Welcome to the GFIS Blog!

The Global Forest Information Service has recently underwent a number of changes to improve usability and information access. While not all the updates can be seen, you will notice a slight change to the layout and design of the homepage. Outlined below are the changes you should know about:

• Inclusion of highlighted topics which brings together information from our partners under popular and important themes. There are more topics available than those shown on the homepage banner.
• Ability to create custom RSS feeds to ensure that you will stay up-to-date with the research and information you need most.
• Subscription button to the monthly GFIS newsletter so that you can get updated with the most popular information from our partners. Optimized for mobile devices.
• Website optimization so that no matter where you are in the World GFIS will load faster, giving you access to the information you desire.
• Ability to harvest YouTube playlists which means that users will see a
  great increase in the number of forest-related videos in our Videos section.

These changes improve your ability to access information on GFIS. Spend some time navigating through the pages and get yourself familiarized.

A new edition of the GFIS Newsletter is out once again. In the newsletter you will find:

• highlights from the IUFRO-Director's Forum & ALL Division 9 Conference held in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina May 2012.
• information about GFIS's work with the IUFRO-FORNESSA Regional Congress & ITTO/AFF Forest Policy Day held in Nairobi, Kena June 2012.
• a sample of site statistics Jan-June 2012; and
• an article entitled Putting Forests to Rights written by Marcus Colchester - Director, Forest Peoples Programme.

To view the newsletter in its entirety see the link below:

https://www.gfis.net/blog/gfis/resource/docs/GFIS_Newsletter4thED.pdf

The 7-8 May, 2012 brought together the heads of Forest Research Institutes & University Forest Faculties from around the World in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovnia, to discuss important cross sectoral topics. The Director's Forum, which is organized by IUFRO Research Group 9.02.00 - Management of Forest Research, is a unique and advantageous event for stakeholders of Forest Research. The event hall in the Hotel Hollywood, located on the outskirts of Sarajavo, was full of Deans and Directors discussing a variety of topics which have great importance on the future of forest research in educational facilities as well as research institutions.

 On the first day, discussions under the theme Participation in research and research management were held which invited the Dr. Ann M. Bartuska, Deputy Under Secretary for Research, Education, and Economics of the USDA to share and present her experiences. The day continued with a World Cafe Workshop, which saw participants going to five different stations and informally discussing topics under the themes; Setting the research agenda, Organizing participatory research, Interest group and stakeholder involvement, Documentation and communication of participation processes and measures, & Ethical aspects of participatory research. This session was very stimulating and a number of conclusions were summarized by FOPER students who were on hand throughout the Forum.

In the afternoon, presentations continued under the theme Governance of cooperation and competition.  Overall, the first day of the Forum was very successful. To view the whole Program Click Here.

The next day continued with presentations under the theme Frame conditions for forest research and education. The presentation covered a range of topics from responding to reduced research budgets, to engaging policy makers within Europe.In the afternoon, Eero Mikkola, Coordinator of the Global Forest Information Service, presented to those in attendance on Aggregation & Dissemination of Global Forest Information. The presentation started by identifying the problem of the expanding WWW and stating the importance of collaboration amongst Forest Institutions to form an online open-access community to freely bring together and disseminate their information. Attendees were shown depictions of increasing web traffic on the GFIS platform, while identifying continued areas of growth in specific areas of the globe, as GFIS currently has its largest amount of information providers and visitors from Europe. Mikkola, showed examples of how GFIS can be utilized to create custom content on information providers webpages, and also spoke about the prospect of improved filtering options in the future - which would see content grouped geographically and by theme. The presentation stirred a successful response from a number of organizations who are in the process of becoming GFIS Partners.

The afternoon and Forum closed with a focus on Forest Education and presentation under the theme Societal and organizational aspects of high forest education. Planning will commence soon for the next Director's Forum which will coincide with the IUFRO 2014 World Congress in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

The week continued with the first IUFRO All Division 9 Conference. Division 9 Forest Policy and Economics is the newest research network in IUFRO. The Conference served to strengthen the relationships within and across the Research Groups and Working Parties. 170 participants were registered for the Conference representing a wide range of organizations and interests. A variety of interesting presentations occurred throughout. The Programme can be viewed by Clicking Here.

On 10 May, GFIS was represented by Communications Officer, Michael Huck who presented under the Concurrent Session B3 :IUFRO and Information Direction 2012. Huck's presentation entitled Partnerships & Possibilities introduced the crowd in attendance to the concept of GFIS as a means to collectively build a knowledge based community on the internet for forest organizations. He went on to speak about the  limitations which currently exist on the platform, and the possibilities for enhancing information access, through the use of thematic tags. All-in-all, a large interest was raised by those whom had not heard of GFIS, and a number of partnerships are in the process of being secured.

The two events were successful for the Global Forest Information Service, and enhanced the visibility of the CPF initiative, led by IUFRO within the the particpants and organizations of IUFRO.