UN Forum declared 2011 as International Year of Forests and launched | State of World Forest report says India is ahead in its afforestation activity

Recognizing the role that forests play in everything from mitigating climate change to providing wood, medicines and livelihoods for people worldwide, the United Nations on 02 February, 2011, kicked off a year-long celebration to raise awareness of the value of this important resource.

The main theme of the International Year of Forests is “Forests for People”, which was launched at a ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York attended by world leaders, Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai and forest experts.

The General Assembly declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on the management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests, on which at least 1.6 billion people depend for their daily livelihoods and subsistence needs. Forests are also home to over 60 million people, mainly members of indigenous and local communities, who reside in forests.

“By declaring 2011 as the International Year of Forests, the United Nations General Assembly has created an important platform to educate the global community about the great value of forests – and the extreme social, economic and environmental costs of losing them”, noted Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The launch ceremony was presided over by General Assembly President Joseph Deiss, who is part of the high-level segment of the UN Forum on Forests, an intergovernmental policy forum dealing with forest-related issues.

Mr. Deiss noted that it is very meaningful that the International Year of Forests follows on the heels of the International Year of Biodiversity (2010), which concluded with the adoption of a new strategic plan containing targets on significantly reducing, by 2020, the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests, and sustainably managing forestry to ensure biodiversity conservation.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), noted that forests represent many things to many people including spiritual, aesthetic and cultural dimensions that are, in many ways, priceless. “But they are also cornerstones of our economies, whose real value has all too often been invisible in national accounts of profit and loss,” he added.

Forests cover about 31 per cent of total land area, amounting to just under 4 billion hectares, according to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which released its “State of the World’s Forests” report on 02 Feb.

The report, which is published every two years, stresses that the forest industry forms an important part of a “greener” economy and wood products have environmental attributes that would appeal to people.

The industry is responding to numerous environmental and social concerns by improving sustainability of resource use, using more waste materials to make products, increasing energy efficiency and reducing emissions. For example, 37 per cent of total forest production in 2010 came from recovered paper, wood waste and non-wood fibres, a figure that is likely to grow to up to 45 per cent in 2030, with much of that growth from China and India.

“What we need during the International Year of Forests is to emphasize the connection between people and forests, and the benefits that can accrue when forests are managed by local people in sustainable and innovative ways,” said Eduardo Rojas, FAO’s Forestry Director.

Ms. Maathai noted in her address at the launch, as well as in a briefing to reporters, that the value of the International Year is the opportunity to “explore the value of the trees, the forests and the environment, as well as the value of the environmental services that these resources give us.”

She added that too often forests and the services they provide are taken for granted and seen as resources that are unlimited. “But we all know now that we are facing situations where these forests are disappearing,” she told reporters.

As part of the launch, international filmmaker Yann Arthus-Bertrand will premiere his short film “FOREST.” The ceremony also featured clips from winning films from the International Forest Film Festival which was organised by the UN Forum on Forest Secretariat in collaboration with the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival.

India is ahead in its afforestation activity........

Asia is leading the afforestation activity in the world with a significant contribution from India which is adding 300,000 hectares of forest every year, a senior UN official said.

"I would highlight India, which still has important population growth. The forests in India are growing at 300,000 hectare per annum," Eduardo Rojas-Briales, Forestry Director of Food and Agriculture Organisation told journalists yesterday.

According to the 'State of the World's Forests' report, published by the Food and Agricultural Organisation, five countries -- India, China, Australia, Indonesia and Myanmar - had the largest forested area in Asia and Pacific region.

These countries accounted for 74 per cent of the forest in the region with China and Australia alone accounting for almost half the forest area of the region.

In Asia and Pacific region, forests were lost at a rate of 0.