The Thünen Institute of Forestry participated in the ITTO-BMEL Smallholder-Teak Project’s 1st Regional Workshop

The Regional Workshop on “Enhancing smallholder plantations towards quality timber production of teak and other valuable species and carbon neutrality in the tropics” was co-organized by ITTO, Kasetsart University, Thailand, and Royal Forest Department, Thailand from 18-21 September 2024.

The workshop brought together higher government officials, development policy advisors, researchers, and private commercial teak plantation managers from ten countries including the six project countries (Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, India and Togo), and Germany.

The Thünen Institute of Forestry contributed to the workshop, engaged in pre-workshop meetings and concluded with insightful field excursion:

• The workshop was held in conjunction with project technical committee and project steering committee meetings (held on 17.09.2024). On both meetings, Thünen Institute of Forestry was represented by Mr. Temesgen Zana Jaffo and PD Dr. Sven Günter from the Forestry Worldwide working group – contributing to an engaging development policy and scientific discussions on smallholder forestry in Asia Pacific and West Africa.
   
• Particularly, on the technical committee meeting, Mr. Temesgen Zana Jaffo has presented the draft study design and field data collection plan for the research project “Smallholder-Teak”.
   
• The field excursion held from 19-21 September to northern Thailand (Nan, Phrae and Lampang provinces) gave significant insights to the context of smallholder teak plantations, scale of commercial teak plantations and local wood processing enterprises.  

Thünen Institute of Forestry supports the ITTO-BMEL Smallholder-Teak project through conducting feasibility study of financial mechanisms to promote quality timber production from smallholder plantations of teak and other valuable species in the target project countries.
Links for further detail on the workshop and the Smallholder-Teak project:

• ITTO - International Tropical Timber Organization
• Smallholder-Teak - Thünen Institute Projectsite