KEFRI Sixth Institutional Colloquium Report

A report on KEFRI's 6th Institutional Scientific Virtual Colloquium held on 30^th November 2022

The 6th KEFRI Institutional Colloquium was held on 30th November 2022 though a webinar. Participation to the event included staff from KEFRI headquarters, eco-regional programmes and non KEFRI staff attended. Participants were 98. The colloquium started at 10.10am with an introduction to the program by Dr. Nyambati who steered the program through. Dr. Robert Nyambati invited Ms. Nellie Oduor to officially open the event with a word of prayer and thereafter welcomed all participants. Dr. Robert Nyambati invited Mr Paul Tuwei who gave his welcoming remarks on behalf of Deputy Director Forest Research Support Services(DD FRSS).

Opening remarks by Dr Joshua Cheboiwo, Director KEFRI

Dr Cheboiwo applauded the attendance of the colloquium and emphasized on the importance of colloquium in enabling KEFRI researchers to share information/ knowledge to fellow researchers and stakeholders both locally and globally. He acknowledged the progress of Colloquium from the First to the sixth saying it was a good move.

Dr cheboiwo added that KEFRI is one of the strongest research institutions in Kenya with the highest concentration of forest expertise and a lot is expected. He mentioned that KEFRI is working towards digitization of forest products for easier sharing and access.

Dr Cheboiwo informed the participants that KEFRI has been using Webometric ranking and it shows that KEFRI has improved from position 35 in 2011 to position 10 in 2022. He added that KEFRI has developed a roadmap to other ranking such as SCIMAGO to increase visibility of research work.

Presentation

Dr Nyambati invited Ms Nellie Oduor who introduced and invited Dr. George Mbeva Muthike for his presentation .

Title of address: Intergrating Forest Products in the Green Economy and Climate Change Space

Speaker : Dr. George Mbeva Muthike – Deputy Director - Forest Products Development.

Dr. George Mbeva Muthike, a KEFRI principal research scientist discussed on integrating forest products in green economy and climate change space.

Dr muthike made an explaination on what is meant by forest product and its relationship with Green economy and Climate Change. He mentioned that Forest supply/ provide materials to manufacturing sector, agriculture, intermediate products and building country economy. He added that forest –related goods and services are vital part of livelihood.

Dr. Muthike informed the participants that forestry sector is a key source of employment engaging over 18,000 to 50,000 people directly and 3000, 000- 600,000 indirectly respectively making important source of income. However, he noted that forest products and their role in green economy and climate change is less understood.

Dr. Muthike informed the participants that demand for forest products, goods and services will increase due to rapid population growth projected to reach 80million in Kenya by 2050.He advised that forest products should be integrated in green economy and climate change space for sustainable forest management and improvement of livelihoods of many communities in Kenya.

He discussed forest intervention will include research and development ,promotion of policies and institutional frame works, efficient conversion of technologies for harvesting and seasoning of timber, processing and utilization of forest resources wood and non-wood forest products (NWFP), value addition, streamline raw materials available, embracing biomass as alternative sources of fuel wood and for construction materials, promotion of roles of Forest professional bodies in management and utilization of forest resource and capacity building of sector players.

Closing Remarks By Dr Jane Njuguna,KEFRI Senior Deputy Director

Dr. Jane Njuguna, appreciated Dr. George Mbeva Muthike for the good presentation. She added that researchers should do more research on use of Juvenile trees as to promote capacity building on it effects. She added that KEFRI need to commercialize wood and non- wood products as a research institution.

Dr Njuguna mentioned that forest products are crucial and central in our life especially for research and development and therefore there was need to look forest product beyond timber. There was needed to look at indigenous species in dry land, new species for commercialization exploitation that all need to be shared with the public.

Dr Njuguna concluded her remarks by appreciating all participants and invited them to future colloquium.

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