim of the presentation was to provide insights to professionals, decision makers and institutions on the future of work in relation to the circular economy.
Some relevant topics such as challenging trends expected to shape the future of employment in the forest sector were discussed during the session. The side event concluded with the message that Green Forest Jobs lead to Green Forest Careers and they are a key component of the Future Circular Economy. With such a vital message, the youth have a key role to play and that is exactly why our project is keen on incorporating students’ views on employment and education needs.
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Dear IFSA member,
The IFSS 2020 Quebec-Canada committee is working hard towards the preparation of the IFSS that will take place at the end July 2020 to early August 2020. The registration for the event will be open on January 7th, and we hope you are as excited as we are!
For those of you who are wondering what we will be doing during those two weeks, we have prepared a preview of the itinerary with some of the activities that will be taking place. The itinerary spans close to 2000km and will take us through over 6 different bioclimatic domains! The symposium will travel through Quebec’s vast boreal forest and diverse ecosystems. Please visit our web site and our Facebook page IFSS 2020-Québec Canada to find all the information.
Hope to see you soon!
The IFSS 2020 committee
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Who are your Officials?
'Introducing your Officials'-Series:
Daniel Guerra!
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Hello everyone, I’m Daniel Guerra, this term’s IFSAs membership councilor. The tropics are my home and where I have been raised for my 23 years of life. I was born in Costa Rica, and it is in this same country where I am conducting my University studies at the moment. I am currently close to finishing my business bachelor in the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and halfway done through my forestry degree in the National University of Costa Rica (UNA).
I met IFSA last year during the IFSS 2018 in México and it completely changed my life. As soon as I came back from the event I founded my LC as quick as possible: Estudiantes Unidos por el Trópico (ESUTRO). We were the first LC to exist in Costa Rica and we recently got elected to host the IFSS 2021! So be ready!
As the councillor in charge of membership affairs I work closely with the Regional Representatives (which don’t tell anyone but they are the best team in IFSA) and it is our work to boost regional performance, communication between IFSA members and help with the organization of events such as the Regional Meetings. Nonetheless, one of the best parts of being in the Board is to be able to work with so many different teams and commissions. You get to learn so much from so many different people and that feeling of respect and value for someone else’s effort is one of IFSA´s most true and deepest values.
My plans for next year include (hopefully) passing all my university courses and learning a new language. Fun fact about me: If I could choose any profession, I´d love to be a baker! So if I ever open my own bakery feel free to drop by.
Much Love, Dan
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Updates from LC APEF, Portugal
In the last month, we organized a roundtable on "Improvement and conservation of genetic resources and productivity in forest". We made a small presentation on IFSA and APEF for our freshman and teachers, and after that we had the inauguration of our new headquarters. Additionally, we organized a seminar on falconry in Portugal, and a mycology workshop in the Sintra mountains.
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A.S.S.I.L. from Brașov, Romania greets you all!
This autumn, our LC is working hard, as always, to promote the needs of the foresters in our future.
- We had a recruitment campaign, in which we had a general presentation of IFSA world, for students from different years of Bachelor (I,II,II), to refresh our team with new and constructive vibes.
- Thanks to our good cooperation with our faculty, we were allowed to present our ideas in front of the students, More than 60 students applied as interested about the idea, we have sent an email of confirmation, and 24 of them have confirmed. We are so glad to have them in our LC, also to introduce them in the beautiful and interesting life of IFSA.
- This autumn brought us a new Logo of the LC, thanks to our Vice – President, Alexandru – Sorin Stainbok, who designed the ideas that our members came with. And as a result we got a fresh and original logo that we are so proud to show!
As a result of our fresh reinforcements brought by the new members, three of them, Baroga Alexandra, Ioana Rujan and Maria Spătaru, which took some of their time in contribution for an event to plant a forest curtain, composed by Red oak, 3 – 5m seedlings, which follows a section of a national road in Brașov County.
Our future plans are to create the environment for a CDC meeting in Brașov, in collaboration with our Faculty. Also our future projects are surrounding the idea of Forest Education, and we will keep IFSA World in touch about our ongoing projects.
We wish you a good end of autumn from Hilly Brașov!
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