ITTO at the 6th International Wildland Fire Conference

7 October 2015

ITTO is participating in the 6th International Wildland Fire Conference to be held in Pyeongchang, Korea from 12-16 October 2015. ITTO will share its experiences and lessons learned in implementing wildfire monitoring, wildfire assessments, post-fire rehabilitation measures, community involvement in integrated fire management, and policy development in the tropics through a series of events and activities, including a side event, posters display, conference dialogues and an exhibition booth.

Thursday, 15 October 2015, 12:00-13:00 hrs.     Luge Room
“Putting a brake on wildfire”
 
ITTO recognizes that forest fires are a serious threat to the forests of many tropical countries. One of its earliest responses was through its publication in 1997 of the ITTO Guidelines on Fire Management in Tropical Forests, which provide guidance to policymakers and practitioners on the development and implementation of forest fire management programmes. Around the same time, ITTO began funding projects aimed at improving fire management in various member countries; to date ITTO has funded 30 projects across the tropics in which fire management is either the focus or a significant component. The ITTO Yokohama Action Plan 2002–2006 requested ITTO to “contribute appropriately to national and international efforts in the area of prevention and management of fire in relation to tropical timber-producing forests”. Recent ITTO’s biennial work programmes (2013–2014 and 2015–2015) have also supported work on forest fire.
In 2002 the International Tropical Timber Council decided to make the services of forest fire experts available to producer member countries experiencing forest fire problems, with the aim of assisting them in evaluating the countries forest fire prevention and management situations, identifying strategies and actions and developing project proposals. Colombia, Guyana, Honduras, Nepal, Peru, the Philippines and Togo have all taken advantage of this facility.

The side event, will review the progress made by the various ITTO projects in integrated fire management and will closely look at the cases of Ghana, Indonesia and Brazil.

ITTO has also published a special edition of its Tropical Forest Update newsletter entitled “Putting a brake on wildfire” in order to provide inputs to the Conference.

In addition to the side-event, ITTO is sponsoring 14 speakers and participants from its producing member countries in support of the regional wildland fire networks and parallel sessions.
 
ITTO will be displaying its most recent work and relevant publications at its booth (A-6) located in the Alpensia Convention Center, Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea.