WE LOSE A FRIEND - It is with great sadness that I report that one of our friends, Professor John (Jack) E. Estes, age 61, died suddenly on March 9th, 2001 after a fight against cancer. Jack was a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and has long been involved in remote sensing activities including significant work in forestry. For more information, please see http://www.geog.ucsb.edu/events/estesfund.htm. His loss is deeply felt by his students, colleagues, family and friends. Jack was a great teacher, mentor, scientist and friend. To honor Jack's countless contributions to UCSB and to keep alive his memory, colleagues in the Geography Department have established the Jack Estes Memorial Fund for Graduate Students at UCSB. This fund will support many future generations of outstanding graduate students in Geography at UCSB. Should you wish to contribute, please make your check payable to The UCSB Foundation and send to: The Jack Estes Memorial Fund, Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 USA.
GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY INFORMATION FACILITY (GBIF) - From the Biological Conservation Newsletter - "After 5 years of discussions and planning, representatives from 32 countries and intergovernmental organizations completed the planning efforts for a new project to bring data about biological diversity to the desktop of anyone with access to the Internet. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) will be an interconnected set of databases that will contain information about all 1.8 million species of organisms - from bacteria to whales - that have received scientific names, including access to data on the approximately 3 billion specimens located in the world's natural history collections. GBIF will be an unparalleled resource for scientists, natural resource managers, policy makers and the general public, who will be able to use GBIF to find genetic, taxonomic, geographical and ecological information on the world's species. Further information about GBIF can be found at the GBIF web site at http://www.gbif.org." For a free subscription to the Biological Conservation Newsletter - see http://www.mnh.si.edu/botany/bcn/
BUSH MANGO AND AFRICAN PLUM ON THE RADIO - From Duncan Macqueen - African farmers in Cameroon and Nigeria plant and grow African Plum and Bush Mango to improve household nutrition and cash income through local and regional sales. Extension information about fruit trees very rarely reaches these farmers, in part because neither agricultural nor forestry departments believe that fruit trees fall within their extension mandates. This collaborative research project has developed improved fruit tree cultivars, information on planting techniques and tree management, and marketing guidelines. In order to get this information to the rural poor, the project has worked with Wren Media to record radio interviews (with associated transcripts). These interviews will be sent to national and regional radio stations for broadcast, translated into local languages where appropriate. For further information on Wren Media and innovative ways to reach isolated rural populations please contact: Susanna Thorp s.thorp@wrenmedia.co.uk or k.schreckenberg@odi.org.uk
TROPENBOS INTERNATIONAL - Tropenbos International, established in 1988, is an independent, internationally oriented organisation that facilitates research and development activities to support the conservation and sustainable utilisation of tropical rain forests. Tropenbos, in close cooperation with universities and research institutes, facilitates interdisciplinary research at permanent locations. Currently these are in Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Colombia, Guyana and Indonesia. Research results are applicable on a local as well as on a broader scale. For further information, visit the Internet site at: http://www.tropenbos.nl
WOODSTOCK 2.5 - Commercial forest modeling software. Woodstock2 costs $3,000 (US) or $3,500 (CAN). Upgrades are free to Woodstock license holders enrolled in the support and upgrades program. An annual Woodstock Technical Support and Upgrades Program costs $400 and entitles users to unlimited technical support. For more information, please contact: Moira Finn, Communications Manager, Remsoft Inc.. Tel: +1-800-792-9468. Email: moira@remsoft.com
IRISH FORESTRY NEWSLETTERS - You may be interested in the following
two newsletters dealing with forestry in Ireland. COFORD (National Council
for Forest Research and Development) Forestry and Wood Update - to subscribe,
contact info@coford.ie and Forest Network Newsletter - (see http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tonylowes/forsfn.htm).
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? - I have updated my web pages on key forest classification terminology. For definitions of definitions of forest state, stage, and origin (old growth, pristine, ancient, natural, plantation forest, etc.) see http://home.att.net/~gklund/pristine.html. For definitions of agroforestry, urban forestry, forest health, sustainable forest management, etc. see http://home.att.net/~gklund/moredef.html. For listings of definitions around the world for forest, woodland, tree, afforestation, reforestation and deforestation, etc. see http://home.att.net/~gklund/DEFpaper.htm. Warning this is a large file - approx. 1300K. Please note that I am still seeking national or official definitions of forest, forest land and tree for the following countries: Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belize, Bosnia and Herzegovina, British Virgin Islands, Brunei Darussalam, Cayman Islands, Chad, Congo (Zaire), Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, French Guyana, French Polynesia, Greenland, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Dem. People's Rep., Kuwait, Liberia, Libya Arab Jamahiriy, Macedonia, Malta, Martinique, Moldavia, Republic of, Mongolia, New Caledonia, Nigeria, Oman, Palestine, Reunion, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, St. Helena, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vincent & Grenadine, Surinam, Swaziland, Syrian Arab Rep., Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Western Sahara, and Western Samoa. If you can assist with any definitions for the above countries, please notify me at gklund@att.net. Thanks, Gyde
OPPORTUNITIES - Several readers of FIU are seeking employment
in the forestry field. If you have jobs available and are in need of good
people, please consider posting your vacancies in FIU (there is no charge
for this service) and the following outlets:
http://foresters.org/jobs/
http://forestry.about.com/education/forestry/msub14.htm
http://www.safnet.org/market/careercenter.htm
http://stateforesters.org/news.html
19-21 April 2001. AGILE Conference - GI in Europe: Integrative-Interoperable-Interactive. Brno, Czech Republic. Email: agile.brno@porthos.geogr.muni.cz. URL: http://www.geogr.muni.cz/agile2001/
30 April -2 May 2001. Water Quality, Monitoring and Modeling: Specialty Conference of the American Water Resources Association. San Antonio, Texas, USA. Contact: Michael J. Kowalski,+1-540-687-8390. http://www.awra.org/.
1-3 May 2001. Urban Wildlife Management Conference. Nebraska City, Nebraska, USA. Tel: +1-402-474-5655.
27 May -1 June 2001. Twenty-second Annual Meeting of the Society of Wetland Scientists, Urban Wetlands: Protecting and Enhancing the Resource. Chicago, Illinois, USA. http://www.sws.org/chicago/
28-29 June 2001. International workshop on Geo-Spatial Knowledge Processing for Natural Resource Management. Varese, Italy. Contact: proterra-info@mal.crii.uninsubria.it. URL: www.proterra.itim.mi.cnr.it
5-7 September 2001. Digital Earth Moving 2001 (DEM 2001) 1st International Conference. Manno, Switzerland. Tel: +41-91-610-8990. Fax: +41-91-610-8970. Email: dem2001@simsi.cim.ch. URL: www.cimsi.cim.ch/dem2001
20-21 September 2001. EARSeL/CORISTA Workshop on Remote Sensing by Low-Frequency Radar. Naples, Italy. Contact: Anna Maria Esposito. Tel: +39-0815935101. Fax:+39-081-5933576. Email: corista@unina.it. URL: www.corista.uninan.it.
1-3 October 2001. 5th Conference on 3-D measurements methods. Vienna, Austria. Contact: Heribert Kahman. Fax: +43-1-5880112-895. URL: www.info.tuwien.ac.at/ingeo/optical3d/o3d.htm
17-19 October 2001. The Thirty-fifth Annual Midwest Forest Mensurationists (http://dendron.fr.umn.edu/mmm2001/index.html) and the Third Annual FIA Science Symposium (http://fia.fs.fed.us/latenews.htm). Traverse City, Michigan, USA. A call for papers is open until 20 April. Conatct: John Moser - jwm@fnr.purdue.edu.
24-26 October 2001. Carbon sink and biodiversity. Liege, Belgium. Contact: J.stein@mrw.wallonie.be. Fax 335822. URL: http://www.mrw.wallonie.be/dg/div/dir/
8-9 November 2001. IEE/ISPRS Joint Workshop on Remote Sensing and Data Fusion over Urban Areas. Rome, Italy. Contact: Paolo Gamba, Dip. Di Elettronica, Universita di Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy. Email: p.bamba@ele.unipv.it. URL: www.tlc.unipv.it/urban_2001.
(dates TBA) 2002. III International Rattan Congress, 2002 Philippines or Malaysia (tba). Contact: Dr. I.V. Ramanuja Rao, Branch Box 155, P.O. Box 9799, Beijing 100 101, China. Fax: 86-10-6495-6962/83; Email: rrao@inbar.org.cn.
23-25 January 2002. Fusion of Earth Data - 4th International Conference (EARSeL SIG Workshop). Sophia Antipolis, France. Contact: fusion@cenerg.cma.fr. URL: www.datafusion.cma.fr/conf.
4-6 June 2002. 22nd EARSeL Symposium and General Assembly: Geoinformation of European-Wide Integration. Prague, Czech Rep. Contact: Dr. Tomas Benes, UHUL Forest Management Inst., Czech Republic. Tel: +42-0202800121. Fax: +42-0202803371. Email: benes@uhul.cz. URL: www.uhul.cz.
August, 2002. Methodology of Forest Insect and Disease Survey in Central Europe. Krakow, Poland. Contact: Michael McManus, USDA Forest Service, Hamden, Conn., U.S.A.; Fax:+ -203-230-4315; Email: mmcmanus/ne_ha@fs.fed.us
11-17 August 2002. 26th International Horticultural Congress. Toronto, Ontario Canada. Contact: Norm Looney, Chair, Executive Committee: Email: looneyn@cm.agr.ca
14-21 August 2002. 17th World Congress of Soil Science - "Confronting new realities in the 21st Century". Bangkok, Thailand. Contact: Congress Office, Kasetsart University, Box 1048, Bankok 10903, Thailand. Email: o.sfst@nontrj.ku.ac.th
September 2002 (dates TBA). 50th Annual Meeting of the Western International Forest Disease Work Conference. Victoria, B.C. Canada. Contact: John Muir, B.C. Min. of Forests,Forest Practices Branch, 1450 Government Street, 1st Floor, Victoria, B.C.; Fax: +1-250-387-2136; Email: john.muir@gems1.gov.bc.ca
29 September-3 October 2002. Forests Sustaining Communities/Communities Sustaining Forests - CIF/IFC Annual General Meeting and Conference. North Bay, Ontario, Canada. Contact: Fred Pinto: Email: fred.pinto@mnr.gov.on.ca URL: www.cif-ifc.org/algonquin/hamco.html.
22-30 September 2003. World Forestry Congress. Quebec
City, Quebec Canada. Contact: URL: www.wfc2003.org/
International Timber Exchange - http://www.timber.org/
Field Guide Highlights Southern California Reptiles, Amphibians - http://ens.lycos.com/ens/mar2001/2001L-03-22-09.html
Results of the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2000 - http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/003/X9591e.htm and http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/003/X8784e.htm
A Dictionary of (Measurement) Units - http://www.ex.ac.uk/cimt/dictunit/dictunit.htm
EUROFORTECH - European Network for education, training and technology transfer in the Wood and Forestry sector - http://www.eurofortech.com/
Free Maps and GIS Data - http://www.manifold.net/products/maps_and_data_home.html
--
H. Gyde Lund
Forest Information Services
8221 Thornwood Ct.
Manassas, VA 20110-4627 USA
Voice: +1-703-368-7219, Fax: +1-703-257-1419
Email: gklund@att.net
URL: http://home.att.net/~gklund
"Resource inventory, Web searches, Information synthesis"