The International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO) constituted in 2007 a special Task Force on ‘Improving the Lives of People in Forests’. The Task Force is composed of respected researchers and activists addressing issues of human well being in forests, coming from a variety of disciplines, countries, and ethnic backgrounds.
This Task Force recognises that people living in forests often have serious disadvantages – in terms of wealth, power, health, human rights – vis a vis non-forest dwellers. One of the main activities of this Task Force is to pull together materials that will help others work more effectively with peoples living in and around forests, to contribute to improving this inequitable situation.
The Task force, Improving the Lives of People in Forests, finished its official IUFRO work at the 2010 IUFRO World Congress. Its work has been taken up by IUFRO’s Division 6.