Meeting of the Bureau of Alternates

MEETING OF THE BUREAU OF ALTERNATES

NORTH AMERICAN FOREST COMMISSION

Oaxaca City, Oaxaca, Mexico

November 6-10, 2000

PARTICIPANTS:

Mexico

Victor Sosa Cedillo, Director General of Forestry, SEMARNAP

Laura Lara Granados, Liaison Group, SEMARNAP

United States

Val Mezainis, Director, International Programs, USDA Forest Service

Jan Engert, Mexico and Brazil Program Coordinator, USDA Forest Service

Liza Paqueo, Project Development Specialist, International Programs, USDA Forest Service

Canada

Gordon Miller, Director General, Science Branch, Canadian Forest Service

FAO

Yves Dube, Forestry Officer, Planning

SUMMARY OF ACTION ITEMS AND DECISIONS:

A.  General

§  BOA agreed on the value of awards for long-standing and dedicated working group members. Laura Lara, Jacques Trencia, and Oscar Cedeno will research options for how to do NAFC Commission awards and/or Working Group awards and present options at the next BOA meeting

§  BOA agreed to explore urban forestry, watershed and recreation issues by developing ideas for project proposals rather than establishing “new” working groups. Further discussion on potential projects will be discussed at the next BOA meeting.

§  On carbon sequestration issues, the first step will be to improve the technical paper on carbon sequestration given at the NAFC meeting in St. Andrews. The BOA will provide Sosa with contacts from the U.S. and Canada for further work on updating the paper.

§  At the next meeting, BOA will discuss reconvening task force on working groups.

§  BOA (esp. Mezainis) will offer recommendations of Secretariat candidates.

B.  Working Groups

§  Chairpersons of working groups should invite FAO focal points to regular working group meetings. BOA will consider proposals for funding their travel to working group meetings if needed. At a minimum, focal points should be informed on all current activities of the working group. Dube is responsible for giving Liza Paqueo contact information for focal points, so that they may be added to the mailing list.

§  Laura Lara is responsible for communicating with Oscar Cedeno, Fire Management, about the $25K CDN which has been allocated to website development.

§  Lara and Paqueo are also responsible for coordinating with Trencia to get an updated membership list from the Forest Genetics group.

§  Mexico will publish latest minutes/proceedings from the Silivculture Working Group meeting. Silviculture working group needs to integrate some specific activities in tropical forests.

§  Mezainis will discuss with current Insect & Disease Chair, Tom Sterner, formation of an “Invasive Species Working Group” with sub-groups of Plants and Animals. Tom Sterner would be charged with organizing the plant group subgroup and asking for proposals/recommendations by next meeting.

C.  Funding

§  Funds of $20k was requested and approved for Insects and Diseases working group for the publication and distribution of report on Mistletoes. US will fund.

D. Working Group Information Dissemination - Website and Mailing List

a.  Action Items for Website:

i.  Lara will talk to Oscar Cedeno about Fire Management’s $25K dedication to website and what it’s purpose will be.

ii. Paqueo will put report on website and send e-mail to study group chairs for comment

iii.  Each liaison is in charge of making sure assigned working groups follow consistent format, as decided upon by BOA:

1.  About Us: description on working groups- something longer than a mission statement. Liaison officers will be responsible for contacting working group chairs or writing this section themselves.

2.  Activities: past and recent, meeting reports, upcoming activities, what’s new?, publication and databases

3.  Membership: needs to be updated

4.  Photos specific to their working group activities as well as group photo of members (see Forest Genetics page)

5.  All reports will be in English but working groups are responsible for providing all executive summaries in French, English, and Spanish.

6.  All reports must be submitted electronically and not as hard copies (MS Word, WordPerfect, HTML, Text files are preferred).

7.  All Photos must be scanned in at 72dpi and saved as jpegs. Gifs are also welcome.

iv.  Paqueo will add a calendar of upcoming events and meetings to site.

v. Next meeting, BOA will decide on how to organize their site on the NAFC page.

b.  Action Items for Mailing List:

i.  Send new information (reports, updates, etc) to entire mailing list as way of sharing information and gaining more visibility for NAFC and activities.

ii. Paqueo will update membership list on NAFC website.

c.  The progress report of the FAO’s consultant, Sander Dankelman, “International Dialogue on Forestry: FAO Statutory Bodies on the Internet,” was distributed to participants for their information and reactions, and to continue efforts to harmonize approaches.

E. Upcoming Events and Meetings

§  Silviculture and Forest Genetics: joint meeting in April 2001, Puerto Rico

§  Atmospheric Change: November, 2001 in Monterrey, Mexico.

§  Fire Management: October 15-19, 2001 in Cancun, Mexico.

§  Insects and Diseases: September 2001 in San Francisco.

§  Inventory and Monitoring: January 2001 in Victoria, Canada.

§  Forest Products:

§  BOA: late May or June in Canada (TBA)

PREVIOUS MEETING: The previous meeting of BOA was held on June 11, 2000, in St. Andrew’s, New Brunswick.

NOVEMBER 7, 2000:

a.  Val Mezainis chaired the meeting of the BOA. He opened with introductions and a review of the meeting agenda. The following topics were added to the “Open Discussion” agenda item of handling emerging themes: reforestation (Dube), watersheds (Miller), and nurseries. The following international activities’ updates were also included: World Forestry Congress (Miller) as well as the recent meeting on local level criteria and indicators in Chihuahua, Mexico (Engert and Lara).

b.  ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGES:

i.  FAO: A Management Support Service was created in September 2000, replacing all existing departmental management support units, with a view to providing a range of administrative support services, advice and management information to Divisional Directors and Department Managers in the area of finance, budget, procurement-requisitioning, personnel and travel. The introduction of and the related-training in the Oracle Financial System is being completed. Field Program operational responsibilities for non-emergency projects are being further decentralized. At the end of the process, the distribution of responsibilities between Headquarters and the decentralized structure will be as follows:

a.  Technical Units at Headquarters: Global and Interregional projects

b.  Regional Offices: Regional projects and projects in countries without FAO Representations.

c.  FAO Representations at country level: country projects.

The posts of Forestry Department Program Coordinator and Senior Forestry Officer (Plantations and Protection) were filled.

ii. MEXICO: Newly elected President, Vicente Fox, has issued a mandate to allow more decentralization in the new government. The new government will be instituted in December. The President has given forestry high priority, with talk of creating a cabinet level forest commission. Resources would also be increased; however, the role of SEMARNAP is still unsure. From November 13-15, there will be a USAID sponsored fire conference in Mexico City. 18 countries from all over the Americas will be attending.

iii.  CANADA: National elections will be held in Canada at the end of November. Gordon Miller will assume responsibility for the science program of the CFS. An effort is underway to link policy and science and to work more with C&I. Although administration changes may occur after the elections, there are new objectives on the table: reduction of internal networks and bureaucracy, more time between managers and employees, shifting projects to higher level, and more emphasis on international activities.

iv.  USA: Organizational changes will also depend on outcome of the elections. This year, the US had what some consider the worst fire season in history. Seven million acres burned in forest and grasslands. Dry fuels and hot dry weather was the cause. $25 million was spent to fight the fires. The US received help from Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Israel to combat the fires. The Clinton administration proposed an increase to the fire budget by $1.1 billion. Clinton also signed into law in 2000 an agreement in which 25% of timber sale revenues from public lands would fund local economic development. Calculations would be based on historical levels and no longer directly linked to annual timber sale revenues as in the past. Both a new forest planning regulation as well as new roadless policy will be released soon.

c.  REPORT FROM THE WORKING GROUPS

i.  Silviculture (Lara)

a.  Both Laura Lara and Victor Sosa attended the joint meeting of the Silviculture and Forest Genetics working groups in Merida, Mexico, in July.

b.  Request to BOA to recognize Frank Wadsworth and Javier Chavelas, both of who are retired, with plaques.

c.  Silviculture group requests that the website be in Spanish as well as English. (see Website notes)

d.  Lara and Paqueo will contact Trencia about updates to NAFC mailing list.

e.  Jacques Trencia will contact Liza Paqueo about putting up the report on the website.

ii. Forest Genetics (Lara)

a.  Tom Ledig is the new chair of the working group.

b.  Forest Genetics would like to establish cooperation with all of the Americas.

c.  In conjunction with Silviculture group, Forest Genetics is planning a Southeast Convention, where both groups will present.

d.  Joint meeting in April 2001 in Puerto Rico.

e.  Victor Sosa offered to publish Silviculture report from last meeting…may be ready for publication at the end of the year.

iii.  Forest Products (Miller): There is no current report on this group; they haven’t been very active after a fairly enthusiastic start.

iv.  Atmospheric Change (Miller)

a.  This group has been very active.

b.  They had a meeting in October to discuss membership expansion, building partnerships, and further work on their charter and development of information brochure.

c.  Peer review in February 2001.

d.  Harry Hirvonen has agreed to stay on for another 2 years.

e.  Next meeting will be in November 2001 in Monterrey, Mexico.

v. Fire Management

a.  Recent meeting in September in Hawaii.

b.  They have $170K CDN leftover from Vancouver conference, which they will allocate in the following way:

i.  $35K for next meeting

ii. $25K for development of Fire site on NAFC web page

iii.  $90K research and collaboration with Mexico: $50K of research money will be spent on first year program and the remainder on second year program.

c.  Long range plans is to have all three countries operating under the incident command system.

d.  Some of their main objectives for the upcoming year are to increase skill building, to continue work on fire rating system, and to have technical exchanges between Mexico and Canada.

e.  Next meeting: October 15-19, 2001 in Cancun, Mexico.

vi.  Insects and Diseases

a.  New chair: Tom Sterner

b.  Recent meeting: September 20-22, 2000, in Victoria, Canada.

c.  Mark Gillis and Harry Hirvonen of Atmospherics working group attended the meeting.

d.  The group will present a resolution at the next commission meeting for implementation of detection system to monitor invasives regionally.

e.  The group is also doing a pest risk assessment on Sudden Oak Death, which has recently been seen in Northern California. Mexico and Canada are afraid that this disease will spread.

f.  Next meeting: September, 2001 in San Francisco.

g.  Funding request (see funds)

vii.  Inventory and Monitoring

a.  The group has not met since January, 2000.

b.  Next meeting in January, 2001, in Victoria, Canada.

d.  OPEN DISCUSSION: (Emerging issues related to formation of separate working groups.)

i.  Alien Species

a.  There has been a lot of interest by Canada and Mexico in this subject.

b.  Mezainis will explain to Tom Sterner (Insects & Diseases) about forming the Invasive Species working group, which will be further subdivided into sub-groups: Plants and Animals.

c.  Tom Sterner is charged with organizing plant group and asking for proposal/recommendations by next meeting.

ii. Urban Forestry

a.  BOA will defer this until the next BOA meeting pending political situation in Mexico.

b.  Thought: Could develop a sister project between Los Angeles (TreePeople), Mexico City, and Vancouver, rather than a separate working group?

iii.  Carbon Sequestration

a.  Sosa suggests to have updated papers on carbon sequestration (c.q.) ; specifically to update and complete report for c.q. from St. Andrews across North America.

b.  BOA will provide Sosa with contacts on c.q. for purpose of updating the paper.

c.  FAO: Focal point Wulf Killmann may be able to help Sosa.

iv.  Watersheds

a.  The definition of watersheds is too broad; it can be integrated into any of the working groups.

b.  A sister urban forestry project could jointly address this issue.

v. Recreation

a.  For Mexico, there is no clear responsibility for recreation in SEMARNAP, difficult to address issue through NAFC.

b.  For next meeting: BOA will explore this issue in both the broader sense (social values as a potential indicator) and in the purely technical sense.

c. 

e.  FUNDING:

i.  No Funding requests from either Mexico or Canada.

ii. Insects and Diseases request $20K from BOA for publication of report on mistletoe; US will handle this.

f.  REVIEW OF STUDY GROUP ACTIVITIES (Miller)

i.  Automatic Translators from the Internet were tested; they are not bad tools but not sufficient with official documents.

ii. Working groups are very interested in seeing liaison officers attend meetings.

iii.  A task force needs to interview these working groups; will wait for Rosalie McConnell at next meeting to reconvene task force.

iv.  Working groups want clear signals on NAFC expectations. Dube suggests possibly hiring an external consultant full time to take a look at the task force mandate and do a systematic review; BOA sees no value in external consultant but sees that task force needs to strengthen interaction with working groups and Commission.

NOVEMBER 8, 2000:

a.  WEBSITE & MAILING LIST (Paqueo and Dube)

i.  The progress report of the FAO’s consultant, Sander Dankelman, “International Dialogue on Forestry: FAO Statutory Bodies on the Internet,” was distributed to participants for their information and reactions, and to continue efforts to harmonize approaches.

Mr. Dankelman ‘s task will be to help us arrive at a structure that will resolve the following needs:

1.  Increased visibility of the statutory body sites on the FAO Web site overall.