International Day of Forests (IDF) is celebrated to recognize the importance of forests and the indispensable role of trees and forests in the sustainability of life and livelihoods. Promoting forestry education and involving the next generation in forestry activities is crucial to conserve forests. This year, the theme of IDF was “Forests and Education: Learn to love Forests!” highlighted the importance to forestry education. The IDF 2019 celebration was organized by the Bangladesh Forest Department on 21st March 2019.
The program started with a colorful and enjoyable rally of school children and foresters of the Bangladesh Forest Department, FAO and other organizations. It was a nice way of exposing youth to forestry professionals and make them interested in forestry. FAO’s participation was in collaboration with government entities, universities, NGOs, national and international organizations, showing a mutual effort to promote forestry education.
More than 300 participants from different organizations were present in the resourceful gathering of the formal session, chaired by the Chief Conservator of Forest, Mr. Md. Shafiul Alam Chowdhury and the Secretory of Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Mr. Abdullah Al Mohseen Chowdhury was the chief guest. During the session, participants and speakers highlighted the importance of promoting forestry education. The welcome speaker, Mr. Zaher Uddin Ahmed, convened everyone to make the government initiative successful for increasing national forest cover. Keynote speaker, Mr. Niaz Ahmed Khan, focused on the importance of forest education. The challenges of forestry, future scopes and opportunities of forestry were significantly specified by the speakers.
Participants from all over Bangladesh expressed their thoughts about current forestry activities, including co-management, social forestry, urban forestry, and promoting forestry education in an open discussion. The chair expressed his gratitude to different stakeholders in establishing sustainable forest resource management system and strengthening and promoting forestry education.