The transdisciplinary research project BEDROCK – “Building an evidence-base for deforestation-free landscapes: supporting equitable outcomes in and beyond commodity supply-chains” is announcing three 3-year postdoc positions.
Focali member Torsten Krause receives over 14 million SEK in funding from Formas for a new project focusing on environmental human rights defenders’ role as change agents. Moreover, member Harry Fischer receives 4.5 million SEK to investigate how community forest governance can impact livelihoods, carbon sequestration, and biodiversity.
Report, key messages and videos from the Focali - SIANI Dialogue "Impacts of the pandemic on forest communities and forest resource use - What do we know, what do we need to know and how to find out?
During 2023, we will build a new Focali website to improve features, increase access to research and provide a more modern and flexible website experience. During this time, the information on this website might not be as updated as we wish. Please bear with us, and if you have any input to the development of the new website you are always welcome to contact us.
At the time of writing 141 countries have endorsed the Glasgow Leaders Declaration on Forests and Land Use with six effort areas such as “Conserve forests and other terrestrial ecosystems and accelerate their restoration”. Are we witnessing a paradigm shift in global forest policy and genuine commitments to address the drivers of deforestation? Will this new declaration succeed in areas where previous commitments have failed? Read the compiled reactions on the declaration, including both praise and doubts, shared by Focali members in media during COP26.
"The idea of carbon offsetting, which underpins so-called net zero targets, is founded on a number of myths." This commentary published on Climate Home News was first published as a debate article in the Swedish Newspaper DN where five of the co-authors are members in the Focali research network.
Inspelningen av eventet Träd i ett rubbat klimat – hjältar eller offer? som sändes live den 2 oktober 2020 under Vetenskapsfestivalen är nu tillgängligt att titta på igen. Seminariet genererade en hel del frågor från online-publiken som alla inte hann besvaras live, och vi har nu samlat paneldeltagarnas svar i en Q&A.
On the 4-5th of November, in the midst of the US elections, the Focali network came together for its second annual meeting, this time entirely online, to turn our collective minds to the multifaceted challenges of forests, climate, and livelihoods. The online format offered new occasions for international participation and brought together attendees ranging from Gothenburg to Vietnam. The energy was palpable despite the potentially alienating online format, and culminated in an optimistic view of the Focali network, and the role it might grow to play in fostering the working relationships of researchers, policymakers, private interests, and local stakeholders.
In the Formas’ annual open call for research funding, Formas funds projects which address all of the sustainable development goals. This year a record high number of applications were submitted; in total 1,575, of which 188 were awarded grants. Five of these selected applications feature Focali members as the lead applicant. The projects build on broad and long-term collaboration with partners, both within and outside of academia. Each aims to contribute to a more positive future for forests, ranging from Puerto Rico to Rwanda, and to the biodiversity, climate and livelihoods dependent on these ecosystems.
The Focali annual meeting, for our members and partners, will this year be a fully online event held as morning sessions 10:00-12:00 on November 4th and 5th. Although online, we will still keep some of the most appreciated components from last year, including speed-talks, networking opportunities and interactive exchanges between research, policy and practice within our thematic area: forest, climate and livelihoods.
More information about the event program as well as registration to the event will follow soon, but right now – take the opportunity to inform your network and partners on the latest insights from your research or work by submitting a speed-talk.
Having spent two decades studying biodiversity, Focali member Alexandre Antonelli is now the Director of Science at The Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. There, he is responsible for the world's largest collections of plants and fungi and means that there are important lessons to learn from botanical colonial past to truly understand the power dynamics of the present, and pave the way for a better future.
Regional Research School in Forest Sciences (REFOREST) is an innovative, interdisciplinary and unique regional PhD degree programme for training of future generation forest scientists in Africa. The Sida funded programme is hosted at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) and is conducted in partnership with universities in Eastern and Southern Africa and in collaboration with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), where Focali member Gert Nyberg is the Co-Coordinator.
The 2016 peace agreement between Colombia’s government and the FARC guerrilla did not bring the glimpse of hope it aspired to. Focali members Torsten Krause and Fariborz Zelli together with researchers Sandra Valencia, Ana Maria Vargas Falla and Britta Sjöstedt outline how the void after FARC has been filled by a diverse range of armed groups creating a dangerous cocktail of violence and intimidation. They also highlight the implications of the current pandemic on the peace process, and sheds light on a new victim - The environment.
Chalmers University of Technology offer two PhD positions within the land-use science group at Physical Resource Theory at the Department for Earth, Space and Environment. Focali members Martin Persson, Göran Berndes and Christel Cederberg will be supervisors.
“Rwanda, the land of a thousand hills, depends on its forests and trees that protect soil fertility, preserve biodiversity, help to cope with climate change and provide fuel for cooking. But the forests used to be much vaster.” Eric Mirindi Dusenge, Focali member and researcher at University of Gothenburg, is part of a project to find out how native tree species can contribute to tackling ongoing challenges in a warming world.
Torsten Krause has been researching hunting, forest fauna and wild meat consumption, mainly in the Amazon, for the past three years. He is currently in lock-down in Colombia, where his fieldwork was cut short due to the outburst of Covid-19. In this interview, published the 14th of April, he reflects on the link between humanity's destructive interaction with the environment, and the emergence of new and potentially very dangerous diseases.
Welcome to the open consultation process for the Strategy of the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030. The United Nations invite you to review the Strategy for the Decade and its Communication Strategy and provide feedback on the overall document or specific sections via their website. Deadline for feedback submission is April 30, 2020.
Agroforestry practices have been increasingly promoted as land-use systems that support nature conservation and works as a tool for reducing poverty, improving food self-sufficiency, and increasing productivity and income for small-scale farmers. Even so, many farmers are still reluctant to implement the practices. New research outlines the motivations and limitations to implement agroforestry practices.
The 5th of November the Focali network, hosted by GMV, celebrated it´s 10-year anniversary at the Museum of World Culture in Gothenburg. Members and partners from a broad range of disciplines and institutions in Sweden and internationally participated in vibrant discussions on the thematic areas of Focali - forest, landscapes, climate and livelihood issues – as well as what role science and networks such as Focali can play in these times of populism and climate crisis.
Diversified land use is often promoted as solution to the pressures of increasing global demand for land and food. Moreover, proponents of multifunctional land use often claim the approach is highly beneficial for women. But are these benefits real? And if yes, what do these benefits entail?
