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Environment minister stresses minimizing CO2 emission

With the objective of creating awareness on limiting carbon dioxide (CO2) emission, a global campaign “Sit on One Ton Carbon” was inaugurated at Basantapur Durbar Square on Tuesday morning. Inaugurating the program, Minister for Forest and Soil Conservation, Shakti Bahadur Basnet stressed the need for balanced usage of our forest resources, conservation of forests and planting more trees in order to balance the level of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.He also said our country should prioritize factors that absorb the harmful carbon, such as by promoting forestation.

“We can reap lots of benefits from carbon trading and should demand compensation for absorbing carbon of other countries. A strong carbon absorption system will allow us to trade with other countries in exchange for our role in minimizing the implication of climate change,” said Minister Basnet.

According to him, balanced forestation and its conservation allow us to use forest resources more efficiently, which can substitute products that emit carbon dioxide. “If we conserve and spread our forests, we can use more resources of forests like wood and timber. As a result, we can substitute carbon emitting products with environment-friendly forest resources.”Minister Basnet also shared the objective of becoming self-reliant on forest products like wood. He said Nepal would reduce its dependency on imported wood and ban such imports after gaining self-sufficiency in wood.

He also expressed commitment to improve all the legal problems related to environment conservation.Tulsipur Sub-metropolis Mayor Ghan Shayam Pandey also showed his support to the campaign. Speaking at the function, he said Nepal can easily produce 150 million cubic meter of wood. “However, at present the country is producing just 100 million cubic meter wood. the country also imports wood to meet the domestic demand.”The mayor praised the roles of private forest owners in wood production and stressed the role of forest and environment conservation in our ability to produce more wood.

The campaign has been jointly implemented by Association of Family Forest Owners Nepal and Danish Forestry Extension along with its local partners Wildlife Conservation Nepal and Life School Centre.