Activities of FAO's Forestry and Forest Products Division
A discussion paper (CL 43/9) prepared for review by the FAO Council
1. Objectives
Forest industries, with a gross annual output of some $40,000 million, today constitute one of the world's major industrial sectors. Forest products satisfy many basic needs: timber and wood-based panels for housing, other construction, transport, furniture; newsprint, printing and writing paper for education, information and commerce; paper and board for packaging and many industrial uses. The need for forest products rises more rapidly than does that for food. And it rises relatively more rapidly in countries still at an early stage of development than in more advanced, industrialized countries. These facts give a measure of the responsibility falling on FAO in seeking to ensure that an expanding world economy is supplied with forest products in the quantities and qualities needed to sustain rising general welfare. The task is to serve people, not trees.
To be specific, studies conducted by the Forestry and Forest Products Division in collaboration with the United Nations Regional Economic Commissions indicate that by 1975 the developing regions should require annually about $3,000 million worth of forest products over and above their 1959/61 needs and additional to the imports (well over $500 million per year) they are currently receiving from the advanced countries. This can scarcely be attained but a realistic target might be based on the developing countries establishing by 1975 capacity to cover their own extra needs of forest products except pulp and paper, and, in view of the important prospects for expanding exports to the developed countries which these same studies reveal, raising their exports of processed forest products to the developed world by $1,000 million annually. The aggregate investment requirement would amount to $5,000 million, which would lay also the basis for a progressive rise in net export earnings in subsequent years. Such a development would not happen of itself; it is FAO's job to guide it.
In pursuing this endeavor, the Forestry and Forest Products Division has to concern itself with many disciplines and facets - biology; silviculture; wood-harvesting operations; the development and improvement of manufacturing methods and industries; the marketing and distribution of forest products; helping to ensure that the consumer can get products at a reasonable price, and that both producers and workers get a just remuneration.
Beyond this, the Division is concerned with the "indirect" values that the forest can provide for man - forage for livestock, recreation, a haven for wildlife, and a sustained and regulated flow of water. This last point must often loom large in FAO's outlook. Uncontrolled deforestation can bring about erosion on a spectacular scale, with rapid run-off of surface waters and disastrous floods. Restoration or maintenance of forest at strategic points is often an essential means of strengthening the foundation for continued agriculture and support of rural communities.
The Division has therefore wide and complex responsibilities. The growing demand for its services compels a constant readjustment of priorities in order to live within its financial resources. This, added to the wide dispersion of its effort over the regions, has necessitated strong central direction and co-ordination coupled with considerable latitude for initiative in all the peripheral segments of the Division.
2. Organization and main areas of work
The organization of the Forestry and Forest Products Division when first established in 1946 followed that recommended by the United Nations Interim Commission on Food and Agriculture (see Annex A). It was based on what were then some novel principles:
(a) that work on forestry and forest products should be conducted within one unit, because only by considering forests and forest industries together can good forest management result;(b) that policy, technical and economic problems should also be dealt with simultaneously within one unit;
(c) that the productive and protective functions of forests should be given equal regard, and forestry be given due prominence as a form of land-use in planning economic and social development:
(d) that forestry needs and situations differed by regions, and staff should be outposted get closer to local problems.
The structure comprised originally a Forestry Branch and a Forest Products Branch. Keeping the "integrated approach," this was soon changed to three branches: Forest Policy, Forest Technology and Forest Economics. Later the Forest Technology Branch was further split into two - Forest Production Branch and Forest Industries and Utilization Branch. The Division has always followed the line that, although its staff must necessarily comprise officers with some specialized experience in a major field of forestry or forest products prior to joining the Organization, essentially they must be adaptable to a generalized approach, possess a broad "forestry and forest products outlook," and have an aptitude for administrative work of a special nature, particularly the organizing of meetings and supervision of field projects. In keeping with this policy, a pyramidal structure by sections is used within the branches. It has not so far been possible to institute complete chains of command - there is a lack particularly of junior officiers - but the Division is working toward this end (and also toward the introduction of modern equipment) as the way to avoid a disproportionate use of the time of senior officers on routine matters, and secure continuity of action.
Strong central direction and co-ordination stems from the office of the Director and Deputy Director (an Assistant to the Director is provided from UNSF allocations) with its programing and operations staff and outposted officers. At the time of writing the total number of Regular Program professional posts is 44, of which 5 are in the central office and 28 in the branches at Headquarters, and 11 outposted in the regions. The total of Expanded Program of Technical Assistance (EPTA), United Nations Special Fund for Economic Development (UNSF) and other Trust Fund posts is 344, of which 12 are at Headquarters and 332 in the field. The overall total of professional posts is 388: 45 Headquarters and 343 field.
The Division is now established as a well-knit entity and accorded wide international recognition. However it would be idle to deny that the present Headquarters staffing is inadequate to cope with the increasing responsibilities given FAO, by member countries and particularly with the growing volume of work imposed by field programs.
The main areas of this divisional work may be conveniently described by branch functions as employed in the Program of Work and Budget 1964-65 (C 63/3). The first to be considered is economics, which provides the intelligence and basis for the Division's planning; next, the technical means for implementing its ideas - on the one hand in forest production and on the other in industries and utilization; and, finally, the consummation in decisions on forest policy and the machinery for implementing them. The emphasis given to those four interdependent aspects is about equally balanced.
Forest economics
The character and purport of the Division's work in forest economics have changed radically since the early days. Originally it was largely concerned with statistical servicing, the improvement of national statistics, the promotion of international statistical comparability, market reports and intelligence, commodity studies. A decade ago the Division pioneered a first regional study of wood resources and requirements, and in recent years a series of analytical studies of the deepseated changes taking place in the world and regional forest and forest product economies, and of the relationship between the forest and forest industry sectors and other sectors of the economy, have been carried out and published. These studies, which have won wide acclaim in government, trade and academic circles, have in many instances had a profound impact on national policies; they have also brought about a steady reorientation of the Division's own work better to meet changing needs. In effect, FAO's "strategy" in the forestry sector derives from its basic analytical work in forest economics.
There are other important areas of work in forest economics. Over the last two biennia operational activities, especially in forest resource surveys and appraisals, have greatly expanded, while in the last biennium the demand for assistance and guidance in forestry and forest industry development planning has risen rapidly.
In implementing its program in forest economics, the Division collaborates closely with the United Nations Regional Economic Commissions, with the Economic Analysis Division (basic studies, development planning), the Commodities Division (commodity studies and surveys) and the Statistics Division (statistics).
Forest production
Essentially work is concerned with finding practical answers to the question: how to grow and harvest economically the rising volumes of wood that the world will require? On this subject ideas are changing, for two main reasons:
(a) the pattern of industrial wood needs (species, dimensions) is changing rapidly;
(b) technological progress is uneven.
Existing natural forests, many still inaccessible and as yet untapped, can in theory, as FAO, statistics show, provide enough to meet foreseeable needs. More and more of these natural forests are steadily being brought into use and managed for sustained production. The special problems of the heterogeneous tropical forests, which constitute the major part of the world's unexploited reserves, have been recognized, and it has been hoped that these would be progressively solved by a "scissors" action: improved and more economic silvicultural, cutting and extraction techniques in the forest; and technological progress in the forest industries which would permit more rational and integral, and hence more economic, utilization. But the "scissors" have been closing too slowly. Meanwhile, the increasing share of demand is for large volumes of cheap, homogeneous material for the pulp sector, at the same time that great possibilities are opening for the establishment of high-yielding, quick-growing plantations.
While the world will continue to depend mainly on existing natural forests for many decades to come, the dynamic element of man-made forests will play an increasing role, especially in those countries where the character of the natural forest endowment presents obstinate problems of economic utilization. In certain respects intensive, high-yield forestry is in its infancy. There is need for the extension and systematization of controlled experiment, for the collation, analysis and dissemination of research findings - especially in relation to tropical and subtropical plantations. Many national agencies and the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) are co-operating in this work. To grow more, and better, wood cheaper is not enough: it must be felled and transported to mill sites efficiently and economically. Work here involves close collaboration with the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Forest industries and utilization
The establishment of a divisional branch dealing with these subjects coincided with the setting up of the United Nations Industrialization Center, with which the Division quickly reached a working accord, and with FAO's increasing concern with industrialization in the developing countries, especially in the matter of pulp and paper and wood-based panel industries. Forest industries present many special features. They furnish a wide range of products, both consumption goods and intermediate goods flowing into many sectors of the economy: the demand for these rises sharply with economic growth. The industries vary considerably in their raw material and other factor requirements. In most of them alternative technologies can be successfully employed. They are based on a renewable resource, and this resource is intimately linked with agriculture.
The Division's work is carried out in concert with the United Nations Regional Economic Commissions and is complemented by activities of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), for example, and, in regard to newsprint and paper, of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). It is receiving the close support of industries' associations. The aim is to secure an expansion of viable forest industries with due consideration to markets, raw materials and economics, and to promote the balancing of demand and manufacturing capacity on a worldwide basis.
Forest policy
The central purpose of the divisional program over the next 5 to 10 years will be to help give effect to the Findings of the "timber trends studies" already referred to in an earlier paragraph. Governments must be helped to elaborate and implement their national forest policies toward this end, co-ordinated with general land-use planning and overall development plans. This involves collaboration especially with the Program Formulation Branch, with the Economic Analysis and Land and Water Development Divisions. In its general approach to land-use, the Division is especially concerned with watershed management and grazing and range management, which here again means collaboration with other divisions, especially those of Land and Water Development (LA), Plant Production and Protection (PL), and Animal Production and Health (AN). It has also to give attention to the evolution in institutional structures which condition land-use, and the improvement of government forest services, administrative procedures and legislation. This brings in co-operation with the Legislation Research Branch and Rural Institutions and Services Division (RU), as does also the other major aspects of divisional work under this heading - improving and expanding education and training (vocational, technical and professional) to meet estimated man power requirements.
Collaboration with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and work under field programs is growing in regard to wildlife management and conservation (with AN and PL) and FAO stands to benefit from the present favorable climate of public opinion. Recreational use of forests and national parks is likely to assume growing importance.
The intergovernmental machinery evolved for arriving at forest policy agreement lies in the six Regional Forestry Commissions, established by the Conference of FAO, which are serviced by the Division (see diagram) and normally hold sessions every two years.
3. Methods adopted to achieve objectives
In order to carry out the functions of FAO as defined in Article I of the Constitution, the Division depends on being able readily to avail itself of the skills and knowledge existing in member countries. This, fortunately, the Division is in fact able to do.
Sometimes one meets a certain lack of understanding of the task which member countries must themselves separately or collectively initiate and undertake to further FAO's objectives, and a tendency to place too great reliance on the supposed powers or capacity of the Organization's secretariat. On the whole, however, the fact that FAO's efforts are really the efforts of the community of nations is widely recognized - the secretariat is but the organizational means to secure the carrying out of the intentions and wishes of FAO members. This may perhaps be an answer to the criticism occasionally heard that the Division tries itself to do too many things at one time, spreading its resources too thinly. Actually it is always ready to pass to other shoulders tasks that can suitably be performed or financed outside.
In the early years of the Organization, emphasis had to be on the so-called basic regular program methods of FAO, on exchange of information, studies and exhortation, for lack of other means. Over recent years the situation has changed rapidly so that now the funds available for field programs are some $5 million per year compared with $1 million for the regular program and the headquarters' management of field operations. The accent is now on field projects which have a more direct impact and demonstration effect. Regular program activities have not thereby lost their importance: on the contrary, they furnish the basic support to FAO's wider endeavors. Although there still remains some tendency to regard the "regular program" and "field program" as separate entities, each in its own watertight compartment, because they are financed from different sources, the whole present notion of the Organization and hence of the Division is that they are indissolubly wedded, both in their conception and in their implementation.
Despite the reorientation toward field work, therefore, the time for "studies" has by no means passed. Mention has already been made of the influence on the Division's course of the Timber Trends Studies; other examples are the recently published study, Pulp and paper prospects in western Europe, financed by a special trust fund contributed by industrial associations, and the paper "Prospects for expanding forest products trade from developing countries" prepared for the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. The periodical Unasylva, published since 1947, and other publications such as those listed in Annex B, may also be categorized as contributing toward the first function of the Organization.1
1 Of its regular program funds for 1964-65 the Division is expending some 5 percent on documentation, 2 percent on meetings, 5 percent on travel and around 88 percent on personnel, including consultants and contracts.
A second approach to achieving FAO's objectives is concerted international action. The Division makes use of a limited number of advisory committees and panels of experts, of which the FAO Advisory Committee on Pulp and Paper and on Forestry Education may be specially cited. Collaboration from the United Nations and the specialized agencies has been already mentioned and the equally profitable co-operation deriving from nongovernmental international bodies such as IUFRO and IUCN. The Regional Forestry Commissions have also already been touched on. In addition, as circumstances warrant, the Division convenes special intergovernmental conferences and consultations such as the two world meetings held in 1963 on plywood and wood-based panel products, and on genetics and forest tree improvement; and helps organize international gatherings such as the periodic World Forestry Congresses, the sixth of which is to take place in 1966.
The third approach is by way of technical assistance. The Division has always tried to render direct help and advice to member countries as a normal feature of its regular program, but the possibilities are necessarily limited, especially by travel funds. The advent of EPTA, of course, substantially widened the possibilities for technical aid and under this program the Division has made consistent use of fellowships, training centers' seminars, development centers and study tours, and has been able to derive a proportionately very high benefit from associate and assistant expert schemes. National programs in forestry and forest products used to average around 14 percent of the Organization's total EPTA expenditure but the proportion has dropped in recent years. On the other hand, under the relatively new program of the UNSF, forestry and forest products projects now lie in second place to those of the Land and Water Development Division, with 34 projects (one completed) or some 20 percent of the FAO total. Public opinion in donor countries tends to relegate "forestry" projects to the periphery of the Freedom from Hunger Campaign and the Division has only two such projects in being at present. On the other hand forestry development features strongly within several projects of the World Food Program.
4. Problems encountered
Every advance in the work of the Division is the response to a problem. Most problems that the Division encounters are of a technical or economic nature. The following are some internal problems relating to its programs of work:
(a) FAO's growing field programs impose the need to observe strict deadlines and to produce tangible evidence of progress and expenditure within a prescribed period. Regular program activities are on the whole less circumscribed and so tend to be postponed. This is, of course, a general experience in the Organization and proposals, including the Division's, are under consideration to remedy the situation. It is mentioned here only to pinpoint that the allocation of "priorities" in the Division's work is a day-to-day preoccupation.5. Evaluation of results achieved(b) There is constant pressure from government delegates to organize conferences and meetings, often consisting primarily of technical interchange between developed countries. This service the Division can render only to the extent that financial resources will permit, and there might well be more initiative from governments, other agencies and institutions to accept full responsibility for the organization and operation of such meetings.
(c) Member countries frequently request, at short notice, on-the-spot advice on various urgent problems. Outposted officers and regional advisory groups furnished under EPTA are useful for this purpose but the only real answer is greater availability of travel funds and more autonomy given to the Division in their disposal.
(d) The developed countries generously accept the responsibility for adapting and transferring suitable technologies to the developing countries (for instance, see report of the 1963 United Nations Conference on the Application of Science and Technology for the Benefit of the Less Developed Areas (UNCSAT), but in practice experience difficulties in achieving the required switch of research effort in their own countries, and the means for applying the findings in the developing countries). One way of securing faster progress is "problem adoption" whereby a given developed country accepts responsibility for solving a particular problem of key importance to a group of developing countries. Examples in the forestry field of such problems are low-cost housing programs based on prefabrication techniques, or the selection and trial of suitable quick-growing species for integrated plantation/industry industry projects. The Division is investigating the possibilities further.
In the space available in this paper it is not possible to deal in depth with the experience and problems of the Division. It is now 20 years since the Division's course and lines of activity were first roughed out (see Annex A) - since then the world and FAO have much changed.
The following are regarded as some of the major achievements:
(a) FAO, through the work of the Division, stands recognized as the world center for forestry and forest products: there is no other comparable focus. It has become particularly valuable as the medium for transfering, adapting and developing the ideas and practices of the older forestry countries to the quite different circumstances of the new.6. Trends of the division's work(b) FAO has contributed toward overcoming the divorce that traditionally existed between those responsible for the management of the forest resource and those responsible for the development of forest industries. Apart from the impetus this gives to forestry development, it is the best means of ensuring that the noncrop values of the forest (commonly called "forest influences ") are not neglected, and that unwise exploitation does not bring in its train Hoods, erosion and water shortage.
(c) A wider understanding of the values of forestry - and action to preserve the forest estate - have spread throughout the world, in keeping with the "principles of forest policy" (the result of farsighted thought and much discussion) endorsed by the FAO Conference in 1951. There is also greater awareness of the potential of forests as a source of human welfare, and of the extent to which industrialization based on the forest can both contribute to and promote the general economic development process.
(d) The studies of wood resources and requirements undertaken by the Division with the United Nations regional economic commissions have marked a transition from the ad hoc to the systematic approach to forest policy and development. They have proved of value to government and private bodies concerned with the planning and development of forestry and forest industries, and many examples could be cited of the application of their findings to policy and investment decisions.
(e) FAO has helped inculcate the modern concept of multiple use of forests as an important goal of forest policy. "Multiple use" means the management of the forest and associated lands in a manner that conserves the basic land resource and yields a high level of production in the five major uses - wood, water, forage, wildlife and recreation - in a blending dependent on whether the productive or protective role of the forest is dominant.
(f) The Division has developed a strong "field program" which is of course for the benefit of the underdeveloped world, without impairing under the regular program a fair balance of services between the developed countries - of which the sizable program in Europe is an example - and developing countries.
The major reorientation in divisional work over the past few years has been occasioned by the steep rise in funds allocated for field operations compared to the modest expansion of regular program funds. The reorientation has taken the form of a focus of attention on the expansion of forestry and forest industries in the less developed regions. This has not necessitated any changes in the main fields of technical responsibility with which the Division has always been concerned, but rather it has been a case of pulling together, taking a worldwide perspective rather than the sector or regional view, the considerable amount of information, data analyses and experience already gained from the Division's past work. The splitting of one divisional branch into two new branches, as earlier described, has facilitated this task.
The last session of the FAO Conference concurred in this reorientation and the Division's regular program designed to support it, but proposed some additional shifts of emphasis in work:
(a) More attention to the improvement of forest and forest products statistics at the national level - these still in general fall far short of the reliability and coverage that is needed(b) Undertaking on a wider scale of cost-benefit studies and investigations of the pattern of cost structure in forestry, especially of marginal costs
(c) In silvicultural research, more attention given to forest soils and possible uses of fertilizers
(d) More study given to forest protection - particularly the potential danger of insects and diseases in manmade forests
(e) Expand training projects aiming at the extension of improved techniques and increased efficiency in all phases of forest operations, logging and transport
(f) Greater attention to the improvement and development of packaging industries, small-scale sawmills, wood preservation, and charcoal manufacture
(g) More attention to investigations and advice to member countries on forestry in relation to community development, urbanization, and recreation.
These points, as also the views expressed by the Program Committee at its last session, will be given due attention in developing the Division's future programs but it is doubtful whether they can be accommodated merely by the switching of effort and without additional staff and funds. In fact, if a further substantial expansion of field programs occurs without the timely provision of additional supervisory staff, the Division will be faced with having to reduce the regular program services it is already supplying rather than undertake new work. This is, of course, simply illustrative of the situation facing the Organization as a whole.
7. Future trends
However, it must be assumed that the administrative conflict between the workloads engendered by the regular program and field programs will in due course be resolved. Over the next five to ten years then, the Division sees its main course as the intensifying of work in pursuit of the objective of valorizing the forest resources and expanding forest industries in the underdeveloped countries. Quantitative goals and ideas on how to reach them are now available in the regional studies of trends in the consumption, supply and trade of forest products: a world assessment is being prepared for the next World Forestry Congress. Thereafter the studies will remain a continuing feature of the Division's program, giving justification for and direction to not only the work of the Division but also national forest policies.
The laying down of forest policy is a function of government - undertaken on the advice of the forest authority but also of other authorities. The plans and action taken by a forest authority to implement policy are generically grouped as forest management. Another feature, therefore, of the Division's program over the next few years will be to take a "new look," in the light of rapidly changing technical, economic and social circumstances, at both forest policy and forest management throughout the world. An investigation of this nature in the light of immediate postwar conditions was one of the earliest undertakings of the Division; the results were published in 1950.
It is obvious that education and training in all their aspects must continue to receive high priority in the divisional programs, both regular and field. Certain other subjects will, if possible, have to be given wider attention than hitherto:
(a) More intensive collaboration with other Divisions on the technical, institutional and social features of problems of integrated land-use planning, especially in relation to alienation of presently forested land to agriculture under colonization and settlement schemes. The Division's work has been so far mostly confined to Latin America and on a limited scale. Since the problem of integrated land-use planning concerns, beside foresters, also agriculturists and nutritionists, it will be necessary to establish close working relationship with other divisions in further intensification of study in this field.(b) Rehabilitation of and provision of needed wood supplies in arid and semiarid areas. The Division has already operated quite an extensive program but continued effort is called for, particularly in regard to "farm forestry."
(c) In collaboration with the United Nations the application in the developing countries of prefabricated and ready-to-assemble techniques for low-cost housing, using sawnwood and the various wood panels.
Beyond that there are some important gaps in the Division's present efforts which will have to be filled. These are:
(a) It has become apparent from FAO's field work that transportation planning is a dangerous lacuna in a great many projects for forestry development. It is crucial to correct this neglect, and consideration will have to be given to establishing an additional technical branch to be responsible for the whole field of transportation planning and improved techniques and efficiency in all phases of primary forest operations, logging and transport, engineering and work science.(b) Undertaking development studies, macroscopic and microscopic, for export and for regional and local markets, by commodities (including studies on tariff structure, freight rates, trade flows); promoting market organization and trade development.
(c) The setting up of an "international tree seed center" to provide material for research and experiment, and coordinating the provision of sources of certified seed of valuable forest species for the man-made forests of the future.
Expanded work in these fields is urgently needed if the Forestry and Forest Products Division is to cope with the rising volume and changing character of its responsibilities. The views of the Twelfth Session of the Conference of FAO in this regard are expressed in paragraph 183 of its report, as follows:
" The importance which Member Governments are attaching to the development of forestry and forest industries as an integral part of their general economic development, is evidenced by the growing number of field projects for which FAO was given responsibility in this field. Several subjects urgently needed greater attention by the Organization to support this responsibility. The Conference accordingly expressed to the Director-General its concern at the slow rate of expansion over recent budget periods of the Division's regular program functions, relative to the expansion in other sectors of the Organization. The Director-General is requested to take this into account when preparing his draft Program of Work and Budget for 1966-67."
The concern of the FAO Conference about FAO's capacity to provide Member Governments with the service they need in these sectors assumes a special significance in the light of the outcome of the United Nations Trade and Development Conference. It is clear that a natural starting point for the industrialization of many of the developing countries must be the processing of agricultural and forestry raw materials. Documents submitted to the Trade Conference by FAO show that the forest sector holds out considerable promise for the establishment of export-oriented industries: a target of $1,000 million worth of additional forest products exports from the developing to the developed countries by 1975 is both reasonable and attainable. This enlarged trade flow would benefit not only the developing countries but also those developed countries which are facing rising wood deficits. Without a very considerable effort in promoting both sound forestry practices and fostering viable industries, this target cannot be achieved. The developing countries look to FAO to provide the required data, stimulus, guidance and expert advice.
L. J. V.
The FAO Council reviewed the activities of the Forestry and Forest Products Division at its October (43rd) Session in Rome, and included the following comments in its report
Program activities: forestry and forest products division
1. The Council considered that document CL 43/9 (reproduced above) provided a clear panorama of FAO's activities in the forestry and forest products fields.
2. It regarded these activities as having particular importance at the present time. They were aimed mainly at creating growth points of industrial development in developing countries, permitting a broadening of the base of the economy away from a limited range of agricultural products and offering prospects for improving export trade, in keeping with the policies outlined by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
3. As such, these activities deserved support and strengthening. Particularly, the Council felt that the Director-General should consider how the Division's regular program might be strengthened to enable greater attention to be given to problems of logging and transportation and hence the orderly development of forest resources; and secondly, to the promotion of markets and trade, especially markets in the developed countries for more forest products from the developing countries.
4. Certain directions in which the work of the Forestry and Forest Products Division should expand were also suggested in the report of the Program Committee (CL 43/41 paras. 81-84): the Council commended these proposals to the Director-General for consideration, particularly the increase of emphasis within the Division's program on techniques and problems of plantation forestry, and on quick-growing species. While member countries must continue to devote effort to the planned use of natural forests, man-made forests tended to provide much greater production per unit of area and were of course more easily managed. In this connection the Council supported, as offering possibilities of particular value to the developing countries, the Division's proposal to get underway an "international tree seed center" project.
5. There was discernible everywhere a considerable ferment of new ideas on forest policy and forest management. The Division must keep abreast of and indeed contribute to this new thinking. More effort devoted to this end would close a gap that existed in the Division's regular program.
6. The Council agreed also with its Program Committee's view, expressed in its report, that greater prominence to integrated land-use planning should be given by the Organization as a whole. In colonization and land settlement schemes of many member countries, and not only the so-called savanna countries, forests still tended to be neglected factors. They should be regarded as essential features of the national heritage. It is often appropriate that forestry should receive an increased share of development resources and of land resources. Agricultural improvement should concentrate on the more intensive me of good agricultural land.
7. Several delegates felt that the Division would be increasingly called on for advice on problems of forestry in relation to community development, urbanization and recreation: there seemed likely to be increasing pressure for recreational use of forest areas. This should be kept in mind in framing the balance of future work programs.
8. The Council agreed that FAO, through the work of the Division, now stands recognized as the world center for forestry and forest products. It noted, as a measure of the interest of Member Governments, that the volume of United Nations Special Fund activities in forestry and forest products entrusted to FAO was the second highest among any of the fields of competence of the Organization.
9. To attain this leading position the Forestry and Forest Products Division had not depended on any exceptional allocation of funds. Several members of the Council drew attention to para. 79 of the Program Committee's report, and specifically to the concern expressed by the Twelfth Session of the Conference at the slow rate of expansion over recent budget periods of the Division's regular program relative to the expansion in other sectors of the Organization.
Annex A
Historical background
"When the late President Roosevelt was flying from Cairo eastward he looked down expecting to see the famous cedars of Lebanon and was amazed to find bare hills with only one or two patches of cedars left. The rest had been wiped out by centuries of deforestation. Such things could happen in any country, he was told, if it did not take care of its forests. Back in Washington, he made a note on a memorandum concerning the Food and Agriculture Organization (then in the Interim Commission stage): 'Forestry most important. Request American delegation propose revision of FAO Statute and include it in FAO Charter.'" 1
1 The story of FAO. Gove Hambidge, New York, van Nostrand, 1955.
As a result, in December 1943 the United Nations Interim Commission on Food and Agriculture decided to include forestry and forest products within the scope of FAO and provided for this in the draft Constitution. In March 1944 it set up a Technical Committee on Forestry and Forest Products to consider what should be FAO's functions in these fields, paralleling those in its other fields of competence. The Committee's report, approved by the Interim Commission, was issued in April 1945, ² and received final endorsement by the Quebec Conference that founded FAO in October 1945.
² Third report to the governments of the United Nations by the Interim Commission on Food and Agriculture, Washington, 25 April 1945.
The Forestry and Forest Products Division came into being in 1946, one of the original five technical divisions of the Organization. Continuing a variety of traditional activities of the prewar International Institute of Agriculture, Centre international de sylviculture and Comité international du bois, it was assisted in the early years in devising its detailed program of work by a Standing Advisory Committee of outside experts of international repute. Once methods and procedures had become decided and more staff recruited, the Division took a new look at the directives given by the Interim Commission and the Quebec Conference. This first reappraisal was carried out in 1950 and the results were presented to the 1951 session of the FAO Conference, which endorsed in general the program projected over the next five years.
This reappraisal did not take fully into account the development of EPTA and a changing international atmosphere. Accordingly a second reappraisal was undertaken in 1954 and submitted to the 1955 session of the FAO Conference. A major shift then agreed was to give more attention to watershed and forest range management and to land-use problems in general - this in due course led to FAO's Mediterranean Development Project which originated as a purely forestry "green plan."
In 1957 a survey was made of what the Division had set out to do in its fields of responsibility and what had been accomplished: this was published in Unasylva under the title "Ten years of forestry in FAO." It proved a useful background to undertaking the Forward appraisal of FAO programs, 1959-64, the report prepared for ECOSOC.
The present summary review of the Division's activities is thus the fifth "analysis" undertaken over the past 18 years. It is the first to have to take into account the changing nature and needs of FAO's work resulting from the rapid expansion of activities under UNSF, where expenditure now exceeds by fivefold that under the Regular Program.
Annex B
Major divisional publications since January 1960
PERIODICALS
Unasylva - an international review of forestry and forest products
Four issues per year - (English, French, Spanish) Volumes 14 to 18
Timber bulletin for Europe
Quarterly, published at Geneva by ECE (Bilingual: English, French)
Yearbook of forest products statistics
Annual, in trilingual edition
STUDIES
Forestry
Pinus radiata
Forest influences
Genetics of forest tree improvement
Practicas de plantación forestal en América Latina (S. only)
Tree planting practices for arid zones
Economics
World forest inventory 1958
Timber trends and prospects in the Asia-Pacific region (with ECAFE)
Latin-American timber trends and prospects (with ECLA)
European timber trends and prospects 1950-75 (with ECE - in preparation)
African timber trends and prospects (with ECA - in preparation)
Industries
Plywood and wood-based panels (in preparations
Pulp and paper prospects in Asia and the Far East (with ECAFE)
World demand for paper to 1975
Pulp and paper prospects in western Europe (published by Bayerischer Landwirtschaftsverlag, München)
DIRECTORIES
World list of periodicals and serials of interest to forestry
World directory of forestry schools (published by Society of American Foresters)
Forest research: A world directory of forest and forest products research institutions
Forest tree seed directory 1961
Directory of wheel and crawler tractors
Directory of fork-lift trucks and straddle carriers
EPTA REPORTS
103 issuances relating to:
|
Africa |
31 |
|
Asia |
27 |
|
Europe |
8 |
|
Near East |
12 |
|
Latin America |
25 |
|
1964 FAO PUBLICATIONS which contain a considerable amount of economic and statistical information on forest products include The state of food and agriculture 1964 and a special supplement (two volumes) to the FAO Commodity Review 1964 entitled Trade in agricultural commodities in the United Nations Development Decade. Collection of seeds from standing trees is the title of a report (FAO/ECE/LOG/144) released by the European Committee on Forest Working Techniques and obtainable from the FAO Regional Office, Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland |
