Agencies

United Nations, May 22:

Shashi Tharoor, the UN under-secretary-general for public information, admits that the UN has earned the dubious distinction of being one of the world’s most celebrated ‘paper factories’, cranking out thousands of documents every year — perhaps most of them remaining unread. On an average, the world body produces in excess of 700 million printed pages annually, according to UN estimates — a process that involves the destruction of hundreds of thousands of trees, which are converted into wood pulp and newsprint. “The amou-nt of paper we use in a year to produce every single UN document, in all six official languages, is equivalent to what New York Times consumes to print a single Sunday edition,” he says. Ironically, the very world body that continues to thrive on paper — despite its recent advances in e-mail and video conferencing — is holding a two-week long meeting to consider the feasibility of formulating a legally binding convention to stop the wanton deforestation that continues to take place worldwide. The UN Forum on Forests, which is scheduled to conclude its sessions on May 27, is a high-level body addressing the most critical issues related to forests. UN secretary-general Kofi Annan agreed that deforestation ‘continue at an alarming rate’ despite ‘substantial progress’ in the formulation and implementation of forest policies. His study said that 1.6 billion people depend on forests for their livelihoods.