Professor Heinrich Spiecker, a German forestry expert in long-term cooperation with the Research Institute of Forestry Policy and Information of CAF, won the “International Science and Technology Cooperation Award” of the 11th Liangxi Forestry Science and Technology Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions made in the international scientific and technological cooperation in forestry.

Professor Spiecker is the former director and a tenured professor of the Institute of Forest Growth at the University of Freiburg in Germany, a foreign scientific consultant appointed by the Scientific Development Advisory Committee of the CAF, former Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Forest Institute, former President of the Association for Tree-Ring Research, visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin in the United States, adjunct professor at the University of Toronto in Canada, and initiator and coordinator at the IUFRO for the “Effects of Environmental Changes on Forest Growth” working group. Spiecker has long been engaged in teaching and scientific research on forest growth, close-to-natural silviculture, multi-purpose forest management, precious timber species cultivation, forest management planning and forestry economy.

Since his first visitation to China in 2001, Professor Spiecker has visited China 36 times for a total of 415 days. Spiecker has actively promoted scientific research collaboration and forestry technical assistance in China, and has four bilateral Sino-German cooperation projects (equivalent to more than 20 million yuan) approved and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the German Federal Ministry for Food and Agriculture. Spiecker also organized and led many field-works out in the wildly remote areas for close-to-natural multi-purpose forest management cooperative research and experimental demonstration. The current major domestic cooperation institutes include the Research Institute of Forestry Policy and Information and the Research Institute of Tropical Forestry of the CAF, the State-Owned Mulan Royal Hunting Ground Plantation of Hebei Province, and the Zhongtiaoshan State-Owned Forest Management Bureau of Shanxi Province. At the same time, Spiecker cooperates with other institutes such as the Research Institute of Forestry, the Research Institute of Forest Resource Information Techniques, the Research Institute of Tropical Forestry and other institutes and centers of the CAF, the Chinese Society of Forestry, Beijing Forestry University, the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang Agricultural University, and Mingyueshan Forest Plantation in Anfu County, Jiangxi Province for academic exchanges and cooperation. His cooperation footprints covering 14 provinces and cities, and has traveled to almost half of China.

Professor Spiecker has a sincere and friendly relationship with China, and he is familiar with China's national and forest conditions, and has made unremitting efforts to promote Sino-German forestry science and technology cooperation in scientific research, personnel exchanges, and personnel training. Through long-term practices, we have accumulated solid achievements in Sino-German scientific and technological cooperation, promoted the establishment of a differentiated multi-purpose sustainable forest management demonstrating technological system, carried out demonstration and promotion of forest quality precision improvement management, trained more than 4,500 forestry workers from all over the country, established more than 100 typical forest stand type management demonstration areas. Professor Spiecker’s extraordinary work was demonstrated on the land of China. Spiecker also used various international exchange opportunities to actively publicize China's forestry construction achievements, enhance the world's understanding of China's forest as well as forestry development and increased China's discourse in forestry globally. Because of his outstanding contributions, Spiecker received the 2017 “International Science and Technology Cooperation Award” from Hebei Provincial Government and the 2019 “Hebei Provincial Foreign Expert Yanzhao Friendship Award”. (Wu Shuirong, Zhang Chao/ Research Institute of Forestry Policy and Information)