Professor Jyrki Kangas is the new Chairman of the board

Professor Jyrki Kangas started as the new chairman of the board of the Koli Forum Association in February 2016.  He replaces Dr. Petteri Taalas who joined the World Meteorological Organization as the Secretary General based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Professor Kangas is based at the University of Eastern Finland’s  School of Forest Sciences where he works as a Professor of Forest Bioeconomy. Before that he was the Director General of Metsähallitus (2007-2014). He has also worked for UPM-Kymmene Ltd as Director of Forestry and as CEO of UPM’s real estate daughter company Bonvesta Oy.

Prof. Kangas has made his doctoral thesis in 1992 on supporting forestry decision-making of private non-industrial forest owners. His research interests include multi-functional forestry, participatory planning, decision support for forest management, strategy processes, and multi-objective optimization. Kangas has published more than 300 publications, of which more than 80 are peer-reviewed ones. He has been awarded the Scientific Achievement Award by the International Union of Forest Research Organisations, among others.

His positions of trust have included such as Vice-President of the Association of European State Forest Organisations EUSTAFOR, Member of the European High Level Group of the Forest-Based Sector Technology Platform and Chairman of the Board of the Foundation for European Forest Research. Kangas is a docent of Forest Planning at the University of Helsinki.