Lemma Tiki
Refereed seminars for REFOREST PhD students at the Sokoine University of Agriculture, Morogoro Tanzania took place on June 13 &14th and June 24th & 25th 2024. The seminars were organized by College of Forestry, Wildlife and Tourism Post Graduate Office. Attending such seminars is a valuable opportunity to learn, stay updated and share experiences with senior professors, researchers and peers. It will be wonderful to share my insights gained with others. The seminars were targeted to enhance the quality of PhD research manuscripts by exposing them to experts in the field and to boost students’ confidence and communication skills. It also facilitated dialogue and interactions between senior and young scholars. I am fortunate to have attended many seminar presentations but these refereed seminars were of a kind in the diversity of papers presented and the conversations made to share insights. There were scholarly disciplines and everyone was respectful and happy to debate from different perspectives.
Overall, eighteen students presented 36 papers of which 18 were presented during the 13th and 14th of June, 2024. I can categorize my takeaways into five based on the papers presented: Non-timber forest products management and utilization; Timber forest products and utilization; Agroforestry; Natural forest management and Plantation forest management. This indicated that the programme has been training students capable of serving in diverse disciplines of forestry in Africa.
Fuel-wood use, medicinal plant use, wild Indigenous fruits, and spice cultivation were among the non-timber forest product-based research works conducted by five students while three papers were presented on timber forest products such as bamboo products durability, timber products durability improvement and timber processing methods. Integration of fruit trees into farmlands, trees on farmland and their contribution to soil fertility amendments and the role of trees in insect pollinator abundance were among the papers presented on Agroforestry aspects. The plantation forestry has been addressed by one paper on analyzing site quality index for a pine plantation. Last but not least theme of the presentations was the natural forest management aspect. Among the papers presented were the role of community-based forest management for sustainable forest conservation, mapping of dominant tree species, forest fire frequency and management, analysis of tree species recovery, and the effects of silvicultural management on forest condition.
It was my great pleasure to get a chance to present my papers on June 13th and 24th which in a summary entitled “The Impacts of Participatory Forest Management on Forest Condition” by focusing on the biophysical characteristics of the forest. It was a wonderful opportunity to gather constructive comments and suggestions from scholars and the new insights collected have been utilized to improve my papers. For me, it was an invaluable moment in which I got exposed to views and arguments. My great appreciation to all involved in organizing this refereed seminar!
