 This conference I'm representing UFRO in giving a couple of papers. One has to do with two different projects that UFRO has been involved in. One is on traditional knowledge, traditional forest knowledge. We completed a six-year program of conferences and publications relating to traditional forest knowledge, its relationship to scientific knowledge and the policy of management implications and relationships there. And the other piece of my work here has to do with a recently completed global forest expert panel assessment on biodiversity, forest management and carbon and its in relation to red developments. I think one of the big possibilities and I think it will be achieved is to foster greater communication among research scientists and their institutions within the entire Latin American region. As you've probably seen, there is representation from virtually all many, many countries in Latin America and Caribbean and an event like this really helps to foster that kind of collaboration between countries and institutions. That's very valuable both individually and collectively. We hope that the work that we do, the work that I've been engaged in and other people's work ultimately benefits people and one of the things that UFRO has been increasingly active in is in various policy processes whereby we've tried to position ourselves principally as a member of the collaborative partnership on forests like C4 and ICRAF where we like to position ourselves as an unbiased source of technical and scientific information for global forest and environmental policy debates.