Commonwealth Forestry Conference, Dehradun 2017
The 19th Commonwealth Forestry Conference was held at Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, India from 3rd to 7th April, 2017. The theme of the conference was “Forests for Prosperity and Posterity”. NCCF – PEFC were among the sponsors of the event. The 5 day four yearly event served as a key forum for nearly 700 participants from commonwealth countries, representing professional foresters, government agencies managing the forests, policy makers, corporate houses, PSUs, NGOs, leading forestry research and academic institutions on a single platform to discuss and deliberate on the emerging broader and new perspectives in managing the world’s forests, in view of the magnified global expectations towards the role of forests in addressing the sustainable development goals.
Shri. Vijai Sharma, IAS (retd), Chairman NCCF attended the conference as a keynote speaker in the plenary session of the CFC 2017 and chaired the technical session on the Forest Resource Assessment and Monitoring. In his key note address, he emphasised the need of strengthening partnerships amongst the Forest Departments, R & D institutions, industry, financial sector, farmer groups, certification agencies, Joint Forest Management committees and forest dwellers to achieve the goals of sustainable forest management. Further referring the existing and in process International Treaties like Bali action Plan and Kyoto Protocol, he added that agroforestry could be one of the keys to attaining sustainable development goals.
NCCF actively participated in the technical and poster presentation sessions. Shri A.K. Srivastava, IFS (retd), Executive Director (Honorary), NCCF presented his paper “Forest certification as a promotion tool for Sustainable Forest Management” and chaired the session on “Biodiversity, Forests and People”.
Mr Avani Kumar Varma, Chairman, SDG, FM Certification Standard, NCCF attended the CFC2017 and contributed his ideas in the plenary and technical sessions. He also made a poster presentation on Forest Certification as a tool of SFM. Dr Devendra Pandey, IFS (retd), Chairman, SDG TOF Certification Standard chaired the session on the Contribution of Forests towards Sustainable Development Goals.
During CFC 2017, NCCF also held a meeting with Dr Tony Simons, Director General, World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), Nairobi and Dr. Javed Rizvi, ICRAF India Office, on 2nd April 2017, to explore the prospects of a collaborative arrangement between the ICRAF and NCCF on the areas of common interest. NCCF requested Dr. Simons to extend professional support to NCCF in developing the Certification standards for the Trees outside Forests (TOF) and nominate his representative on the Standard Development Group (SDG) of TOF. He assured full professional support of ICRAF to NCCF in this endeavour.