会议名称：2013世界木材日研讨会(2013 World Wood Day Symposium)
会议时间：2013年3月19-20日
会议地点：Karimjee Hall, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
报 告 人：Michael Grabner
　　　　　University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, BOKU, Vienna

Abstract
The folklorist Blau, in 1917, stated, that the knowledge of wood properties and how to process it, starts to retreat to higher altitudes of forest lands, where the forests are the main focus of life. Almost one hundred years after this statement, we have indeed lost a lot of knowledge and many skills and we are still discussing, how to safeguard it.
Austria has a forest cover of about 47% and the utilization of wood is of good standing. Why do we have to think about historical wood utilization?
Nowadays the utilization is limited to a very low amount of species (four main species and about 20 which can be found at retailers). These species are not longer in use regarding to their special characteristics. The advantages of some species (also shrubs), of special assortments (like crooked tress) and special tissues (like overgrown stumps) are not longer in our minds. We are excavating wooden goods, but we don’t know how they were produced and how they did function – for example lightning chips made out of fir wood.
The utilization of wood was self-evident and used by everyone. Therefore, there are almost no written documents on these skills and experiences.
To rediscover this knowledge, we started to study old literature and particularly we started to analyse old wooden objects in museums. Along with the determination of the wood species descriptions of these parts are done. What was it used for, and how was it stressed? Combining all these information, it will be possible to describe the properties of different species – compared to modern testing results.
To get a broader view on forest and wood utilization, a network of “Historical Wood Utilization” was set up. Scientists and handicraft men are coming together and discussing different topics; for example: Can films help to safeguard old knowledge? A lot of different scientific fields are included, like wood science, forest science, archaeology, ethnology, history and especially environmental history, conservation, architecture and so on. It was possible to enlarge this network from an Austrian to an European network.
Wood species differ from region to region, but practices are sometimes similar. Combining the activities of IWCS, IUFRO, the European Network and others will give the opportunity to compare wood utilization across the whole world to fix the headword: “Wood is good”.

Speaker Profile
Michael Grabner, born 6th of October 1968. Higher Technical School for Wood Technology, Studying Wood Sciences and Technology at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (Diploma 2002). Finishing a PhD at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (PhD 2005). Michael Grabner is heading the Tree Ring Lab since 1996. Due to the contact with “old wood”, the scientific field of “Historical Wood Utilization” was opened. Setting up a national network in 2008 and organizing the first international meeting on “Historical Wood Utilization” in 2011.