Dehradun: A two days workshop for ‘Capacity Building of State Forest Departments for Developing State REDD+ Action Plans’ for the forest officers of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab was inaugurated by Shri Arun Singh Rawat IFS, Director General, ICFRE and Chief Guest at National Forest Library and Information Centre (NFLIC), FRI Dehradun. During opening remarks, he emphasized that REDD+ is one of the climate change mitigation actions in developing countries relating to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, with the ‘+’ signifying conservation of forests, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks. REDD+ is now widely accepted as a Climate Change mitigation option under United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). National REDD+ Strategy will address to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by lowering the rate of deforestation and forest degradation and/or increasing GHG removals from the atmosphere through forest carbon enhancement activities, for example, forest conservation enhancing forest carbon stocks, forest landscape restoration, and improved forest management. ICFRE institutes are organizing such workshops for building the capacity of SFDs for preparation of State REDD+ Action Plans under theCAMPA funded scheme all over the country.
Sh. Anurag Bhardwaj IFS, Director International Cooperation Dehradun briefed about main objective of this workshop to understand the status and trends of forest cover change, drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and barriers for enhancement for carbon sequestration, and developing a coherent State REDD+ Action Plans to address these issues. This plan will consist of intervention packages with budget and monitoring that will emerge through a multi-stakeholder consultative process.
Dr. K Thomas IFS, APCCF (Research), Kanpur and Ms. Vasvi Tyagi IFS, CF South Gurugram Haryana, shared REDD+ preparedness of their states and expectations from the present workshop. Dr. Indu K. Murthy, Principal Research Scientist, from Bengaluru delivered an online presentation on the Impact of Climate Change on Indian Forests. Dr. VRS Rawat, Former ADG (BCC) ICFRE and Dr. RS Rawat, Scientist and REDD+ Expert from Biodiversity Climate Change Division ICFRE, will be the lead national resource for the workshop. Dr. Bhaskar Singh Karky and Sh. Nabin Bhattarai from ICIMOD Nepal will be online international resources for the workshop.
The programme was conducted by Dr. Vijender Panwar, Head Forest Ecology and Climate Change and attended by Sh. Rajesh Sharma ADG BCC, Dr. N.K Upreti GCR FRI, Heads of the Divisions, Dr. Sadhana Tripathi Chief Librarian FRI, Scientists of ICFRE/FRI and Research Scholars. The programme ended with a vote of thanks from Sh. N. Bala, Scientist-G FRI.
