Tbilisi: The Ministry of Environment Protection and Agriculture of Georgia announced that the “Smokey Bear” campaign will also be implemented in the country soon. Smokey Bear is an American campaign against the incident of Wildfire.
Smokey Bear is also an advertising icon of the U.S. Forest Service and one of the longest-running public service announcement campaigns in United States history for wildfire protection.
It is to be specifically mentioned that the US Forest Service is implementing the campaign “Smokey Bear”, to raise awareness and preserve biodiversity among preschool and school-age young people. “Smokey Bear“ has been in operation since the last 40s and its slogan is “Only you can prevent forest fires.”
US Forest Service representatives introduced the “Smokey Bear” campaign to Georgian specialists. Carlo Amirgulashvili, who is the head of the Department of Biodiversity and Forestry under the Ministry of Environment Protection and Agriculture underlined that raising awareness among young people is an important component in preventing fires.
Carlo Amirgulashvili stated further on the occasion “We need to conduct forest fire prevention together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Moreover our rangers and foresters can be involved in appropriate measures on fire sites, therefore we have a very big role to play including prevention and enhancing the more education for our young generation. We also need more steps that can help the preservation of biodiversity.”
At a meeting held at the Ministry the American representatives were apprised of the Georgian wildfire prevention works, forest fire emergency management plan, and forest fire management practices. The meeting was attended by representatives of USDA Agriculture Attache Rishan Chaudhry, representatives of the US Forest Service, Ministry of Environment and Agriculture, Emergency Management Service, Protected Areas Agency, National Forest Agency, United Nations Development Program (UNDP), CENN and NACRES and other stakeholders.
At the end of the event the Georgian representative thanked the US employees for their cooperation in implementing the various measures against the wildfires. The rising global temperature also makes the threat of wildfires more serious. Forest agencies across the world are facing many challenges against wildfires as well.
