How difficult it is for us to talk about values in today's society. In addition to a certain relativism, which sometimes gets in the way of learning and clarifying many of them, there is a lack of habit in thinking about the value or values that are behind our behavior. In spite of the controversy that may arise, it is not difficult to agree on agreement in designating the value of respect as one of the values core topic for man. Respect intervenes individually in each of us and affects us in the decisions that have to do with our care and development staff . For example, we can say that we eat healthy out of respect for our health. Or we can say that we study out of respect for our intellectual capacities, to get the most out of ourselves. Moreover, respect intervenes in the coexistence between human beings, and can be the basis of relationships. The promotion of this value, which conditions and involves many others such as tolerance and solidarity, is one of the objectives of the environmental Education . This subject of Education proposes in final a respect for man and the environment that surrounds him, the environment as the home of man. One of the keys to improve our environment is there. The value of respect in man can trigger respectful attitudes and behaviors in the environment, always understood as the sum of the natural and social environment. It can lead to decision-making that takes into account the care of the environment.

Values, like other contents, can be learned. That is why the environmental Education , as Education in values, is configured as one of the keys to help form people who make decisions based on respect and act in a respectful way. But we cannot forget that this Education has some rules of the game that should be followed. It must be done from individual freedom, from contrasted and truthful information, from knowledge and from emotion.

There are resources more suitable than others to work on values, to educate in values. Forests have an undeniable potential to value the life they shelter, including the life of man and his management. We only have to think about how we are challenged by their destruction, especially when it sometimes involves the death of a human being. Educating in each one of us respect for life and respect for man seems easier with the resource of forests.

The core topic of respect should make us reflect on how our way of life can influence the care of our planet. The reflection must go beyond the immediate spatial vision, thinking also about the respect for our distant environment. In other words, we must think locally and globally. But reflection must also go beyond the temporal vision, thinking not only of intragenerational respect, but also of intergenerational respect.

In Navarra, the example of intergenerational solidarity in forest heritage is clear. It is endorsed by the bequest of more than 450,000 hectares of forests that our ancestors have preserved for us. This valuable heritage source of natural and economic wealth has been possible thanks to the sustainable management that thousands of people from previous generations have made. It is not possible to think of it as a coincidence, but rather, in general, it is the fruit of the good forestry management carried out in numerous municipalities in Navarre.

This year 2011 is the "International Year of Forests". With this grade we want to remember the need for their existence. Surely there are many other reasons to conserve this magnificent natural heritage, but if only for this reason alone, for the use of forests as resource educational to promote respect in man, let's put the forest back in our lives.