Welcome to the GFIS Blog!

On November 4th & 5th, 2011, in Beijing China, the Global Forest Information Service Chinese Workshop was held in conjunction with an IUFRO SPDC Workshop. (Participants of both workshops pictured below)

The workshop's goal was to introduce those in attendance to the Global Forest Information Service and how to use the website to access a wide range of forest information as well as to attract a greater amount of forest-related information from Chinese institutions.

During the two-day workshop attendees witnessed several presentations which provided information on online information management, information sharing and syndication and what it meant to be an information provider in Asia. User's participated in many different exercises aimed to enhance their understanding of the workshop concepts, these included an exercise where users set up their own RSS feed readers and found and subscribed to different RSS feeds around the internet, and having users use RSS generating software to create their own RSS feeds from their own organizations information which was then added to the GFIS system.

At the conclusion of the workshop, attendees were presented with a certificate of completion.

Ma Wenjun  from the Chinese Academy of Forestry receives a completion certificate from instructors Michael Huck (GFIS Communication's Officer) and Ho Sang Kang (GFIS Russia - Asia Regional Coordinator)

 Group Photo of the GFIS Chinese Workshop 

Following the conclusion of the workshop, a  number of the attendees were successfully able to incorporate RSS Feeds into their organizations while a number are still actively pursuing to contribute a greater amount of information to GFIS.

GFIS was also present at the Asia Pacific Forestry Week and met with a large number of organizations introducing them to the GFIS system - growing the presence of the Global Forest Information Service to the Asia region. Following the conclusion of the workshop and the APFW, GFIS saw a spike in statistics and a growing number of hits from China!

Pictured above is the shared IUFRO / GFIS booth, bustling with activity.

On the upcoming 4 & 5 November, GFIS team members will be leading a workshop in Beijing, China. in coordination with the Chinese Academy of Forestry (CAF) and other institutions from within China.

The workshop will concentrate on educating those in attendance on the difficulties and barriers to effective information management, the demand and opportunities for forest information and the technical means to contribute to the growing global information web in a way that conforms with other organizations from around the globe.

In  order to try to reach as large as audience within China as possible GFIS has decided for the first time, to stream the workshop in real time over the internet. Using the streaming technology of mogulus, the workshop will be viewable November 4 & 5 from approximately 9:00 -18:00 CST (China Standard Time) on this webpage - http://www.livestream.com/gfis

By accessing the GFIS channel organizations and people who are not able to attend the workshop will be able to view the instructions which are being held in Beijing. On the site there is the ability to interact with instructors and other viewers via a chatbox. Those who are viewing the workshop will be able to see all of the presentations given by instructors and follow along during workshop exercises.

GFIS Communications Officer, Michael Huck, will be able to interact with viewers and answer any questions post workshop that viewers might have. Questions and/or comments can be sent to Michael at gfis-AT-iufro-DOT-org with the subject GFIS Chinese Workshop.

Note: During the workshop there will be a number of breaks, if you tune into the stream during one of these times please leave the channel open on your computer and check again after  a short period of time.

From the 13-15 of September in Nastola, Finland delegates from all over the world joined together in conversation as the expert consultation on A Long-Term Strategy for Global Forest Resources Assessment. Discussions surrounded the topic of forest related information and what to collect, how best to collect it, and through which means to report it. See the FRA website for more information and past publications. 

The Global Forest Information Service was invited to participate in sessions about sharing international forest-related data and the opportunities and challenges to primary data exchange. Later Communications Officer, Michael Huck, participated in a Knowledge Fair and was able to introduce GFIS to a number of the participants at the conference.

Michael (wearing green) speaks to a handful of interested onlookers about GFIS's mission and the value the website holds to its information partners.

Michael goes into detail with Greg Reams of the US Forest Inventory and Analysis about the functionality of GFIS and how users can create custom RSS feeds based on their search results.

During the the Knowledge Fair a number of people who had never heard of GFIS were happy to hear about the growing progress of the initiative and commented on how valuable a resource it could be for them in the future.As always the GFIS team was happy that it could educate people and brings its expertise on sharing forest related information in an online context.

Please visit back to our Blog in November where we will post about workshops with both North Korean and Chinese representatives in Beijing in the week prior to the Asia-Pacific Forestry Week. One of these workshops will be streamed live online for all those interest to see! More information coming soon. In addition we will be sharing a booth with our fellow IUFRO colleagues at the APF week bring the face of GFIS with us.