Unit worldwide

The assignment of scientific staff to countries in the South is essential for the unit. The unit is present in most tropical regions of the world, in Africa, Latin America and South-East Asia.

This presence in the field enables the unit to be in permanent contact with the problems in the field and to be as close as possible to the partners.

Forests and Societies is strongly committed to maintaining this pantropical approach, which makes it possible to compare the different situations in different countries and continents.

About one third of the unit's scientific staff are expatriates on three continents: Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

Our priority development themes

On the three continents, the unit works with its partners on the following priority development themes:

• Prospects for major forest basins, development of regional strategies and observatories.
• Sustainable production in informal forest-based industries: timber, non-timber forest products (NTFPs), including wildlife.
• Supplying cities with wood energy, agrofuels, (resources, actors, territories, sectors...).
• Sustainable management of production forests, including forest concessions and their management.
• Interfaces forêt-agriculture, mosaïques, paysages, agroforesterie.
• Effects of deforestation and forest degradation on the loss of ecosystem services at the scale of territories and the Amazon basin.
• Study of supply chains and markets, impact on imported deforestation.

Each of these themes is addressed in different ways depending on the environmental, social, economic and political conditions of each region. This pantropical approach allows the unit to have a global vision of these themes on the three continents.