The Central Asians gather to discuss prospects on production and marketing of ecologically clean mountain products

This year, the Forum’s topic on Mountain green products coincided with the global move towards Rio+20 (2012) on Green economy. The discussions were organized in thematic groups in three parallel sessions, namely, on pasture green products, forest green products and green farming practices. The sessions narrowing its focus on specific subject areas have helped to identify and summarize the net socio-economic and environmental benefits accrued from the green production and enables local producers to establish links to the experts of diverse backgrounds. Value chain approach used for the sessions to display the full life-cycle for production, realization and marketing to end users of products and goods was much appreciated by the participants. Labelling and standards, related legal and regulatory norms, institutional, socio-economic and environmental aspects of production and marketing of ecologically clean or green products originating from the highlands and mountains, and role of state regulation and private sector were on the list of hot issues debated and discussed in the plenary session, problems and challenges were identified and actions for addressing them were prioritized. Aspects of labelling and certification process were discussed based on the analysis of good practices from Germany.