Borneo, one of the largest islands in the world, was once covered with dense jungle. But in the past 20 years, indiscriminate logging has leveled nearly 80 percent of its primary rain forest, turning its tropical timber into garden furniture and paper pulp and clearing the way for oil palm plantations. "Committing large sums of money to a conservation project that may reduce economic activity would be a tough political decision," said Douglas Sheil, a scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research in Bogor, Indonesia. "Decisions about protecting a large area of Kalimantan’s forest may require approval from not just the central government but from both provincial and district-level governments."

Ông Terry Sunderland, ch? trì H?i th?o cho bi?t: CIFOR là c? quan nghiên c?u qu?c t? v? lâm nghi?p ???c thành l?p vào n?m 1983 nh?m ?áp ?ng m?i quan tâm toàn c?u v?i nh?ng h?u qu? kinh t?, xã h?i và môi tr??ng do suy thoái và m?t r?ng. CIFOR ?ã góp ph?n tích c?c trong vi?c xây d?ng các chính sách và công ngh? nh?m s? d?ng, qu?n lý r?ng b?n v?ng và nâng cao ??i s?ng cho ng??i dân ? các n??c phát tri?n có sinh k? ph? thu?c vào r?ng nhi?t ??i. V?n phòng trung tâm c?a CIFOR ??t t?i Indonesia.

Sejak 20 Agustus 2006, Frances J. Seymour akhirnya memimpin Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) yang berkedudukan di Bogor. Sebagai orang baru, Frances ternyata bukan orang asing untuk urusan hutan. Indonesia juga bukan negeri asing baginya. Frances pernah bekerja selama lima tahun untuk Ford Foundation dan banyak berhubungan dengan orang-orang Departemen Kehutanan. Itu sebabnya, Frances sangat memprioritaskan membina hubungan baik dengan Dephut sebagai salah satu pemangku kepentingan vital CIFOR.

Ms Sequeira died on 3 September. Vanessa Sequeira was working in the Amazon for the Center for International Forestry Research under the joint supervision of the Bangor University and a research institution in Costa Rica. In her last research project, for which she was doing fieldwork in the Amazon, she was studying the sustainability of settlements making use of both their farms and the surrounding jungle. A memorial organised by the researcher’s friends and colleagues will be held on 16 September at Kew Gardens in London where she also worked.

Strategi "eksploitasi" hutan, bank, dan anggaran negara masih terus berlanjut sampai hari ini. Dalam skala yang lebih rendah, pola yang sama juga dilakukan oleh orang-orang yang berupaya menjadi orang terkaya di daerah. Pada tingkat ini, "pembobolan" hutan dilakukan dengan mendirikan industri kayu skala kecil, perusahaan-perusahaan perkebunan kelapa sawit, dan perusahaan-perusahaan pertambangan. Industri kayu dan pulp terus mencari peluang untuk menambah kapasitasnya. Industri kehutanan tidak tertarik untuk mengembangkan hutan tanaman industri di lahan-lahan kosong yang tidak ada kayunya.

Frances Seymour asal USA, salah satu perwakilan delegasi mengatakan, kunjungan kerja ini sebagai rangkaian kegiatan workshop desentralisasi kehutanan yang di Yogya selama tiga hari. “Kami kesini untuk melihat secara langsung pengelolaan hutan yang dilakukan bersama pemerintah, perhutani dan masyarakat.

China on Tuesday denied accusations of plundering the world’s rain forests to meet booming demand for wood. A report issued in March by the Centre for International Forestry Research and other groups found about 70 percent of all timber imported into China, now the largest consumer of wood from tropical developing countries, was converted into furniture, plywood and other processed products for export.

Yahoo News (International, Asia, India, UK and Ireland edition), Vietnamese Thanh Nien News, ABC News, Environmental News Service, Reuters Alertnet, PNG Times, Burma Daily, Malaysian The Star, ABC Radio Australia quote same story.

Realising the importance of community participation in forestry India has recently has launched the scheme of joint forest management (JFM). This scheme suffers from unnecessary government controls. The Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) in one of its report remarked, “India has 98% of its forests in government hands and absolutely no forests owned by communities.” However, with some leverage under JFM, there are some stray success stories.