Centre Launch

The School of GeoSciences at the University of Edinburgh launched a new initiative, the Centre for Sustainable Forests and Landscapes, on 26 September. The launch was extremely successful and was attended by more than 100 delegates. We were particularly pleased to welcome Fergus Ewing MSP, Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy, to give the keynote speech.

Centre as a Hub

The delegates were welcomed by the Centre Director, Prof Jaboury Ghazoul, who told the audience of his hope that the Centre will act as a hub which brings together people with different and, potentially conficting, perspectives, values, and priorities.

The centre aims to be a hub where we can address some of these conflicts and aim to resolve them and, in the process, maybe we’ll be able to understand and unlock new potential by understanding each other’s perspectives.

Jaboury Ghazoul, Centre Director

 

 

Different Perspectives

The delegates also had the opportunity to hear short talks by:

  • Simon Rennie, Chief Executive, Central Scotland Green Network Trust

 

  • Andrew Heald, Technical Director, Confederation of Forest Industries

 

  • Jo Pike, Director of Public Affairs, Scottish Wildlife Trust

 

  • James Mayers, Director of Natural Resources, International Institute for Environment and Development

 

I am hoping the way my organisation will engage with the new Centre is to make connections internationally with some of the organisations around the world who are doing fantastic work for good forestry and sustainable landscapes and to facilitate some of the good knowledge flowing between Scotland and those people.

James Mayers, IIED

This Centre is a good opportunity to combine different views from different organisations […]. I think it is a fantastic opportunity to compare ideas from different organisations, each one with different perspectives.

Juan Suárez-Minguez, Forest Research
Workshop Sessions
The talks were followed by workshop sessions where experts discussed how the Centre can contribute to facing the key challenges and opportunities in the sustainable forest and landscape sector.
workshop discussion

The wide-ranging  topics included:

  • Integrating new data acquisition and visualisation technologies in forest and landscape management;
  • Approaches to negotiating consensus among different interest groups;
  • Anticipating future opportunities and threats to forests and landscapes;
  • Understanding the training needs, and developing the skills and knowledge of environmental managers, and
  • Priorities for a new Forest Strategy for Scotland

The sort of projects that I envisage the Centre working with include projects that work on the nexus between technical development and application, so working to provide new insight, new knowledge that can be then used by practitioners to change the way things are done on the ground.

Philippa Lincoln, LTS International

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