• ●7th India-Japan Joint Working Group (JWG) on forests, held at Bengaluru on 8 September 2026, operating under a Memorandum of Cooperation signed in 2015; the meeting endorsed a Roadmap for 2027-2031.
• ●Three areas of cooperation discussed: Trees Outside Forests (assessment, management and genetic improvement), Forest Genetics (genetic resource conservation, tree breeding, germplasm) and Forest Stack (inventory, stock assessment, geospatial monitoring).
• ●Delegations: Shri Ramesh Kumar Pandey, Additional Director General (Forests), MoEFCC, for India; Mr Shimizu Kotaro, Deputy Director General, Forestry Agency, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, for Japan.
• ●Field visits: Institute of Wood Science and Technology, Bengaluru (an ICFRE institute, established 1938), sandalwood agroforestry farms and a processing unit at Mysuru, and Nagarhole Tiger Reserve.
• ●Nagarhole (Rajiv Gandhi National Park) lies in Kodagu and Mysuru districts of Karnataka, was declared India's 37th tiger reserve in 2003, and forms part of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve.
• ●India State of Forest Report: published biennially by the Forest Survey of India, Dehradun, since 1987; ISFR 2023 put forest and tree cover at 8,27,357 sq km, or 25.17% of the geographical area.
• ●Green Credit Programme: notified through the Green Credit Rules on 12 October 2023 under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, with the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education as programme administrator.
• ●India is not among Japan's Joint Crediting Mechanism partner countries; Japan's forestry engagement with India runs instead through JICA ODA loans, which have supported forestry projects in India since 1991.

The 7th meeting of the India-Japan Joint Working Group on cooperation in forests, held in September 2026, took place in which city?