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The year 2008 was a very significant one for CIFOR. In May, the
Board of Trustees approved a new strategy to guide our work over the next
decade. At CIFOR we recognise that the world’s forests and the way we perceive them
have changed dramatically over recent years. Our new strategy responds to
the opportunities presented by the recent unprecedented level of interest in
forests, without losing sight of our core purpose, which is to advance human
wellbeing, environmental conservation and equity.
The strategy introduces a number of significant changes to the way we
work. Most obviously, our research is now organised around six priority
‘domains’. By pulling together strands of existing research, we are
developing robust, interdisciplinary approaches to some of the toughest
problems confronting forests and forest communities.
Not surprisingly, in view of the challenges we face from climate change,
two of the six new domains focus on this critical global problem—one on how
to enhance the role forests can play to mitigate climate change; the other
on how to help forests and people adapt to the changing climate.
Although CIFOR’s work on climate change goes back many years, 2008
witnessed a marked increase in our research activities and influence. One of
the best places to see this was at Poznań, Poland, which hosted a UN climate
change conference in December. For the second year running, CIFOR helped to
organise a special event, known as Forest Day, which attracted over 900
people and provided a platform for debate and discussion about how forests
should be included in the next global climate agreement.
CIFOR also launched two publications to coincide with the UN conference.
The first, Facing an Uncertain Future, looks at the important role of
forests in adaptation to climate change, while the second, Moving Ahead with
REDD, analyses the issues, options for and implications of reducing
emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD). CIFOR’s research
indicates that there is ample opportunity for such schemes to be successful
but they also pose risks, so our work is focused on ensuring that they are
designed and implemented effectively, efficiently and equitably.
But as the stories in this year’s annual report testify, climate-related
research accounts for just two of the six new research domains. The other
domains—focusing on small-scale and community-based forestry, forest-related
trade and investment, biodiversity conservation and development, and the
sustainable management of production forests—have all produced significant
outputs in 2008.
CIFOR has always placed a strong emphasis on impact, rather than research
for research’s sake, and the new strategy makes this more explicit. Our
research must not only enlighten, but also help influence policy and provide
information and analysis for many different groups of people. Indeed, CIFOR
aspires to be the first port of call for anyone who seeks to gain a better
understanding of a wide range of issues, from forest researchers to policy
makers, from private sector companies to non-governmental organisations.
It is often difficult to assess the impact of policy-oriented research,
and a lack of clear evidence recently prompted the Consultative Group on
International Agricultural Research’s (CGIAR) Science Council to commission
seven case studies. One of these focused on CIFOR’s long-term research on
Indonesia’s pulp and paper industry. It revealed that the research has
helped to save an estimated 135 000 hectares of natural forest from
conversion to other uses. The economic benefits, though difficult to
measure, could be in the order of US $130 million—six times more than
CIFOR’s annual research budget. The message is clear: investing in forest
research makes economic, as well as environmental and social, sense. See
‘Research delivers return on investment’.
CIFOR is one of 15 research centres whose performance is annually
assessed by the CGIAR. For 2007, CIFOR achieved 87.5 per cent of its output
targets, ranking seventh out of the 15 centres. As far as the rigour with
which it conducted its impact studies was concerned, it ranked fourth. CIFOR
fared less well in terms of the number of externally peer-reviewed
publications per scientist, and this is something we intend to remedy during
the coming years.
For more information on CIFOR’s performance, see the CGIAR’s Performance
Measurements System Summary Report 2007 at
http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/pm/CGIAR-PMSummary2007.pdf
The peer-review process matters, not least because it provides proof of
the quality of scientific research. However, research achieves little if it
fails to reach an audience beyond the scientific community. A survey of more
than 300 scientists from organisations in 29 countries, conducted by CIFOR
researcher Patricia Shanley and Citlalli Lopez of the Centro de
Investigaciones Tropicales (Centre for Tropical Research), found that many
scientists made little or no effort to make their research findings
available to policy makers and local people. This is partly because their
institutions and peers judge them on their output of peer-reviewed
publications; partly because they have little knowledge or expertise about
how to disseminate their findings; and partly because they lack the funds to
do so.
At CIFOR, we are encouraging our scientists to present their research
through a broad range of different media, including peer-reviewed journals,
occasional papers, videos, posters and easy-to-read manuals. In this, as in
many other matters, we cannot go it alone. As a ‘centre without walls’, much
of our research is conducted as a partnership, and we have a particularly
strong record of working with developing country scientists. Similarly, we
frequently join hands with other research institutions and specialised
communication non-governmental organisations to get our research findings
into the hands of policy makers, forest practitioners and others.
To give just one example, the Regional Community Forestry Training Centre
for Asia and the Pacific (RECOFTC) has drawn heavily on CIFOR research in
over a dozen publications. Frequently, it has translated the research into
training materials for local communities. In doing so, RECOFTC is acting as
a bridge between scientists and local people, and CIFOR is delighted to see
its research used so creatively in the field. Ultimately, this is the sort
of science that makes a real difference.
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‘CIFOR has always placed a strong emphasis on impact, rather than
research for research’s sake, and the new strategy makes this more
explicit.’
Frances Seymour
Director General
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