Wednesday, 22 March 2023 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The International Day of Forests was celebrated in the Forest Research Institute on Tuesday with a guest lecture on historical land uses and biodiversity by professor emeritus, Stephen Seibert. He spoke at length on the role of humans through the generations in helping in maintaining and to an extent enhancing biodiversity. He also spoke about the role of fire in forest management especially in reducing fuel load thereby reducing the risk of forest fires.
FRI director Renu Singh spoke on the theme of IDF-2023 ‘Forests and Health’. She stated that forests provide goods, services and employment and income to about 2.5 billion people worldwide and how people benefit indirectly from the multiple environmental services that forests provide like carbon sequestration, temperature control and air purification. Singh also spoke about the urban and peri-urban forests and the role of trees in mitigating many of the drawbacks of living in urban areas like buffering noise, reducing the urban heat island effect, providing green space for exercise, recreation and recovery from stress and how conserving and sustainably using forests is one of the best ways of protecting the planet and its inhabitants.
