Sylva Foundation is a core supporter of the T10Q project (the Top 10 Questions project).  The project aims are to identify the most important research issues for forestry in the UK by adopting a powerful process, involving many different people with diverse interests.  A scientific paper has now been published in Forestry (free download) that lists the top research questions.

Four hundred and eighty people responded to online surveys and suggested almost 1600 questions that they believed to be of vital importance to forestry research in the UK and Ireland. A workshop was held in Oxford in 2009 to discuss the main themes from the surveys.

This led to the identification of the Top Ten Questions for Forestry:

1. What are the most technically and cost effective ways of identifying, monitoring, and controlling invasive species, pests and disease?
2. How can we achieve better understanding between foresters and other parts of society?
3. What are the most effective landscape planting schemes to ensure connectivity between woodland fragments whilst maintaining connectivity between other landuse types?
4. How will climate change affect both natural forest ecosystems and forestry and how should management be adapted to minimise adverse impacts and optimise benefits?
5. What is the value of forestry to human health and well-being?
6. Who are the private woodland owners and how can they be engaged and influenced? What are their concerns?
7. Which parts of forest ecosystems form the largest and most stable carbon pools and how are these impacted by forest management and climate change?
8. How can we address the economic, environmental, social and institutional constraints of expanding woodfuel in the UK?
9. What species or provenances should we be considering in relation to a range of forestry systems including urban and agroforestry, in the light of climate change?
10. What are the barriers to knowledge transfer in forestry from research to practice and how can they be removed?

You can read more about the project, and download other papers about forestry policy here.