Postal address: Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre, PO Box 49, SE-230 53 Alnarp, Sweden
Visiting address: Växtskyddsvägen 1, Alnarp
Web page: http://www.slu.se/en/faculties/s/about-the-faculty/departments/department-of-southern-swedish-forest-research-centre/
Contact person: Professor Per Christer Odén, phone +46 40 41 53 94
The Department is part of the Forestry Faculty of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and is located in Alnarp, Sweden. The Department provides teaching and research in forest management with a focus on management, planning, conservation and natural resource economics. The Department has an international character both in research and teaching.
Professor Per Christer Odén is the head of the Southern Swedish Forest Research Centre. Read Prof. Odén’s CV.
Until recently, he was based at the Dept. of Forest Genetics and Plant Physiology, SLU. Prof. Odén is mostly working with West Africa, but is also involved in an Indo-Swedish research project on ”Characterization of tropical and temperate forest seeds with reference to seed storage beehaviour”, in collaboration with the Institute of Forest Genetics and Tree Breeding (IFGTB), Coimbatore, India (represented by Scientist V. Sivakumar).
Project description: The project aims at characterization of seeds based on seed storage behaviour for the purpose of classifying seeds and developing seed storage methods. This will help in biodiversity conservation of these species in seed banks. For better conservation of the forest, a spectrum of species will be studied. The storage behaviour of seeds of different forest types will be studied. The influence of seed physical characters, anatomy and biochemical characters, seed storage temperature and moisture relations on storage behaviour and viability of seeds will be studied.
In November 2002 this project was given a Swedish Research Links (Asian–Swedish research partnership programme) grant on 375 000 SEK for three years (2003-05) by Sida and the Swedish Research Council.
In November–December 2004 Prof. Odén went for field work in India along with Mulualem Tigabu.
In March 2013, the International Programme Office for Education and Training (Internationella Programkontoret) decided to give the department SEK 80 000 as an initial Linnaeus Palme International Exchange programme grant with the Forest Research Institute (Deemed) University (FRI) in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India, to develop collaboration on teachers and students exchange during the period 2013-14. More information about the South Asia related Linnaeus Palme projects for 2013-14.
FRI is one of the premier institutes carrying education and training in forestry and environment in Asia. The climate change & Forest Influences division is working on carrying out and co-ordinating education and research on climate change, effect of climate change on forests, other biodiversity, mitigation of climate change through forestry activities. The division is also involved in the study of the influences of the forests on soil, water and climate and study of short and long term role of forests both locally and globally.
Discussions on student and lecturer exchange were initiated in Sweden, at Ultuna in April 2012, between SLU Vice Chancellor Lisa Sennerby-Forse), and representatives of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), the supreme organisation on forestry education in India. The ICFRE Director General, Dr. V.K. Bahuguna, is also Chancellor for the FRI University, and he has already been counterpart in an ongoing co-operation project for continued education of Indian Forest Officers at SLU during the period 2010–12.