 Sustainable forestry belongs to the family of highly responsible and thoughtful strategies in forest farming. Its aim is to preserve forest heritage for generations to come. Forests and invaluable resource provide an oxygen for breathing, but more than that, forest their habitats for unique and endemic species and provide ample possibilities for people to earn a living. The benefits of sustainable forestry are multi-fold, and it embraces a multitude of socio-economic and ecological perspectives. The implementation of sustainable forestry practices is pivotal in the protection of forests, from conversion to urban, industrial, and even agricultural use. In Sindhuja, the Department of Forestry spearheads the National Sustainable Forest Management Initiative through an integrative action plan comprising special projects, strategic work program activities, continuous public education, and stakeholder consultation. One of the areas we focus on with regard to sustainable forest management is livelihoods. We know especially with the impact of COVID a lot of persons are unemployed and this is one of the areas we push especially with regards to non-timber forest products. So we look at things like luster and mobby and vanilla. So we encourage persons to engage in enterprises where non-timber forest products are used and we source out markets for them. The forest is very important. We know it provides so many things, provisioning services, fuel, food, etc. Ecological services like carbon sequestration, nutrient recycling, livelihoods, even the well-being of our health. We know the forests are the lungs of the planet. And you know with all the stresses we face with COVID and everything, imagine the forest is a beautiful place to be to find your centre, find your calm. So it has a lot of cultural and spiritual meaning and importance. So the forest is important and especially the thrust like I said before with regards to livelihoods. We also provide other services especially within the sustainable forest management in terms of keeping the forest sustainable, forest protection. We know some things and say everything's don't happen in certain parts of our forest and we have to monitor that and provide alternatives or solutions to some of those things so with regards to forest protection. While there is no universal recipe for managing every forest, forestry management techniques should consider and further address the commercial value forest specifics, environmental aspects, communities needs and stakeholder interests. Besides, the collaboration of forest managers with local businesses, agroforestry entrepreneurs, authorities and NGOs, promotes more effective decision-making. Out of these participatory discussions in St. Lucia, special projects such as the Iwaco Project, the Ayanoala North East Coast Development Project and the South East Coast Development Project were conceptualised. Our focus has changed drastically after the passage of Hurricane Thomas and we were able to and have been able to get an influx of project funding starting with the Australian government, USAID, which we did post Hurricane Thomas. Rehabilitation and Restoration Project. And then now we got some money from the GCCA, the Mango Biodiversity Project and we did some work, some infrastructure with some soft engineering, hard engineering on the Boado Orange River. And then you have the Ayanoala Project on the North East Coast and currently I am attached to the IWaco Project, which is a regional project. I am speaking about management of watersheds and so on with the sustainable land management being your main focus. When we speak about sustainable forestry, we definitely have to talk about wildlife because wildlife forms an integral part of our forest, of our forestry. In fact, wildlife is a part of the forestry ecosystem. So if we sustainably manage our forest, then automatically we are also sustainably managing wildlife because the majority of our wildlife in San Bushia, its habitat is found within the forest ecosystem. Over the years forestry has been quite focused on managing and conserving and also protecting our wildlife. In fact, this is the primary mandate of the wildlife unit. Our task really is to manage the wildlife we have to protect them, to conserve them. Over the years, we have focused a lot on our threatened and endemic species conservation. We have focused on monitoring those species. We have conducted a number of population surveys, for example, our survey, a wide range of national surveys. We have done a lot of species monitoring, predator control, with the aim of, as I have said, sustainably managing it, preserving it and protecting the species because the end result is that we want to have those species. We do not want them to go into extinction because they play an integral role in the entire ecology and also the functions of the ecosystem. So the forest really cannot go without the wildlife and the wildlife in itself cannot go without the forest. The Department of Forestry continues to document the specifics of San Bushia's flora at the department's herbarium, which also serves as the National Botanical Repository and Reference Centre. The herbarium also strengthens the country's botanical knowledge base through exploration, collection and documentation of San Bushia's floristic diversity. The floral research unit has the responsibility for cataloging of every plant that is found on the island, especially indigenous endemic plants. We also do a wide range of research in terms of both locally with students and also international students doing either a PhD or master's research on specific species. And in terms of what we engage in assessment of our public domain, so persons who want to do sustainable forest areas, persons who want to open a trail or they have different properties, different land issues in terms of soil stabilization who then go out and assess the area and give advice on what plants should be there. The herbarium gets into the area where persons come to collect information and not just collect information, but you could actually see the specimen for yourself. You can touch the specimen and you could actually know where these specimens are found on the island. So the main aspect of the herbarium is to ensure that our plant depository is intact and we know what is found in St. Lucia and we know where they can be found. We're currently responsible for forest management information systems or before we were called the mapping unit. We're responsible for the data for the division. So we're the central repository for all data. We collect, we collect, we verify, we manage and we disseminate. So we're the ones that, all activities, all projects, we do the monitoring, the research and the collection of data. So we're out there, our job is not dust-bound. We're a free man unit, mostly made up of women. We're not dust-bound. We're out there in the fields at 5 o'clock in the morning climbing Gopitore collecting data on floral research for the herbarium unit. We're out there in the mangroves, knee-deep in that sulfuric water. It's very exciting. We collect data on water quality, water... Basically anything to do with the mangrove concerning if there's a die-back, if there's something happening in the mangrove, we monitor. The Water Resources Management Agency is mandated by law to develop a water resource management plan which supports the forestry department's active pursuit of watershed management, reforestation and aqua forestry activities. The two agencies work together is because our water quality is dependent on sustainable forestry. For instance, water quality could be impacted by deforestation. This creates a higher erosion of soils and creates high sedimentation in our rivers, hence clogging intakes and reducing water supply. As the sustainable forestry approach is aimed at forest preservation, the concept supports the very existence of forest lands and what the society as a whole stands to benefit from it. In this manner, countries can still benefit from forests but the understanding is that users must consume the resource responsibly and restore it in order for it to be available for much longer. We're responsible for creating awareness amongst the locals, visitors, wider public stakeholders as well and we ensure that our awareness region activities are integrated into all our plans, our policies and our strategies. And the Forest of St. Lucia, they are very important resources for basically showing the importance of conserving for both social and environmental benefits and also the intrinsic value of protecting nature such as keeping our forests and our watersheds intact and that again will contribute to social and economic development. And for us, it's a way of ensuring that our stakeholders are aware of the benefit of our work to the development of the country. Likewise with our partners, our project partners, it ensures cooperation and further collaboration. And we're looking at further in engaging that we want to look at urban forestry ensuring that we have greenery within our cities and towns, villages and this has been a great thing where some of the mayors, some of the individuals within the community are very encouraging. They like the fact that here we want to prepare greenery in places where you know if climate change, where the area is getting hotter, having our trees in our public spaces would definitely help ease that shade that we need and ensure that we continue to breathe properly. In most cases we see the benefit to the communities. We see changing behaviors, we see changing persons attitudes as well. And also we see people getting actively engaged in our activities. People come out on the ground and they participate and that's some of the benefits to us. We want to actually inspire people at their heart so they actually be part of the activities that we do on the ground. Can we achieve sustainable forestry? Yes, we can. Through preservation, rehabilitation and reforestation, however apart from adequate management, Sinusha's forest conservation efforts will continue to be supported by especially designed framework comprising governmental restrictions and incentives, non-governmental initiatives, corporate and social responsibility and environmental awareness.