Volume 21 Number 1

2011

ISSN 1022–5439

A newsletter from the International Tropical Timber Organization to promote the conservation and sustainable development of tropical forests

Fellows for SFM

T

he lack of human capacity has been identified as a key constraining
factor to sustainable forest management (SFM) in most of thediagnoses and analyses to assess progress towards SFM carried out
in ITTO member countries over the past quarter century. One of ITTO’s
most effective contributions to addressing this constraint has been its
Fellowship Program, among the Organization’s earliest and most successfulinitiatives and probably the world’s only such support program focused
specifically on tropical forests and their management.

The promise of the Fellowship Program was not immediately grasped by theCommittee on Forest Industry where it was first introduced as a Secretariatdrafted project 22 years ago. Some members and observers (including otherinternational organizations) questioned the need for such a program,pointing to various academic scholarships and bursaries available toqualified students, although none of these
focused specifically on tropicalforests. Only with thepersistence of ITTO’s secondSpecial issue on the ITTO Fellowship Program

Contents 
Following the fellows. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 3Cloudy with a chanceof sustainability . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 8Fellowships awarded. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 11
Fellowship applications. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 11
Cambodia’s cut. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 12
Mucking in. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 15
Pushing the PCI. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 18
The limits to agriculture. .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 20
Out on a limb . .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 24

Note to readers: This issue of the TFU is shorter than usual due
to funding constraints and is not being circulated to our 15,000
subscribers (it will only be available online, with a limited numberof copies printed for the 47th ITTC session). Funding constraints
have also affected the publication schedule/frequency of the TFU
in 2011. It is hoped that the regular length and publication
schedule of the TFU can be resumed in 2012 through theprovision of sufficient voluntary contributions or through theinclusion of this work in ITTO’s core activities budget under theterms of the International Tropical Timber Agreement, 2006 whenit enters into force.

Co editors
DesignChisato Aoki
Steven Johnson
DesignOne		

The Tropical Forest Update is published quarterly in English, French and Spanish by
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Cover image: Brazilian Fellow Danielle Celentano carries out
research towards her Master of Science degree.
Photo: D. Celentano

2… Editorial continued
Executive Director Manoel Sobral Filho(then ITTO’s Assistant Director of ForestIndustry) and the support of the chair of theCommittee on Forest Industry at that time(Markku Simula, who later became chair ofITTO’s governing Council) were theseobjections overcome and the projectapproved. The rest, as they say, is history.
Over the past two decades, the ITTO
Fellowship Program has helped more than
1100 young and middle level professionals
from more than 40 ITTO member countries
to enhance their professional capacities inforestry and related disciplines and thereby
contributed substantially to promoting
sustainable management of tropical forests.
The Program has also developed a cadre offorestry officials throughout the world who
know ITTO’s programs and policies and help
to promote the Organization’s work while
simultaneously furthering its objectives.
In 2010, in order to assess the impacts of theFellowship Program on capacity
development in ITTO member countries at
the individual, institutional, national andinternational levels, ITTO undertook an
Impact Assessment survey of awardees. Thissurvey was conducted to commemorate the10th anniversary of the establishment of theFreezailah Fellowship Fund, a mechanism
established by the International Tropical
Timber Council (ITTC) to ensure financial
continuity of the Fellowship Program
named in honor of the Organization’s first
Executive Director.
The lead story in this special issue of theTFU reports the results of the survey, basedon responses from more than 200 former
fellows from 34 countries (page 3). The
survey clearly shows the significant impactof the Program on capacity development intropical forestry, timber industries andrelated disciplines in ITTO membercountries. The survey also illustrates theProgram’s breadth, both in terms of therange of people who have benefited from it
and the scope of activities for whichassistance has been provided.
A sample of the type of work carried out
under (and the impacts of ) ITTO
fellowships is summarized in articles
prepared by five ITTO fellows from Peru,
Cambodia, Cameron, Gabon and Nepal inthis issue. From the work carried out by

ITTO Tropical Forest Update 21/1

Constantino Aucca Chutas (page 8) to train
local communities in the utilization,conservation and management of cloudforests in Peru to Rabindra Roy’s research toexamine the contribution of non-timber
forest products (NTFPs) in daily livelihoods
in Nepal (page 20), the dedication of theITTO Fellows and the achievements of theFellowship Program shine clearly from thepages of this issue. In fact, one of the hardest
tasks in compiling this issue of the TFU wasin choosing between the many excellent
articles submitted by Fellows in response toour request to showcase their work. We
thank all of those who submitted articles
and hope to be able to publish more of thearticles submitted in future TFUs in theregular Fellowship report section.
Despite its clear contribution to ITTO’s
objective of building human capacity to
implement sustainable forest management
and high returns on the relatively modest
investments made to date, the future of theFellowship Program is by no means assured.
As former ITTC chair Stephanie Caswell(who also chaired both the Fellowship
Selection Panel and the expert panel charged
with reviewing the Program a decade ago)
points out in Out on a limb (page 24), theProgram needs to widen its funding basewhich currently relies disproportionately onjust two donors. Ways also need to be found
to reduce the amount of voluntary
contributions absorbed by administrative
costs (which currently account for morethan a quarter of funds pledged to theProgram). Ms. Caswells’ recommendations
for further improvements should be
carefully considered by the ITTC in its
deliberations on the future of the Program.
As ITTO celebrates its 25th anniversaryduring the International Year of Forests in2011, the Fellowship Program is among its
proudest achievements. The Secretariat, theCouncil and all ITTO Fellows must work
together to ensure that the Program
continues its important contributions tobuilding capacity for SFM over the next 25years.

Chisato Aoki
Steve Johnson
Co-editors