FAO advisory committee on pulp and paper
FAO forestry personalities
Savanna afforestation techniques in Africa
The FAO Advisory Committee on Pulp and Paper held its fifth session in Rome on 27 and 28 April 1964, under the chairmanship of R. M. Fowler, President of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association.
The committee's first task was to review FAO's activities over the past year and consider the program planned for 1964/65. Satisfaction was expressed at the completion of the special study entitled Pulp and paper prospects in western Europe which had stemmed directly from the committee's own initiative, had been financed by pulp and paper industries of interested countries, and had been well received on publication. The committee was also satisfied with the contribution to pulp and paper development in Latin America made by the regional FAO/ECLA advisory group, and approved the expansion of this group, under technical assistance funds, to cover all forest industries. It noted with interest that a similar group was about to be set up with the Economic Commission for Africa, to cover that continent and the Near East, and only regretted that funds were not yet sufficient to allow for the establishment of another team to serve the Asia and Far East region.
The committee welcomed to its discussions the Chairman of the OECD Pulp and Paper Committee, E. Lagergren, and the Director of the OECD Industrial Division, R. du Vivier. It expressed satisfaction with the degree of accord now achieved among OECD member countries in harmonizing statistics on pulp and paper, and recommended that the OECD proposals, once adopted, should be generally introduced for all FAO member countries also.
Effective collaboration has now been established with OECD which will avoid duplication of efforts. The committee reiterated its view that FAO was the most appropriate agency in which to concentrate work of a world-wide character on forest industries, including pulp and paper.
There was a good deal of discussion of a secretariat report recording the results of investigations on the relative economics of establishing and operating hypothetical new export pulp mills in Scandinavia the Pacific Northwest of America, east Africa and western South America. It was agreed that this report seemed to be one of the very few studies of its kind carried out, and should be made public after revision and amendment in accordance with members' suggestions.
The committee also reviewed a secretariat survey of current world pulp and paper capacities, and estimates of capacities to 1967 based on information received about expansion plans. World paper and paperboard capacities appear to have grown between 1960 and 1964 by 6.7 percent per year, from 82.5 million tons to 103 million tons; paper pulp capacities by 5.8 percent per year from 65.6 to 82.3 million tons, and dissolving pulp capacities by 5.1 percent per year, from 4.0 to 4.9 million tons. Estimated rated capacities for 1967 are 111.9, 90.2 and 5.3 million tons respectively and these figures are likely to be exceeded in the event, since direct data on expansion plans have naturally not been forthcoming from all countries. Newsprint capacity seems likely to increase by 5.0 percent between 1964 and 1965, as compared with a rate of 4.1 percent per annum from 1960 to 1964; but the increase appears likely to slow down to 2.8 and 2.2 percent between 1965/66 and 1966/67 respectively.
The committee considered that the survey produced useful information for governments and industry, and agreed that experience had shown that capacity forecasts were sound up to three years ahead. It was hoped that the capacity survey could be complemented by most recent data on production and consumption.
Turning to the short and intermediate term requirements for technical education and training for the pulp and paper industry, on which secretariat papers had been prepared, the committee considered FAO should pursue efforts to integrate research and teaching in those cases where new facilities for professional training were envisaged. In fact, training facilities for all levels of personnel should be developed simultaneously and in balance. The adequacy of educational facilities for graduate engineers does not, in general, present major problems but there are problems in providing practical training facilities for lower and intermediate levels; these were discussed by the committee in some detail. "In-plant" training and "trouble-shooting" courses could be short-term solutions in the developing countries: FAO planned to organize a pilot seminar and the committee members expressed their readiness to advise and assist the secretariat.
Many research problems arising in a developing country could frequently be more expeditiously handled at considerably lower cost by existing institutes in industrialized countries, possibly under bilateral aid, rather than in a developing country which establishes an independent research operation of its own.
Members took note of the special paper prepared by the Forestry and Forest Products Division for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, an extract from which appears elsewhere in this issue. While the committee considered the basic outline of the paper good, some members expressed reservations regarding the feasibility of bilateral solutions.
In discussing its own composition, the committee agreed that its geographic coverage should be widened, but considered that direct representation of specific consuming sectors was neither desirable nor required by the committee's terms of reference.
Finally, the committee went on record with its appreciation of the valuable services rendered by Bob Fowler, chairman since the committee's inception. Pointing out that his term of office had now expired, Mr. Fowler expressed the wish to relinquish his position, stressing the advantages of rotation in chairmanship. The committee was unanimous, however, in asking him to continue in office for a further term; under pressure, Mr. Fowler agreed and was reelected with acclaim.
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
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CHAIRMAN: |
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President |
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MEMBERS AND ALTERNATES |
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I. B. Chenoweth (A) |
Manager, Trade Section |
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J. O. Söderhjelm |
Itä-Kaivopuisto 11 B |
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L. K. Kirves (A) |
Managing Director |
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J. P. Lévy |
Directeur des Industries diverges et des textiles |
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S. Beracha (A) |
Vice-président délégué |
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H. Niethammer |
Heubergweg 11/8201 Raubling, Obb. |
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V. Podder |
Works Director |
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V. Amici |
Capo del Servizio Tecnico |
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C. Quintana |
Industrial Programing Manager |
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L. Sjunnesson |
Director |
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E. Landberg (A) |
Director |
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H. Kamel |
Managing Director |
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J. T. F. Langley |
Deputy Vice President |
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E. O'Connor |
Executive Vice President |
OBSERVERS
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E. Lagergren |
Chairman |
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R. du Vivier |
Chief, Industrial Division |
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M. C. Dobrow |
Consultant on International Trade |
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G. J. Ticoulat |
Vice President |
CONSULTANT
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Arne Sundelin |
Institute for International Economic Studies |
(A) - Alternate.
FRED HUMMEL has been since 1961 co-director of the Mexican National Forest Inventory, a project of the Mexican Government with help from the United Nations Special Fund and FAO. After taking a forestry degree at Oxford, Hummel served in the Uganda Forest Service, then joined the U.K. Forestry Commission.
He has been seconded twice, to Cyprus and to FAO. He also acted as deputy leader of the IUFRO forest management section.
EERO KALKKINEN is chief of the ECE/FAO Timber Division at Geneva and responsible for servicing the activities of the ECE Timber Committee. He served 10 years with FAO's forestry working group in Geneva before being appointed regional forest economist in Latin America in 1958 and later Regional Forestry Officer with headquarters at Santiago de Chile. Trained in commerce and business administration, he studied timber economics and trade in the United Kingdom and Belgium.
VLADO TREGUBOV is FAO manager of the Forestry and Range Management Department, University of Tehran, Kameda, Iran, a project of the United Nations Special Fund. A graduate of the Ecole des eaux et forêts, Nancy, France, he has been Closely associated with the Federal Forest Research Institute at Ljubljana. During 1946-47 he wag Chief of the Forest Protection Research Service and Assistant to the Federal Minister of Forestry, Yugoslavia. Author of many technical publications, he carried out forestry surveys in Morocco in 1952-53 and 1957.
LUIS GIMENEZ-QUINTANA is assisting the Government of Spain as Associate Secretary-General in the organization of the Sixth World Forestry Congress to be held in Madrid 6-15 June 1966. Joining FAO in 1955 from the Spanish Forest Service he became Chief, Forest Conservation and Land-Use Section, and also served as Secretary of FAO's Mediterranean Forestry Subcommission. He recently carried out Special Fund assignments in Mexico and Algeria.
FAO forestry personalities
KARL-HEINZ OEDEKOVEN has been Regional Forestry Officer for the Near East since 1958. After studying forestry and law at the universities of Göttingen, Bonn, Eberswalde and Oregon State, he served in the Central Forest Office Berlin; in the state forest administration of Lower Saxony; in the Forestry Division of the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forests, Bonn.
HUBERTUS REICHARDT is located in Santiago, Chile, as Regional Forestry Officer for Latin America, after being Chief of the Forest Inventories Section at FAO headquarters, Rome. He joined the Organization in 1954 after having served in various district forest offices in Germany and at the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forests, Bonn. He studied forestry at and Hannoversch Münden and obtained a doctor's degree in forestry from the University of Göttingen, later studying public administration and economics.
JOHN M. YAVORSKY is FAO manager of a project on forestry research and training of the Universidad Agraria in Peru in cooperation with the United Nations Special Fund. Trained at the College of Forestry, Syracuse, he was awarded a Ph.D. degree in 1955. From 1948 to 1957, when he joined FAO, he woo a member of the research faculty at the College of Forestry, Syracuse, responsible for graduate studies in wood products technology and research for industry. At FAO headquarters he was Chief, Wood Technology and Utilization Section.
U AUNG DIN, since 1958 Regional Forestry Officer for the Asia-Pacific region, had his forestry education at Oxford. Was 23 years in the Burma Forest Service and became silviculturist and Director of the Burmese Forest School. As first Professor of Forestry after 1945 he re-instituted the university forestry course.
Joining FAO in 1956, he helped prepare Tropical silviculture.
UNABLE TO ATTEND
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S. Gagliardi |
Vice President |
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W. Henry |
Managing Director |
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O. Lorenzo-Fernandez |
Ministry of Finance |
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F. Léniz |
Gerente de Producción |
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J. Frézal (A) |
Syndicat des fabricants de papier journal |
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R. Vogt (A) |
Treuhandstelle der Zellstoff - und Papierindustrie |
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L. Cibrario (A) |
Centro Cartario Italiano per il Mercato Comune Europeo |
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M. Matsunaga |
Director-in-Chief |
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L. Ritchie (A) |
United States Pulp Producers |
(A) = Alternate.
The Government of Sudan was host to a training center on savanna afforestation techniques conducted from 9 November to 19 December 1963, under the FAO Special Program for Education and Training in Africa. There were 17 participants from the following countries: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Southern Rhodesia, Sudan, Togo and Uganda.
The savannas of Africa occupy some 5 million square miles (approximately 13 million square kilometers), and support about 100 million people who mostly depend on subsistence agriculture for their living and obtain their fuel and timber requirements from local savanna forests. The population is increasing rapidly and with it the tempo and extent of cultivation, grazing and probably burning. The savanna forests are deteriorating and shrinking. In the Sudan, for instance, firewood and charcoal for Khartoum are now being obtained from places as far as 300 miles away. At the same time, progress toward better living conditions is creating a demand for categories of timber - long straight poles and utility light sawnwood - which cannot be obtained from most natural savanna forests.
The present productive capacity of savanna forests needs, therefore, to be improved in both quantity and quality, and produce must be made available at prices compatible with a strictly limited purchasing power. The answer seems to lie in carefully planned and executed plantation forestry; but climatic and edaphic conditions in savanna areas are all too often hostile to sustained tree growth, and failure rather than success has frequently attended the forester's efforts in the past. The purpose of this training center was to test out the knowledge and experience of the lecturers and organizers on the one hand and of the participants on the other, to see what could be learned from each others' mistakes and hopefully to benefit from the successes that could be recorded.
Two thirds of the duration of the training center were spent in the field and the remaining two weeks in Khartoum for lectures and discussions. A formal opening by the Sudan Minister of Agriculture was followed by introductory lectures by Kamil Shawki, Director of Forests of Sudan, Karl Oedekoven (FAO Regional Forestry Officer), and some local officers; afterward, there were trips to the Um Bedda enclosure and the Khartoum green belt. The first study tour from 12 to 22 November visited the Gezira, northern Fung and Kassala forest areas, that is, through the low-rainfall woodland savanna on clay where Acacia species are the most numerous. Forestry works inspected included irrigated plantations, mainly of Eucalyptus microtheca, in the Gezira scheme, the Managil extension and the Wadi Halfa resettlement scheme at Khasm-el-Girba; reforestation with indigenous acacias on the clay plains; regeneration of Acacia nilotica; the management of Hyphaene thebaica; and the establishment of green belts round some towns. En route eastward from the Blue Nile, extensive areas were seen of Acacia forest alternating with equally extensive areas of grassland: the acacia-grass cycle.
A period of lectures was given from 23 November to 1 December on plant ecology, pedology and silviculture, and on mechanical aids in afforestation operations, by L. Bégué, P. Sarlin, W. E. M. Logan and J. L. Masson. The participants were encouraged to view savanna forest improvement not in isolation but as an integral part of land-use policy, for the economic and social betterment of their region or country. Schemes and programs must, however, have specific objectives, and cost/benefit relationships should be firmly established. The techniques and practices of forest treatment acquired through tradition should be weighed critically against the results of new experimentation and research.
The problem of species introduction should be approached without restraint and even with aggressive extravagance, but extensive afforestation programs should not be embarked on if there is simply not the technical and supervisory staff, labor and other resources needed to cope with the tending of the plantations once established.
The second study tour from 2 to 15 December was to Equatoria and western Sudan. In Equatoris, the upper elopes of the Imatong mountain range were of interest for the numerous trials of exotic conifers (Cupressus lusitanica, Pinus patula, P. radiata and more recently P. caribaea and P. insularis) and hardwoods, mainly Tectona grandis and Cedrela toona. Indigenous species also used are Maesopsis eminii and Khaya grandifoliola. Plantations of exotics were also inspected on the Aluma plateau in Equatoria, both at Kajiko North and Kajiko South, Kagelu and Gumbri. In addition to teak, a number of Eucalyptus species were introduced for trial purposes; E. delegatensis is proving the beat at Kajiko but E. camaldulensis, E. maideni, and E. torelliana also grow vigorously. Trial plots of many other exotics were also seen, such as Gmelina arborea, Cassia siamea, Eucalyptus citriodora, E. tereticornis and different species of bamboo.
The tour ended in the Kordofan circle in western Sudan, in the belt of low-rainfall woodland savanna on sand, with particular reference to the Acacia senegal savanna. This species yields the gum arabic of commerce, which is the second main item in Sudan exports, and the intensive research being undertaken into the improvement of this crop was demonstrated. Finally, the area of the Nuba mountains was visited, where afforestation experiments have been undertaken with a number of exotic and indigenous species: Azadirachta indica, Khaya senegalensis, Gmelina arborea, Dalbergia sissoo, Eucalyptus spp., Bombax spp., Ailanthus excelsa.
The training center was directed by Sayed Ibrahim Gad Alla of the Sudan Forests Department, with J. L. Masson (FAO) as co-director. Oscar Fugalli represented FAO's Forestry and Forest Products Division, assisted by T. Rocchi as administrative officer.
