'Some timber species overexploited in India'

Conventionally preferred timber species continue to be over-exploited while some tree species remain under or unutilised in India.

Addressing the annual conference of the 'International Research Group (IRG) on wood protection' here on Monday, G K Prasad, director general, Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education (ICFRE), said at present, utilisation of forest products especially timber is far from being scientific and an effort is being made to develop techniques for better utilisation of plantation timber species to widen choice of species for different end users.

"It is estimated that the wood preservation techniques alone have a potential to save 15 million cubic metre of timber annually," he added.

At present, the installed capacity of treatment plants in the country is about 2.5 million cum/year whereas the utilisation is only about 1.5 million cum/year.

The present level of wood treatment in India is less than 5 per cent of the total wood supply in the country.

At present, India has a forest cover of about 79.35 million hectare (24.13 per cent of the total area) comprising of 63.34 million hectare forest and 16 million hectare of wood-lands in non forest areas.

The forests are increasingly subject to tremendous pressure from its one billion population and about 450 million livestock and we have a long way to achieve the greening of one-third of country's land mass set by the national forest policy, said Prasad.

Giving reasons for holding the international wood protection meet in India, Jeff Morrell, president of the International Research Group said the potential of wood preservation technologies is a vital tool which has not been fully utilised in India.

The reasons many be many but presently a favourable operational regime for wider usage of treated wood does not seem to exist and linkages between researchers and user groups are weak. This has brought us to create awareness in India, he added.

At the 36th annual International Research Group meet, 140 delegates are participating from 27 countries. From host country India 35 delegates are taking part.

International Research Group with its secretariat in Sweden holds annual conferences. At these conferences which deliberation takes place with various working groups in biology, test methodology and assessment, wood protecting chemicals, process and properties and environmental aspects.