FAO STAFF
Some aspects of FAO's concern with developing countries
FORESTRY education and research are naturally both high priority subject-matter fields in the program of work of FAO's Forestry and Forest Products Division. The governing body of the Organization, which is the Conference of FAO has laid down that FAO cannot itself engage in research but only in organizing and co-ordinating the conduct of research. In this respect the Organization relies heavily on the International Union of Forest Research Organizations which is becoming an increasingly widespread association. But as regards the programing, establishment and strengthening of educational facilities in forestry, the Conference has retained most of the direct responsibility to itself. The last session in Rome (November 1963) considered that the procedure whereby this had been done in the past, namely the convening of occasional meetings of members of an FAO Panel on Education in Forestry, was no longer adequate. It authorized the Director-General to establish a new FAO Advisory Committee on Forestry Education consisting of experienced individuals appointed by Member Nations or Associate Members selected by the Director-General on the basis of securing representation of the different regions of the world and of countries with long-established institutions for training forestry personnel at the professional and technical levels.
Advisory Committee on Forestry Education
There was a good response by Member Governments to the Director-General's invitation to designate representatives to the new Advisory Committee on Forestry Education, and this augurs well for close links in the future between old-established institutions, FAO and newly developing institutions, in the best interests of forestry education everywhere.
The committee held a first session at Mérida, Venezuela, from 22 to 29 February 1964. The place chosen as being the location of one of the earliest FAO forestry training projects to be created, was the Latin-American Forest Research and Training Institute, now an autonomous institution.
Many of the members of the new advisory committee belonged also to the panel which preceded it. The panel had served to encourage useful consultations among leading forestry administrators and scientists, and had set certain basic standards and principles that are being carefully observed by FAO's Forestry and Forest Products Division. Members of the Panel had joined in three special meetings held in 1956 at Oxford, England, during the twelfth IUFRO Congress; in 1960 at Seattle, U.S.A., during the Fifth World Forestry Congress; and in 1961 at Vienna, Austria, on the occasion of the thirteenth IUFRO Congress. A small group of members had met together at FAO Headquarters, Rome, in 1962.
Panel members had co-operated with the secretariat of FAO in planning and collecting material for a second World directory of forestry schools which was subsequently published by the Society of American Foresters. They had also helped in completing a second edition of Forestry research: A world directory of forest and forest products research institutions which was published by FAO in 1963, in collaboration with IUFRO, as FAO Forestry Occasional Paper No. 11.
The FAO Regional Forestry Commissions are also interested in close collaboration with the advisory committee in developing the best regional patterns of educational facilities. The needs and gaps in Latin America have been assessed by a regional advisory group established under the FAO expanded program of technical assistance. This group has now completed its function. The Latin American Forestry Commission is continuing to encourage the preparation of textbooks, manuals and teaching aids in Spanish.
Three years ago the Conference of FAO authorized a special program on agricultural education and training in Africa. Under this program two consultants on forestry education were appointed in 1963 to survey the present situation and advise on the development of appropriate systems of forestry training and education in the region, in the light of probable manpower requirements. One consultant covered the English-speaking countries of Africa, and another the French-speaking regions. Extracts from the report of the former consultant (J. Q. Williamson) appear in this issue.
FAO's activities in encouraging the improvement of forestry education facilities have up to now been concentrated in the Near East, African and Latin American regions. More attention needs to be given to the Asia and Far East region in the future. A recent session of the Asia-Pacific Forestry Commission proposed that a regional meeting on forestry education and perhaps research should be organized toward the end of 1965 to enable discussions to take place between heads of forestry education institutions of countries of this region and members of FAO's Advisory Committee on Forestry Education. Forestry schools, faculties and research institutes have long existed in many countries, in some cases more than 100 years ago. But there are still gaps to be filled. In this connection it is interesting to note that the Australian forestry school is becoming a faculty of the University of Canberra and that New Zealand will again have a forestry school, established within the University of Canterbury, Christchurch.
The Advisory Committee on Forestry Education wants to convene its second full session during the Sixth World Forestry Congress which is being held in Madrid, Spain, in June 1966. The congress itself will have as one of its main discussion topics "The institutional framework for forestry development," which will also provide a good opportunity for an international gathering to consider the latest features of the development of forestry education and of research.
Emphasis on the developing
A paper on the organization of professional education in forestry for developing countries by Hardy L. Shirley, Chairman of the FAO Advisory Committee on Forestry Education, appears in this issue, and also a paper on the development of a basic curriculum for undergraduate study of forestry by J. W. B. Sisam, Toronto, Canada, a member of the Committee.
It is considered that the following chief subject-matter fields have to be covered in newly established forestry faculties:
1. National and regional forest policy and programing, forestry in land-use development and country planning, forest legislation and administration2. Forest ecology, botany, pathology, protection, silviculture, afforestation, plantation forestry
3. Conservation and management of natural resources (watershed management, range management and wildlife management)
4. Forest mensuration and surveys
5. Forest management, business economics of forestry, forest evaluation
6. Forest engineering and logging
7. Forest utilization, wood technology (physical and chemical), primary forest industries (techniques)
8. Forestry economics, production/trade/consumption statistics of forest products, timber trends and prospects, forest industries (economics), marketing.
It is mainly for education projects at the university level that member countries have so far sought assistance from the United Nations Special Fund for Economic Development (UNSF) and the expanded program of technical assistance, two forms of international help and aid which are shortly to be merged. It is felt that in the future more attention must be given to technical (intermediate level) training in forestry and forest products, postgraduate studies in forestry, and the relationship between postgraduate studies and research.
Two problems which FAO should not neglect in its future work are how best to transmit scientific and technical knowledge in forestry and forest industries to developing countries, and what adaptations this knowledge must undergo so as to produce the best results.
Further work on the methodology of assessing manpower requirements in forestry and forest industries and related fields also becomes increasingly important as a basis for the rational planning of education and research facilities. Work of this kind is going to be undertaken by T. François, former Chief of the Forest Policy Branch of FAO's Forestry and Forest Products Division, who hopes to draw on the experience that the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have gained in undertaking similar studies for other sectors of the economy.
What is needed is to produce well-founded figures on immediate and long-term manpower requirements, based on an analysis of development plans and probable future trends in forest industry expansion, on the preparedness of government administrations and private enterprise to employ professional and technical foresters, and on the future use of the protective functions of forestry and the supervision of sometimes vast areas of "no man's land" for which forest services often hold responsibility.
A. G. E.
