The International Model Forest Network (IMFN) will be hosting a Global Forum based in Kemptville, in the Eastern Ontario Model Forest in Canada, from May 26-30th, 2025 and will attract up to 200 delegates representing over 60 Model Forests from around the world.
The IMFN Global Forum is a business, technical, and networking meeting in which members share knowledge, review their accomplishments, address challenges, and agree on Network‐wide and other strategic plans and initiatives for the three‐year period following the Global Forum.
Functions of the Global Forum are three‐fold:
- for the IMFN Assembly to take decisions on specific matters;
- to strengthen collaboration and synergies among members;
- to strengthen collaboration and visibility for the IMFN among other relevant initiatives and programmes, including international forest policy priorities, in support of IMFN and member goals and objectives.
Since its creation, the IMFN has held five Global Forums:
- October 23-29th, 1996 - Chihuahua, Mexico;
- September 8-10th, 1999 - Halifax, Canada;
- November 7-11th, 2005 - Turrialba, Costa Rica (with more than 130 delegates);
- June 16-20th, 2008 - Hinton, Canada (with more than 150 delegates from 31 countries);
- March 24-27th, 2011 - Burgos, Spain (with 225 delegates from 32 countries).
Organized by the Eastern Ontario Model Forest (EOMF) and its lead organization the Ontario Woodlot Association (OWA), the 2025 IMFN Global Forum will take place at the Kemptville Campus Education and Community Centre. This Centre is an educational and multi-use facility serving the community of North Grenville and surrounding Area, located right in the heart of the Eastern Ontario Model Forest, a pioneer member of the IMFN with over 30 years of experience.
Located less than an hour from downtown Ottawa, the Kemptville Campus includes 254 hectares and 17 main buildings, as well as woodlands, cropland, wetland, greenspace, greenhouses, trails, an agroforestry centre and maple bush and other buildings. The forest of the campus is fully certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), under the Eastern Ontario Model Forest’s certification program.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for both the OWA and the EOMF,” says the organizations’ Executive Director John Pineau. “We have hosted thousands of people from various groups and organizations over the past many years. However, the IMFN Global Forum might be one of the largest and most diverse groups we have ever hosted. We know from past experience, such events provide a richness of knowledge exchange which helps us here in Eastern Ontario as well as our visiting delegates as we continue to learn and explore new approaches to sustainable landscape management.” The 2025 IMFN Global Forum will include a series of parallel regional annual governance meetings, a multi-day IMFN Global Forum/IMFN Assembly, an IMFN Climate knowledge consolidation workshop, as well as several one-day field tour options within the host Model Forest to learn from local experiences and landscape governance processes.
According to Richard Verbisky, the Head of the IMFN Secretariat based at Natural Resource Canada’s Canadian Forest Service in Ottawa, the timing of this next IMFN Global Forum could not be better. “As Canada prepares to host the G7 in 2025, Model Forests and their representatives from over 30 countries around the world – tropical and temperate – will gather six months ahead of the world arriving in Brazil for the COP30 United Nations climate change conference in Belem. The only road more exciting than the road to Belem will be working together across the regional networks of the International Model Forest Network on the road to a successful IMFN Global Forum 2025 in Eastern Ontario Model Forest next May 26-30th, 2025.”
We hope to see many of you in Kemptville next year!