 Thank you very much. It's a great privilege to speak along with such distinguished other speakers in this session And the reason why I picked up my bag is to say that I've started by doing the right thing my tie matches The color of this bag. So at least what I'm doing in terms of color is politically right but I'd like to start with a generalization and That comes from the fact that I think over the years The forestry profession has yielded a lot of space in the policy arena to other disciplines And to me that's a fundamental problem. I See dr. Swaminathan here in the audience, and I hope he agrees with me. I've seen in my own country in India the forestry officials and the officialdom in the forestry sector was Extremely important five or six decades ago But over a period of time they have yielded that space to others essentially generalists and I think this is a crucially important issue Because as I'm going to tell you a little later The drivers of everything that happens in the forestry sector Essentially come from other sectors of the economy and I would submit that if we want to bring about a proper balance of forestry activities as they relate to others We would have to ensure that we do some hard thinking and come up with means by which this institutional Imperfection can be corrected Let me first start by talking about the importance of forestry and The impacts of deforestation on the climate of this planet Deforestation accounts for seventeen percent of the global greenhouse gas emissions And of course the single largest source of emissions higher than the transport sector In this context, I'm happy that in this particular session that's taking place in the Bella Center We are talking about reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation now popularly popularly known as red and this must assume significance Because it is by far the most cost-effective mitigation action that could be adopted and In the fourth assessment report the AR4 of the IPCC We had estimated that deforestation is occurring at a rate of 12.9 million hectares per year leading to a decrease of about 4,000 million tons of co2 absorptive capacity and in terms of reduction of the global net carbon stocks in The forest biomass. I was in Brazil a year and a half ago and addressed the Brazilian Senate and I was told by Miss Marina Silva who earlier used to be the minister for the environment and responsible for forests and Others who were there in the Senate that in the last one year alone I believe deforestation had gone up by about 13 percent across the country and this is not Isolated only to the case of Brazil. It's happening in every other part of the world but we must also remember that as Professor Ostrom who I Have the privilege of meeting for the first time and it's such an honor to sit next to her because all of us have admired all that she's been doing over the years and I'm happy that the Nobel Prize authorities have decided to give her and give her the Nobel Peace Prize Nobel Prize for economics because This is really a major departure from what the economics profession has received recognition for in the past and thank God it's happened So what I'd like to say is that? forests really provide you with a range of Benefits that everybody knows about but unfortunately this issue never gets highlighted adequately If you look at the ecosystem services such as water storage increased rainfall nutrient recycling Biodiversity and its preservation soil stabilization and of course even issues like flood control and boosting agricultural productivity. There's such a wealth of benefits That are associated with healthy forestry practices and the maintenance of forest stocks And yet somehow this doesn't get highlighted that this doesn't reach the policy arena when it comes to national development plans and The forestry sector of course is not an isolated system It's impacted by policies in several sectors of the economy And often use the phrase is that the drivers of deforestation lie outside the sector and Therefore, I think nations must look more deeply into the problems of the forestry sector And I think what Professor Ostrom has said is entirely correct. This is an area where top-down policies are not going to work I think Yesterday we had an event of the Cromberg Castle where one of my colleagues said that we need a new water religion the management of water resources Has to develop like a new religion and I believe this is precisely what we need in the forestry sector Because you need grassroots efforts and you really need to see that you build from bottom upwards and Policies should really flow in the opposite direction rather than top downwards What I also want to highlight is the fact that when it comes to goods and services Forests are huge providers You know that forest loss can lead to profoundly negative costs to society in terms of Forgone goods and services and I'd like to emphasize the fact that if we don't recognize this reality We're going to get social disruption on a large scale. In fact, it's happening several in several parts of the world because where communities Tribals and others lose these benefits They are left completely in the wilderness so to speak and Therefore, there's nothing but social tension and protests which takes on an ugly form very often We know that according to the UN Department of economic and social affairs More than 1.6 billion people live worldwide Depending on forest resources for their livelihoods. That's a huge number 25% of the world's population