Wealth of live forests

What an irony that the UN just announced 2011 as the International Year of forests, and you have the UK government selling off its woodlands! And Brazil has given the go-ahead to the controversial $17 billion dam project at Belo Monte in the Amazonian rainforest, a massive project that will sink 588 acres of rainforest!

The UK government has already committed to selling off 15 of the public forest estates in the hope of generating an extra £100m for the exchequer. The government is proposing that English woodland be divided into four categories, ranging from "heritage" to "multi-purpose", "small timber" and "large commercial". But not many are buying this.

Do we need a year declared in order to know the value of our forests? Surely, all of us know the forests nurture our rivers? That the air we breathe, the food, water and medicines we need to survive, the variety of life on earth, the climate that shapes our present and future - they all depend on forests. Forests offer the quickest, most cost effective and largest means of curbing global emissions. Around a quarter of the income of forest-dependent communities comes from the goods and services that forests provide.

But yet, we are ready to sacrifice our forests for short-term projects. We willingly raze them down to raise plantations that fetch in quick money, even as we lose the vital biodiversity of our forests.

Will the year bring any fresh awareness on the importance of forests in our lives, however far removed from our lives they seem???