Swiss cooperation agency and CATIE team up to provide long-term support to research and graduate education in sustainable forest management

Endowed chair trains future leaders, influences policy

In 1998, after more than two decades of cooperation in education, research and technical assistance on sustainable forestry between the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center), the two organizations sought a way to ensure long-term continuity in sustainable forest management in Latin America and the Caribbean, looking beyond traditional two- or three-year projects.

They opted to establish the Latin American Chair of Diversified Management of Tropical Forests at CATIE, contributing equally to an endowment fund that is administered by FUNDATROPICOS, a CATIE foundation. The capital in the fund at the end of the nine-year agreement on Dec. 31, 2007, had grown to US$3 million, with interest income having supported a principal researcher, one or more assistants and their operation costs each year, including support to graduate students.

“CATIE and SDC have been longstanding partners,” said Peter Bischof, SDC’s resident director for Central America. “We found in CATIE a good partner for implanting a financial mechanism allowing for long-lasting effects.  The chair is primarily oriented to education and research, but CATIE has this ability to influence decision makers (many of them alumni) and policies through use of its applied research results. We found it a fertile soil where we could sow a relatively small seed, with the hope that other donors would follow our example.”

Bischof believes that the principal contribution the chair makes to the region is education: “educating people—the next generation of decision makers—based on sound, development-oriented research.” He continued, “CATIE, with a regional mandate, with a campus in a country on the forefront of the post-Rio action, is well-sited for such a endowment fund.”

An external technical evaluation carried out in 2007, directed by Dr. Rolain Borel of the University for Peace, states that the chair has been “highly effective in terms of education, research and policy development.”

The evaluation pinpointed the chair’s significant contribution to the evolution in how forests are viewed, from a traditional technical focus to a broader approach that also includes the analysis of processes and the involvement of stakeholders outside the forest—the integration of policy, social, economic and governance issues. It highlights several innovative methods to which the chair has contributed, including the ecosystem approach, adaptive and participatory watershed management, a new model of environmental governance and sustainable forest management related to global change.

Dr. José Joaquín Campos of CATIE, who assumes the post of director general of the center on Feb. 29, has directed the chair since its beginning. He commented, “There is a need to position the concept of the ecosystem approach in the region and to teach how sustainability can be reached socially, environmentally and economically, not just economically as was the main concern until now. New issues need to be included in teaching: conflict management, hydrological cycles in the forests, products commercialization....CATIE emphasizes the landscape scale in its education.” He continued, “We don’t need to train foresters to just ‘manage’ forests; we need to educate them to anticipate and lead the changes that are needed today and in the years to come, when forestry will play an even more strategic role.”

Borel, in interviews with former students, professionals from the region and international organizations, found that several “stressed the importance of the support from the chair in groundbreaking policy advances,” particularly in matters related to illegal logging and a more effective integration of environment and agriculture ministries, which is “finding an echo in the Central American Integration System.”

Dr. Pedro Ferreira, who has served as director general of CATIE during much of this period, pointed out that the chair has proved to be a remarkable initiative and an invaluable contribution to CATIE’s sustainability.  “A wealth of research papers, graduate theses and R&D grants have multiplied the Swiss investment, providing amazing returns,” he said.

Outstanding projects that are examples of a rich harvest include: 1) Improvement in the Competitiveness of Small- and Medium-Size Forestry Enterprises in Central America (FOMIN), funded by the International Development Bank; 2) Strengthening Clean Development Mechanisms for Forestry and Bioenergy Sectors in Ibero America (FORMA), funded by the National Agriculture and Food Research and Technology Institute of Spain, 3) Adaptive Co-management of Watersheds (FOCUENCAS II), funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, a project contributing to the creation of a Central American school of thought on adaptive and participatory management of watersheds, according to the evaluation; and 4) Tropical Forest Adaptation to Climate Change (TroFCCA), funded by the European Commission.

“It was instrumental in bringing the headquarters of the Iberoamerican Network of Model Forests to CATIE,” said Ferreira, “and Dr. Campos was appointed chairman of its board of directors.” Staff supported by the chair have served on thesis committees of more than 75 master’s and doctoral students and taught both in postgraduate courses and in CATIE’s short-term international courses related to tropical forest management, protected areas management and rural development based on natural resources management.

The endowed chair has enabled scientific research by faculty and master and doctoral students that is being used throughout the region. The evaluation states that “CATIE is clearly the regional reference in terms of forestry research and education, especially with reference to managed forests, secondary forests and plantations.”

“One of the main reasons why CATIE’s opinion and expertise are sought so much in the region,” states Borel, “is the knowledge system that it has built over time on the basis of a solid research program. The chair is a full participant in that effort.”

Borel’s evaluation concludes that the chair is “a visionary strategy to promote the validation, analysis and evolution of concepts and knowledge of forestry management in the tropics.” Through CATIE, which Borel identifies as a strategic platform, he says the Chair of Diversified Management of Tropical Forests “contributes to the formation of Latin American professionals who in turn are fundamental actors and leaders in management of forest resources in the region.”

Recommendations include not only continuation of the chair, changing the name to Latin American Chair of Forest Landscape Management to reflect its evolution, but also  active pursuit of establishing other chairs at CATIE in areas such as policy/economics, climate change, environmental governance, and forest, conservation and biodiversity.

The Chair of Diversified Management of Tropical Forests is the second chair to be funded by SDC at CATIE. The first, which was fully funded by SDC, is the Latin American Chair in Ecology and Tropical Forest Management.

More information

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