Cambodia, China, Bangla-desh, Finland, Denmark, Ger-many, Ghana, Ethiopia, Su-dan, the Democratic Repub-lic of Congo, Costa Rica and Brazil.

Before lunch, we went for a walk along a nature trail in-side the faculty area. On the way, we passed the depart-ments of Wood Technology, Watershed Management and Ecotourism and the informa-tion centre within which is the faculty library.

The course partici-pant from the Uni-versity of Helsinki arrived in Vientiane the previous eve-ning. On Monday morning, the bus took the group to the Faculty of For-estry (FoF) at the National University of Laos (NUoL) where we met the Lao participants and staff.

The morning started with welcoming speeches by the Dean of FoF, professor Somsy Gnophanxay , and the Director of the Viikki Tripical Resources Institute (VITRI) Professor Olavi Luukkanen.

Professor Somsy told that the FoF has 5 departments and 90 staff of which 65 are teachers. He also thanked the people and institutions that contributed to making this course possi-ble: the Foreign Ministry of Finland, Professor Olavi and VITRI, the Organizing Com-mittee and the students of the course.

Professor Olavi talked about the background and difficulties in arranging the

FORMEB project. The course builds on previous cooperation between Finland and Thailand (six courses arranged), but this is the first cooperation with Laos. It took two years before the project finally got accep-tance and funding from the Finnish government, but the decision to fund the participa-tion of 15 Finnish students shows how important this pro-ject is considered.

After the welcoming speeches, all students and staff present introduced them-selves. The course partici-pants represent 14 different countries across three conti-nents: Lao PDR, Thailand,

Getting ready for a walk around the Faculty Picture: Jani Männikkö

First Day of Lectures

FORMEB

DIARY For the Field course in Laos and Thailand

0 7 S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 9 B y E v a E h r n s t e n

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Viik

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Eva is a MSc student from the Dep. of Biological and Environmental Sciences (Fac. of Biosciences). She is in the final stages of her studies and she is working on her Thesis dealing with the creation of dying wood as a mean for forest restoration.

Picture: Adrián Monge

Forest Management in Laos

The nature trail is partly an arboretum. On the trail, we encountered e.g. a huge Pterocarpus mac-rocarpus tree (see pic-ture). The species is fast-growing and the wood is very valuable; locally it is worth 1 000 USD/m3 and exported to Europe ten times as much.

In the afternoon, after some arrange-ments of the group works, Mr Khampay Manivong, Vice-director of the National Agricul-ture and For-estry Research Institute (NAFRI) gave a lecture on the history of forest manage-ment in Lao PDR. The history of forest use in Laos can be

divided into three periods.

(1) Prior to 1975 the hu-man influence on forests was small except for for-est destruction by the Vietnam War;

(2) In 1975 – 1991, dur-ing the reconstruction period, the main objective was to increase the wel-fare of the people, and during this period the

forest use was intense. Modern heavy methods for logging were taken into use and factories for wood processing established (in a national forestry conference in 1989 the alarm-ing issue of defor-estation was dis-cussed);

(3) in 1991 the State Forest En-terprises were demolished, and

this was the beginning of a path towards

Waiting for the first lecture Picture: Adrián Monge

D I A R Y

Trees at the arboretum Picture: Jani Männikkö

Forest Landscape Restoration in the Mekong River Basin

Organised by National University of Laos (NUOL), in cooperation with VITRI (University of Helsinki), and Kasetsart University (Bangkok)

2. Background

The Government of Lao PDR currently puts an emphasis on developing sectors such as energy (including bio-energy), hydropower, mining and tourism. Accordantly, forestry academic education lacks to a large extent for-eign cooperation and is quite much competing with envi-ronmental sciences for financing, which currently has been more popular as a recipient of foreign cooperation.

The academic forestry education at the National Univer-sity of Laos (NUOL) is still very young and there is a need for trained academic staff in forestry. There is a vital need to strengthen both the M.Sc. and Ph.D. curriculum development in forestry at NUOL.

Additionally, there is a need to strengthen also the ad-ministrative personnel training for their respective du-ties at the university.

1. Rationale

The FORMEB project is implemented in 2009 by organising an intensive training course in Laos for forestry academics and professionals (especially trainers) in the field of forest landscape restoration and

By strengthening the institutional capacity-building at NUOL in the form of curriculum development. The general aim is to build institutional capacity in Laos and thereby in the whole Mekong region in the field of sustainable natural resource management.

As part of the FORMEB project, a maximum of 15 course participants are invited from the University of Helsinki, so as to enhance the educational inter-action with trainees in Laos and to contribute to institutional strengthening and capacity building at NUOL.

Diaries were written by course participants and edited by Adrián A. Monge Monge