Press release: Forests as climate regulators: Complex topics future forestry scientists must face

Nr. 271/2011 - 07.12.2011

Over the course of their lifetimes, trees absorb huge amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) and store it for extended periods of time. That makes forests a natural and highly effective “climate regulator” that incurs comparatively little cost to operate. In order that future generations of forestry scientists become familiar with this complex topic, researchers and students from the Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology at Göttingen University are organising a workshop as part of the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2011 in Durban, South Africa. A total of 45 students and professors from 21 countries will be attending the workshop. They will be discussing their experiences, problems and solutions, whilst primarily focusing on multifactorial scientific hypotheses, political challenges and economic implications.

“If we can stop the destruction of forests, we might be able to lower the emissions of greenhouse gas by around 15 to 20 percent worldwide. That is why we must develop sustainable, long-term measures to protect our climate; for that we need appropriately educated experts”, explained the workshop organisers, Professor Christoph Kleinn and Dr. Lutz Fehrmann of the Chair of Forest Inventory and Remote Sensing (AWF) at Göttingen University. “By offering this workshop for students, we are contributing to the achievement of these objectives.” Parallel to the Climate Change Conference in Durban, the fifth annual “Forest Day” is taking place, an international meeting of experts where around 1,500 participants will gather to discuss the subject of “Forests and Climate”. The students are being employed as conference assistants, which gives them the opportunity to forge links between science and both practical application and political consulting, whilst building international networks.

To date, this Göttingen-based initiative has been the only one of its kind in Germany where a larger group of students can take advantage of the opportunity to follow the discussions on climate protection and politics close-up and first hand. The group includes individual students for Master’s degree programmes in forest sciences at the Technical University of Dresden, Freiburg University and Bonn University. The German Aca-demic Exchange Service (DAAD) is supporting the initiative with funds totalling € 80,000 from its programme for “Postgraduate Courses for Professionals with Relevance to Developing Countries”. The DAAD also regularly provides scholarships for Master’s degrees in “Tropical and International Forestry” at Göttingen University. Representatives from more than 100 signatory nations to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will attend the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Durban from November 28 to December 9, 2011.

Notes to editorial teams:
We have posted images to download on this subject at www.uni-goettingen.de. After the attendees repre-senting Göttingen University return from Durban on Thursday, December 8, 2012, they will be available for interviews. During the climate summit, Prof. Kleinn is reachable by e-mail at ckleinn@gwdg.de.

Contact address:
Professor Christoph Kleinn
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Faculty of Forest Sciences and Forest Ecology
Burckhardt Institute – Chair of Forest Inventory and Remote Sensing (AWF)
Büsgenweg 5, 37077 Göttingen, Phone (0551) 39-3473, Fax (0551) 39-9787
E-mail: ckleinn@gwdg.de, website: www.uni-goettingen.de/de/67094.html