Under the Wood-Based Economy Project financed by the The World Bank Group, OIKO and the Bhutan Ecological Society (BES) have celebrated two-days’ workshop, taking place on the 28th and 29th of October.

We thank all the stakeholders and wood-based industries for their participation and fruitful discussion about the key components of the wood-economy baseline assessment.

The outcome of this study will be a roadmap for the wood-based economy sector in Bhutan, that reconciles the environmental conservation strategy, maintaining the 60% of the country’s forest cover, with an economic development of the wood-based sector. Among the proposed measures are:

· Increasing the forest cover with forest plantations and reforestation projects for commercial use, while preserving Bhutan’s protected natural resources assets

· Enhancing sustainable forest management with moder technologies such as GIS & drones, improving simultaneously the capacity for scientific thinning

· Technological upgrades of primary processing facilities, improving efficiency of the sawmills

· Creation of value addition for furniture and joinery products

· Strengthening local capacity for import substitutions of charcoal and other wood-based products

· Scaling up circular economy approach for re-using sawmill waste in products such as particle boards, biochar and biofertilizers