Forests Minister envisages self-reliance in timber

Kathmandu –Minister for Forests and Environment, Shakti Bahadur Basnet, has said the country would be made self-reliant through increased timber production and its appropriate management. 

Talking to RSS at his office in Singha Durbar today, he said the Ministry has brought various plans of action on forest management and utilisation. 

"We will increase timber production by three times this year to stop the import of timber. We will not only increase the production but would also carry out the required management," the Minister for Forests and Environment asserted. 
Presently, the country imports timber and timber products worth billions of rupees. 

Minister Basnet outlined various plans in this regard like using various technologies for the sustainable management of timber, establishing industries based on timber processing, producing nearly 6 million cubic feet of timber annually through scientific management of forests and increasing the forest products from the privately-owned forests. 

Scientific forest management system would be implemented effectively, the participation of private sector in sectoral forest management would be increased, the access of communities from all regions including the Tarai/Madhes to forest would be enhanced and plans for the sustainable management of community forest would be brought to achieve these results. He explained. 

The total forest area in the country is approximately 6.6 million hectares and more than around 100 thousand hectares forest is facing encroachment. 

Minister Basnet said this year the government has carried out the greenery promotion and tree plantation programmes on a campaign basis. 

Regarding the complaints that problems have been faced in forwarding some big development projects due to the obstruction by his ministry, Minister Basnet said, "To advocate for conserving the environment is not anti-development.

Our point is that environment should be connected to development for attaining sustainable development. Development becomes more effective if it takes environmental factors into consideration. However, we are in the process of sorting out complexities arising out of how much forest area should be allocated to certain projects." 
---