Mission

Non-sustainable use of tropical forests and forest conversion severely endanger the development of tropical countries. Land-use change is also one of the driving forces of global change. Thus, the main objective of our institute is to study and develop sustainable management systems for different forest and tree based land-use systems. Based on modern concepts of tree and forest ecology, management of land-use systems have to be in accordance with the variety of economic and other goals.

Tasks

Our research topics include, both in humid and dry regions, the

• sustainable management of old-growth forests


• ecological and economic potential of secondary forests


• biological interaction in agroforestry systems


• sustainability of plantation forestry


• tree ecology

Methods include empirical field work, lab experiments and the application of models.