It can be argued that CIFOR had its origins in discussions which began at the 8th World Forestry Congress in Indonesia in 1978 and at the 17th IUFRO World Congress in Kyoto, Japan, in 1981. Throughout the 1980s the need to increase international efforts to support forestry research in the tropics was debated and recommendations made in various fora.
A meeting in Bellagio, Italy, in 1987 recommended consideration of the establishment of a consultative group, parallel to that of the CGIAR but specifically for international forestry research. The Rockefeller Foundation sponsored during 1988 an International Task Force on Forestry Research which reported in late 1988 to a meeting at Wiston House, UK. The proposal of the Task Force for a "forestry CGIAR" found no favour with donors and the Chairman of the CGIAR offered to consider the possibility that the CGIAR take on forestry research so as to avoid the need to set up a completely new international organization. A second meeting at Bellagio endorsed the institutional option for the extension of TAC to include forestry members and an expansion of the CGIAR to deal with agriculture and forestry.
From 1986, the TAC had been considering the additional activities needed to support sustainable agriculture. The inclusion of forestry research into the CGIAR was discussed at several points during International Centers Week 1988 (ICW88) and, at the following CGIAR Mid-Term meeting (MTM89) in Canberra in 1989, the CGIAR System expressed broad support for a proposal to include research on the utilization of renewable resources related to agriculture, and specifically to forestry, in the mandate of the CGIAR.
During 1989, the TAC Forestry Panel compiled suggestions for the areas of forestry research that could increase productivity and contribute to sustainability. These areas were mainly orientated towards high production forestry. Delegates to ICW89 were concerned that research for natural forest management should be included and that some of the emotional issues connected with the environmental problems of forestry should also be tackled by the CGIAR.
TAC prepared a paper on forestry and agroforestry research for MTM90 in which it highlighted the fact that agroforestry and forestry were part of a continuum of land use, and indicated a preference for a single institution to serve as a focal point for both forestry and agroforestry. The donors were generally in favour of a "centre without walls", one which operated essentially as a co-ordinator of the activities of others. TAC's view was that some centralization was required in order to maintain CGIAR standards of quality. However, much forestry/agroforestry research would have to be carried out in a decentralized manner because of social, agro-ecological or genotype specificity. At MTM91. the Group endorsed the idea that "some 30% of proposed activities could be centralized and about 70% would take place in an ecoregional context and would be carried out with regional or national institutions".
The major focus of attention at ICW90 was a consideration of TAC's paper on a possible expansion of the CGIAR, and in this paper forestry and agroforestry were given prominent treatment. After considerable discussion the donors decided to establish a separate forestry research centre. The CGIAR set up a working group to report to MTM91 on the forestry research centre proposal.
At MTM91 the donor working group suggested four main activities for the forestry centre:
1. Understanding the physical, biological, economic and social environment, and the present and potential forestry systems in developing countries.2. Creating the potential for sustainable improved productivity of forestry systems by evaluating technical and policy alternatives for their management, choice of species, utilization, and marketing.
3. Providing information and advice to assist in making policy decisions about land use.
4. Increasing national forestry research capacity.
The working group recommended a headquarters location in Asia and the need to develop strong outreach programmes in Latin America and Africa. A budget of US$ 20 million was suggested for year 6 after establishment.
At ICW91 TAC considered that CIFOR should concentrate on the warm tropics and subtropics rather than the cool subtropics. Decisions about forestry at ICW91 included the selection of Asia as the region for the headquarters and the need for cross-representation with the Board of Trustees of ICRAF.
In 1991 the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) was commissioned by the CGIAR to establish CIFOR. During the next two years ACIAR's team attended 22 national and regional seminars; distributed questionnaires widely to individual scientists and research institutes to elicit topics of research interest and capability to undertake research in collaboration with CIFOR; and circulated extensively a set of commissioned background papers on major areas of concern. It also made arrangements for setting up CIFOR's Board of Trustees.
The preparatory groups for CIFOR (led by ACIAR) held exhaustive consultations with leading institutions, researchers and some representative beneficiaries and identified some 1,200 research priorities within the changing nature and needs of forest resources and their sustainable management. This was accepted by the first BoT and DG who then developed a Medium Term Plan (MTP) for the period 1994-1998 based on a somewhat arbitrary selection of 27 priorities and the likely available resources. The subsequent strategic plan and the current MTP for the period 1998 - 2000 recognized the changes within and outside CIFOR.
