WFI Welcomes New Fellows from China and Australia

Two new Fellows recently joined WFI: in December, WFI welcomed Dr. Shouxin Xie, from Beijing, China, and in February, Ms. Roslyn Henricks from Mount Gambier, Australia.

Dr. Xie works for the Department of Forest Resources Management in the State Forestry Administration. His primary responsibilities are inventories and layouts of forest resources and supervising and management of forest harvest and resources utilization.

Shouxin will spend six months at WFI, researching the establishment and implementation of sustainable forest management policies in the US, especially in the Pacific Northwest. He hopes his research results will help improve the administration of China’s forest resource laws, particularly the establishment of sustainable harvest levels.

Roslyn Henricks joins WFI as the twelth fellow sponsored by The Gottstein Trust, Forest and Wood Products Australia, and the Harry Merlo Foundation. During her one year Fellowship, Roslyn’s research will investigate the relationship between the visual impacts of plantation forestry, social acceptability, plantation resource expansion, and landscape planning.

“Forest aesthetic value is strongly correlated with acceptance of forest management by a visually stimulated society,” Roslyn says, “and understanding how aesthetic value can be managed is critical if a forest industry is to be sustainable in a region or community.” Roslyn will compare plantation regions across Australia and the US, and hopes to recommend practical applications for improving aesthetic values and community support of plantations. Roslyn is well prepared for such a project, and has a combined degree in Forestry and Visual Arts at the Australian National University in Canberra, which included a 12 month international exchange at Oregon State University.