| Introduction |
Man
has been dependent on Mother Nature
from the very beginning of creation. He has been granted a great deal to
relish, but he has been demanding and appropriating more and more from
nature. Timber or wood has been one of the prime resources that have ceaselessly
captivated man like a magnet. However, there have been substitutes and
equivalents for wood for miscellaneous uses, wood remains to be a bone
of content. As in many aspects in the civilised world, there is a division
in this also between the affluent and the not so affluent. While the economically
developed countries have detected and synthesised manifold materials to
replace wood, the developing and the under-developed countries are still
very much dependent on wood. So much so, around 80%
of the agrarian populace of India still exploit
wood as their basic source of fuel.
|
| The
Objective |
Plywood
is a direct produce of timber that has been in use for many decades now.
Today, there is a school of thought that as it has absolute impact on the
environment, it should be banned. The current Central
Government of India Order has ordained that
plywood should not be used for construction projects by specific public
sector organisations. While this happens to be true to a certain extent,
there is another school of thought that the harm wrought by the plywood
industry is only trivial or insignificant. They argue that afforestation
and tree improvement programmes stabilise the ravage to an enormous extent
and the aftermath is kept to the minimum.
On
the third facade, there are many other industries that are employed in
manufacturing alternate products like MDF
(Medium Density Fibre), particleboard, etc.
These industries are able to use any wood (e.g. eucalyptus,
casuarina) and agro waste like bagasse,
rice straw, etc., as their raw material. Therefore,
they contend that the impairment to forests and wood is isolated. They
go to the extent to say that these products will inevitably, but positively,
replace plywood entirely. |
| The
Event |
| We,
at Third
Eye Visuals, would like to place these
topics before the society for explanation and deliberation. Consequently,
we have intended to moderate a seminar
titled "Plywood – 2000"
which is to come about in Ooty
on July 31st and
August 1st 1999. |
