Twenty fellowships were awarded at the 39th session of the International Tropical Timber Council in November 2005. The newest group of fellowship recipients represents 14 different countries and includes six female fellows.

ITTO offers fellowships through the Freezailah Fellowship Fund to promote human resource development and to strengthen professional expertise in member countries in tropical forestry and related disciplines. The goal is to promote the sustainable management of tropical forests, the efficient use and processing of tropical timber, and better economic information about the international trade in tropical timber.

Awardees are listed as follows:

Carrying out a PhD program in wood technology at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

Undertaking a postgraduate diploma course in tropical forest ecosystem management at the Institute of Forestry, University of Applied Sciences, Eberswalde, Germany

Undertaking a short training course on monitoring and managing of the tropical forest using remote sensing at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA

Carrying out a masters' program in management and conservation of tropical forest and biodiversity at CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica

Carrying out a masters' program in management and conservation of tropical forest and biodiversity at CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica

Preparing a technical document on 'Non-timber forest products in Nepal: a sustainable management approach'

Undertaking PhD research on 'Forestry activity in the region of Xingu (State of Para in Brazil): the chain of production of timbers and technological properties of lesser known species' at the Université Henri Poincaré, Nancy, France, and Universidade de Brasilia

Undertaking a short training course on methods and techniques of sustainable management of natural resources at Université Omar Bongo, Libreville, Gabon

Preparing a technical document entitled 'The economics of babassu trees products and derivatives in the Amazon: trade and forest conservation'

Carrying out a masters' program in watershed management at the Institute of Forestry, Tribhuvan University, Pokhara, Nepal

Undertaking a short training course on forest products marketing at TREES, University of the Philippines, Laguna, Philippines

Printing and publication of manuals entitled 'General information on Philippine woods: principal uses, distribution and equivalent woods in the Asia-Pacific' and 'Anatomical identification handbook of Philippine dipterocarps'

Carrying out a masters' program in environmental forestry at the University of Wales, Bangor, UK

Undertaking a training program entitled 'Improvement of transparency of international market of tropical timbers' at Institut de Promotion Commerciale - Bois et Produits Dérivés, Bordeaux, France

Carrying out a masters' program in watershed management at the Institute of Forestry, Tribhuvan University, Pokhara, Nepal

Carrying out a masters' program in agroforestry at Laval University, Québec, Canada

Carrying out a masters' program in management and participatory management of forest resources at C.R.E.S.A. Forêt - Bois, Yaoundé, Cameroon

Carrying out PhD research on development of criteria to identify 'high conservation value forests' and identification of relevant sylvicultural treatments for tropical forests: case studies of Côte d'Ivoire and Cameroon

Carrying out a PhD thesis on 'Contribution to improvement of teak plantation (Tectona grandis L.F.) through fight against invasive species in young forest plantation plots in Côte d'Ivoire' at the University of Cocody, Côte d'Ivoire

Undertaking a study tour on 'Amelioration of new ecofriendly wood preservative, ZiBOC for durability in improvement and value addition of plantation grown timbers' at Bundesforschungsanstalt für Forst-und Holzwirtschaft, Hamburg, Germany