Environmental Forestry Consultants, New London, Wisconsin, USA
Historical Perspective and Evolution of the Short Rotation Woody Crops Program at Rhinelander, Wisconsin
J.
G. Isebrands (Jud) grew up in Iowa on a farm and was influenced to pursue forestry
as a career by his uncle, a BLM regional forester in California. Isebrands
graduated from Iowa State University with a BS degree in Forestry and PhD in
Forest Products with a minor in Statistics. He took a position as a project
scientist in 1968 with US Forest Service, North Central Forest Experiment
Station, Institute of Forest Genetics in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Over time he
became project leader and program manager where he worked on poplar anatomy,
physiology, and genetics, short rotation poplars and willows for wood and
energy, and climate change. He was involved in the establishment of the
Station’s Short Rotation Woody Crops program based at Rhinelander in 1971. He
has over 250 publications on poplars and willows, including co-editor of two books
on “Poplars and Willows.” His work led to US Forest Service Research’s
“Scientist of the Year” Award in 2001 and Iowa State University’s
“Distinquished Alumni Award” in 2002. He retired from the US Forest Service in
2002 after 34 years. He is currently the President and founder of Environmental
Forestry Consultants, LLC in New London, Wisconsin. He was the United States
representative to the International Poplar Commission of the United Nations
(FAO) in Rome, Italy for 8 years and is currently serving on the Executive
Committee; he has been a member of that committee for the last 22 years,
including over 10 years as Vice Chairman.
He and his wife Sharon O’Leary live on a small farm near New London.
Dr. Biljana Kulišić
Energy Institute Hrvoje Pozar, Zagreb, Croatia
Reaching Economic Feasibility of SRC Plantations by Monetarizing Ecosystem Services: Showcase Contribution of SRC to Long Term Ragweed Control in the City of Osijek, Croatia
Biljana
Kulišić has a PhD in agroeconomics and specializes in biomass supply from
agriculture and forestry streams. Her current position is senior biomass
researcher at the Department of Renewable Energy Sources, Energy Efficiency and
Environmental Protection of Energy Institute Hrvoje Pozar, Croatia. She has
been with IEA Bioenergy since 2005, first as a junior assistant at Task 29:
Socio-economic drivers of bioenergy projects and, since 2014, National Task
Leader for Task 43: Biomass supply for energy markets. In short, her job
description is overlapping energy sector with agriculture and forestry, but her
research focus is on finding new business models for bioenergy projects in
order to improve market competitiveness for bioenergy. She has been the lead in
assessing economic attractiveness of SRC plantations in Croatia within the
Intelligent Energy Europe project SRCplus: SRC Plantations for Local Supply
Chains and Heat Use (2013-2016). Results were embedded in the national Law on
SRC for bioenergy (2018). She has participated in numerous public debates on
SRC topic, advising the Expert working group in the Croatian Parliament and
familiarizing Agriculture & Forestry Extension Service with SRC for
bioenergy concept. An IEA Bioenergy research report on optimal landslots for
planting SRC plantations based on preferences detected by a fuzzy analytical
hierarchical process survey is pending for publishing. Biljana is the lead
researcher in the SRC & ragweed project presented in the event.
Dr. Andrej Pilipović
Institute of Lowland Forestry and Environment,
University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia
Investigation of Phytoremediation Potential of Poplar and Willow Clones in Serbia: A Review
Dr Andrej Pilipović is a research associate at Institute of
Lowland Forestry and Environment at University of Novi Sad, Serbia. He has over
15 years of experience in research related to improvement of species from Populus and Salix genus through breeding and selection of their clones for wood
and biomass production, phytoremediation and reclamations. In addition, his
research also deals with physiology and ecophysiology of wooden tree species
with emphasis on the effect of stress factors on trees and their assimillation.
He is a member of Serbian Genetic Society and vice-chair of FAO International
Poplar Commission working party on Environmental and Ecosystem services.
Dr. Barb Thomas
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Current Trends and Challenges in North American Poplar Breeding
Barb Thomas
holds an Industrial Research Chair in Tree Improvement at the University of
Alberta, and is the lead on a large scale applied Genome Canada project
entitled ‘Resilient Forests (RES-FOR):
Climate, Pests and Policy, Genomic Applications’. Her background is in
horticulture, forest genetics and ecophysiology, graduating from the University
of British Columbia (BSc, MSc) and the University of Alberta with her PhD in
1996. From 1997-2014, Barb ran the poplar farm research program for Alberta-Pacific
Forest Industries Inc. before joining the UofA as an Associate Professor in
2014. She is an active and founding member of Tree Improvement Alberta, sits on
the Alberta Forest Genetic Resources Council and is the Vice-Chairperson of the
International Poplar Commission, Chairperson of the Working Party on Policy,
Communication and Outreach, Past Chair of the Poplar and Willow Council of
Canada (PWCC) and also sits on the Genetics and Breeding Working Group of the
PWCC. Barb’s primary interests lie at the intersection of science, policy and
application.
Dr. Joris Van Acker
Laboratory of Wood Technology, University of Ghent,
Ghent, Belgium
Potential for the Agricultural Sector to Produce Poplar Wood as Contribution to the Forestry Wood Industry Chain
Joris Van Acker
is Professor at the Ghent University (Belgium) since 2005 and head of the
research group Laboratory of Wood Technology (Woodlab). His team is part of an
interfaculty collaboration called the Centre for X-ray Tomography (UGCT). He is
Past President of InnovaWood (European federation of wood research institutes)
and President of the International Research Group on Wood Protection. He is chairperson of national organisations
like the Flemish Commission on forest policy as well as of international
networks like CEN TC38 standardisation working group on fungal testing and the
working party on Sustainable Livelihoods, Land-use, Products and Bioenergy of
the International Poplar Commission (IPC) of FAO. He is (co-)author of over 100
publications in refereed journals.