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 A Wood Anatomy Workshop, funded by ITTO, was organized for young African scientists to enhance their knowledge of wood anatomy and to compile data on the wood anatomical properties of African timbers. The workshop, held at CIRAD Forêt in Montpellier, France, from 16-25 May 2007, was attended by seven African students: Mr Emmanuel Ebanyenle (FORIG/KNUST, Ghana), Mrs Neduvoto Piniel Mollel (National Herbarium, Tanzania), Mr Ludovic Ngok Banak (IRET/CENAREST, Gabon), Mr Phillimon Ng’andwe (Copperbelt University, Zambia), Mr. Paul Mugabi (Makerere University, Uganda), Mr Massamba Thiam (CIRAD, France) and Mr. Ernesto Uetimane Jr (Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique).

 The seven African trainees were given a two-day course in comparative wood anatomy, based on the IAWA Codes. In the subsequent week these trainees produced about 200 anatomical descriptions of major commercial and secondary use timber species from tropical Africa. The participants used about 1500 microscopic sections of woods from the collections held by CIRAD at Montpellier (France), the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew (United Kingdom), and the Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale at Tervuren (Belgium). Using microscopes, they noted the presence or absence, in each species, of 163 distinct criteria describing the wood structure, such as vessels, fibres and parenchymas, and mineral contents, primarily silica and calcium oxalate.

 Coaching of the trainees and careful correction of all observations was done by Prof. Pieter Baas (National Herbarium, Netherlands), Dr Hans Beeckman (Musée royal de l’Afrique centrale, Belgium), Dr Peter Gasson (Royal Botanic Gardens, United Kingdom), Mr Pierre Détienne (CIRAD, France), Dr A. Oteng Amoako (FORIG/KNUST, Ghana) and Prof. E.A. Wheeler (University of Raleigh, United States).

 The very successful workshop resulted in anatomical data on more than 200 African species being compiled and the capacity of African scientists in wood anatomy being boosted. The coded descriptions of the 207 timber species will be used for conversion into full text descriptions (both in English and French) to be included in the PROTA webdatabase, books and CDROMs. The descriptions will also be added to the InsideWood international database. Seven young African scientists are now associate members of the International Association of Wood Anatomists (IAWA).

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