ORONO – Some of the world’s foremost authorities on the paper and forest products industry will be at the University of Maine for Paper Days 2006, a two-day forest products symposium hosted by the UMaine Pulp and Paper Foundation.

The theme of the symposium, which will be held Wednesday and Thursday, April 5-6, is “Meeting the Economic Challenges in the Global Community.” Featured as keynote speaker will be Geoffrey Colvin, senior editor-at-large for Fortune magazine.

Through two days of panel discussions and several speakers, participants are expected to come away with new ideas to strengthen Maine’s forest products industry and explore new industry initiatives, including the development of biorefinery products from papermaking waste.

The Pulp and Paper Foundation’s annual Paper Days has national significance, according to Peter Duncan, executive director of the foundation.

“This kind of conference has the potential to revitalize the paper industry,” Duncan said. “We’ll get into tax issues, environmental issues, forestry practices, wood recycling and new ownership and how they’re all working together within the forest products industry. The bio-refinery research that is ongoing on this campus has the potential to go forward with some very positive initiatives with long-term effects.”

Duncan said the symposium will seek out ways for the industry to overcome new challenges of global proportion.

The Pulp and Paper Foundation was created 56 years ago to prepare well-educated engineering students for careers in papermaking and the forest products industry. Its mission is to assure a steady stream of well-trained engineering graduates for the job market. With a privately funded endowment of more than $21 million, the foundation awarded 90 scholarships in 2005-2006. It is the largest such endowment in the nation, according to Duncan, and has helped more than 2,500 engineering students get degrees and jobs.

For information, call the foundation at 581-2297.