Date | Sept 22, 2015

A two-day training workshop on forest transition in India for Indian Forest Service officers was inaugurated at the Forest Research Institute on Monday by the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE) director general Ashwani Kumar. The training workshop being organised by the Resource Survey and Management Division of FRI is being attended by senior forest officers from different parts of the country including Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Mizoram and Nagaland.

Inaugurating the workshop, the ICFRE director general Ashwani Kumar gave an overview of forest transition in the Indian scenario. He also spoke about the the historical aspect of forest cover and changes in it over the last century. While elaborating on the forest transition he also pointed at various causes of deforestation and forest degradation. Kumar also emphasised on the importance of forest policy and various Acts in India for ensuring sustainable management of forests. The Environmental Kuznets Curve which explains the theory of forest transition globally is also applied for forest transition in India, he added.

Earlier, the institute’s officiating director and head of the Resource Survey Management division, Neelu Gera, welcomed the council’s director general and participating IFS officers. Heads of various FRI divisions and additional director generals of ICFRE were also among those present in the inaugural session of the training workshop. The training will involve discussion of varied dimensions of forest transition by experts. The training workshop has been funded by Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, New Delhi.