On the occasion, Dr Suresh Gairola, FSC India Country Director delivered a talk on Responsible Forest Management through Forest Certification. The audience included policymakers, state forest department officers, forest corporation officers, non-governmental organizations, voluntary agencies, progressive farmers and students.
In his talk, Dr Gairola impressed upon the audience the importance of forest certification in achieving sustainability of forests. Forests are home to about 80% of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity, about 1.6 billion people depend directly of forests and yet the world is losing 10 million hectares of forests each year. One of the key messages of FAO on the occasion is that consumers can contribute to the sustainable use of forests by choosing wood products with labelling or certification confirming that they come from legal and sustainable sources. He also informed about forest certification process, advantages over working plans implementation and forthcoming rollout of National Forest Stewardship Standard (NFSS) of India and Regional Forest Stewardship Standard (RFSS).
The United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 21 March the International Day of Forests in 2012 to celebrate and raise awareness of the importance of all types of forests. Countries are encouraged to undertake local, national and international efforts to organize activities involving forests and trees, such as tree-planting campaigns. The theme for 2022 was “Forests and sustainable production and consumption”.