Inauguration Marielos Peña Claros: Managing tropical forest to conserve them

"Tropical forests are important at local, regional and global scales, and we need to conserve them," says Marielos Peña Claros, personal professor at the Forest Ecology and Forest Management chair group (FEM) since 2019. On 22 September, she will deliver her inaugural address. Tropical forests are important at local, regional and global scales. Locally tropical forests are essential for millions of people, who rely on all kinds of forest resources like fruits, nuts and timber for their daily subsistence. Regionally tropical forests, like the Amazon forest, play an important role in supporting rainfall for the whole region. Globally tropical forests are important for biodiversity and for climate change mitigation. -But deforestation rates in the Amazon are still high, and unfortunately, forest degradation is also management a serious problem-, says Peña Claros.