Congratulations on your Anniversary. Last year was also the 60th year of the Turkish Forestry Research Institutes. Greetings to my colleagues at CIFOR.

20 years means that CIFOR is not a teenager any longer, and can (almost) be considered a grown-up institution. Hopefully that will not happen. CIFOR should continue questioning received wisdom, exploring new approaches, and being a curious teenager.
In an external review a few years ago, one of the respondents said that the best thing about CIFOR was that when reading a publication you could never be sure what the conclusion would be. That's a great compliment for a research organization: we are in the business to explore virgin forests.
Having worked with CIFOR for 17 years, it has been a long lasting love, with many good friendships and the credibility of being associated with a very professional organization. It's been a privilege. Happy birthday!

Dear CIFOR, congratulations!
More now than ever we should talk about trees in the landscape and not only forests. Of course the full forest ecosystem needs a large number of trees per hectare, but from many points of view, scattered trees are as important. So when counting a nations hectares of "forests" we should also add on some information on the number of trees outside the true forests. Such number divided by ex. 2 500 makes a great number of additional "hectares" coverd by trees.
Best....
Aake

Happy anniversary Big Chief!!!!
We still have a lotta, lotta work to do, but with you all aboard we can surely pull through (it rhymes!). I am always happy to receive your newsletter, and promise to do my best for you too. From a poor farmer without land,
Siggisan

When forestry institutions across the globe and in Ethiopia are more or less weakening, and when most students leave their nations to join and study at forestry colleges and universities, and when classical foresters are due to change their profession from forestry to other related or even different when in post graduate studies, CIFOR became and remains one strong ally and partner, encouraging forestry science, putting pressure on the international community, mainly policy makers (e.g. via forest days; I'll never forget Durban, COP 17) hence forest would be integrated, considered as major component of the landscape. I am grateful to your regional scientist, Dr Habtemariam Kassa of Ethiopia, whom I worked with on your dry forest project, which brought the vast but neglected dry forest of Ethiopia to the forefront! CIFOR knows to choose leaders/scientist/speakers. Pls keep it up!