From The Hindu, February 7, 1975: President’s call for wise use of wood resources

New Delhi, Feb. 6: The President, Mr. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to-day called upon the rich and poor nations alike to pool their resources, experiences and talents to evolve a strategy for wise use of the world’s wood resources. Mr. Ahmed was inaugurating here the third world consultation on wood-based panels, sponsored by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in collaboration with the Government of India. Over 500 delegates from India and abroad, comprising scientists, technologists, administrators and industrialists, are attending the consultation, the first one to be held outside the developed world.

Mr. Ahmed said a unique merit of wood panel was that it was both a poor man’s mainstay and a rich man’s luxury. For a poor man, panel products constituted low-cost building material. To a rich man, they furnished attractive and costly material to satisfy his vanity.

He said panel products were an exception to the general phenomenon that a high rate of consumption would exhaust natural resources in course of time. Timber was a renewable resource which improved, if wisely used.