The 8th IAWA-China Group Annual Meeting and 2021 International Youth Forum for Wood Anatomy was held online on November 13-14, 2021, organized by Sichuan Agricultural University and Inspection and Test Center (Chengdu) of National Furniture Product Quality, co-sponsored by IAWA, IUFRO, and IAWS together. The theme of the conference was “Promote Ecological Wood Anatomy for Sustainable Wood Utilization”. The local organizers of China, the former Editor-in-Chief of IAWA Journal Pieter Baas, and IAWA Secretary Yafang Yin gave opening remarks. The President of IAWS Yoon-soo Kim and the Coordinator of IUFRO Division 5 Pekka Saranpää were invited to participate in the conference.

The China Group Annual Meeting was held in the morning on November 13th and 14th. More than 350 representatives from over 50 related universities, research institutes, forest products inspection centers, and wood companies attended this IAWA-China Group Annual Meeting. There were two keynote lectures and 39 oral presentations presenting their research progress on xylem formation, dendrochronology, wood identification, wood properties, wood and bamboo utilization, and archaeological wood. After the voting of the local committee members, the Excellent Presentation Awards (EPA) of the IAWA-China Group were awarded to eight qualified graduate students. The first prize winners are Liu Jiabao from Anhui Normal University and Liu Xing from Nanjing Forestry University. The second prize winners are Yong Lu from Nanjing Forestry University and Xu Haocheng from the International Center of Bamboo and Rattan. The third prize winners are Chen Yan from Sichuan Agricultural University, Li Wen from Fujian Agricultural and Forestry University, Huang Yaqian from Nanjing Forestry University, and Jia Huiwen from Southwest Forestry University.


The Youth Forum was held in the afternoon on November 13th. This is the first time for IAWA to organize an international youth forum for wood anatomy. Over 160 representatives took part in this forum. There were one keynote lecture and 15 oral presentations, from 10 countries including Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Japan, Poland, Serbia, South Africa, etc., presenting the research referring to ecological wood anatomy, wood identification, and the relationship between wood anatomy and properties. The three best reports were selected by the International Scientific Committee of the forum. The first prize of the conference report was awarded to Yana Campos Rizzieri, Brazil (Ontogeny of divided vascular cylinders in Serjania: the rise of a novel vascular architecture in Sapindaceae), the second prize went to Qi Chen, China (Hygroscopic swelling of Moso bamboo cells), and the third prize was won by Volker Haag, Germany (Anatomical identification of charcoal and briquettes-developments in the international charcoal trade and the increasing use of substitutes from ntfps).
 
The abstracts (both in English and Chinese) of the 8th IAWA-China Group Annual Meeting and 2021 International Youth Forum are available online under the download menu of the IAWA website (http://www.iawa-website.org/en/Downloads/Publications/index.shtml).

The 9th IAWA-China Group annual meeting will be held in 2022, at South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, China.