FAO STAFF
A résumé of a regional study soon to be published
AFRICA has now virtually emerged from the colonial era. The economic legacy of this period, however, remains. The position of Africa is primarily still that of an exporter of unprocessed raw materials and an importer of its manufactured requirements which has come to be called the colonial pattern of economy. The former metropolitan countries continue to provide the major markets for Africa's raw materials as they have done in the past and it remains true that the bulk of the value-added to many of Africa's re sources accrues in the already developed countries. This feature is as true of the timber economy in Africa as it is of other sectors. Of all the wood exported by Africa in 1959-61 no less than 68 percent by volume was in the form of unprocessed roundwood, although much of it was of very high value.
There are further bequests in the legacy of colonialism which must be equally challenging for Africa. First of all, there is the continent's appalling shortage of trained manpower. The number of university-trained forest officers and of forest rangers left behind at independence was barely enough to maintain the existing level of forest activity, let alone to take up further opportunities in the forest or to augment its resources. There is also a shortage of trained engineers and administrators. In addition, African countries still confront the remnants of a tariff structure in the developed countries which encouraged the export of unprocessed wood and was a positive discouragement to the setting up of processing industries on the spot.
The result of the past method of harvesting Africa's forest resources is that many African countries find themselves on the threshold of economic independence with one of their major potential natural assets already partially hazarded and, in many cases, with little having been done to replace, supplement, or harness it as an engine of economic growth. In addition, these problems concerning the development and use of the forest resource are faced by a large number of fragmented countries with small internal markets and a crying need for co-operation in the field of forestry and of some forest industries.
This profile is not a flattering one but the attitudes and interests which underlay it are now things of the past. Today, the developed regions of the world seek actively to assist the less developed in achieving economic independence and growth. Moreover, part of the earlier pattern was unavoidable. It was inevitable that, in the past, the African timber economy should have chiefly involved harvesting logs for export in the raw state. And, while in many, instances opportunities for the domestic processing of wood were ignored or taken up too sluggishly, many attempts to industrialize were made both before and after independence. Some of these attempts were successful and continue to contribute appreciably to economic activity in Africa. Others failed, for a variety of reasons. Among the difficulties which could not be overcome was a shortage of skilled labor and of administrators. In other instances there was miscalculation of the extent of the accessible forest resource or of the expenditure required to make it accessible. But probably the most common reason for failure has been the lack of an adequate market; either the internal market has been too small to reap the economies of scale which would make production economic, or developments have been based exclusively on unreliable export markets with little or no internal market to sustain the project through difficult periods.
Failures can teach effective lessons. From this past experience it can be learned that successful industrialization depends upon a number of crucial factors: upon the availability of the appropriate factors of production in the right quantities, upon the full knowledge of the nature and extent of the wood resource, and upon the existence of markets of the correct size in the right place.
Provided that these lessons are correctly learned, Africa still has in its forests a resource which can be a major contributor to her future development. Forests constitute a resource which has a multiple role to play. They are providers of fuel and crude building materials in the raw state, of material for the various wood processing industries, and also have a protective function. In concentrating upon the productive uses of the forests, which in view of the need for economic development seem the most urgent, this protective function should not be forgotten. It is an important element in the control of water supplies and soil erosion, and in the management of wildlife. Effective planning of the forest resource must include consideration of these elements of policy on the one hand and, on the other, determination of how best the forests can contribute to rapid economic growth. The exploitation of timber and the wood-using industries presents African countries with a challenge and an opportunity for development. But before these can be visualized a picture of the current situation of the wood economy on the continent is a prerequisite. As a preliminary to examining it, this article, which is in fact the preface to a study of timber trends and prospects in the region at present in preparation, attempts to suggest the advantages and problems which the forests hold for Africa and the ways in which they can contribute to the continent's economic growth.
Most African economies exhibit characteristics often known as dualism - namely, the traditional rural sector of the economy, large and operating at subsistence level, coexists with a smaller, more modern money sector, which is predominantly urban. The nature of the consumption of wood and wood products is determined by this special dualistic economic structure. The vast bulk of African consumption of wood takes place outside the monetary economy in the traditional sector. In 1959-61, 88 percent of all removals of wood in Africa were for fuelwood, largely for use in this sector. The traditional sector also uses a good deal of wood in the form of poles for building and other purposes. The modern sector by contrast uses most of its wood in processed form, although it may also consume a certain amount of fuelwood often in the form of charcoal. Sawnwood of various qualities and the wood-based panel products like plywood, fibreboard and particle board are used widely in the building, and furniture industries; packaging both of exports and within the domestic economy absorbs sawnwood, plywood and veneer as well as paper and paperboard; and, in addition, accelerated by the spread of literacy, a growing volume of newsprint and many other types of paper in numerous forms is required.
Africa's consumption of fuelwood is enormous. In 1959-61, the annual fuelwood consumption in Africa per 1,000 population was shown as 665 cubic meters compared with an average world consumption of 335 cubic meters per 1,000. In this form, wood provides most of the people of Africa with a commodity essential for their subsistence. On the other hand, consumption of wood products in Africa during the same period was still very low by world standards. For sawnwood, the average world consumption was 145 cubic meters per 1,000; in Africa it was only 15 cubic meters. For panel products, the African figure was 1.9 per 1,000 while world consumption was 12.2 cubic meters. Of paper and paperboard Africa consumed annually 2.7 metric tons per 1,000 while the world average was 26 metric tons.1 In these forms wood is the basis of a whole range of products whose greater use accompanies economic growth, and these consumption figures will increase rapidly as growth proceeds.
1 FAO. Yearbook of forest products statistics, 1962. The figures for consumption of paper and paperboard do not include paper and paperboard manufactures. All figures for world consumption do not include China (Mainland).
In fuelwood and the majority of the more basic sawnwood products most African countries are self-sufficient; in the more processed categories, imports play an important and sometimes a monopolistic role. Table 1 summarizes the production, consumption, imports and exports of manufactured wood products for Africa by regions and as a whole. From this it can be seen that in 1959-61 Africa as a whole imported more than it exported of all manufactured wood products by volume except for plywood and veneer.
Western Africa, which contains many of the wood surplus countries of the continent, exported substantial volumes of both sawnwood and plywood, and veneer. In fibreboard and particle board and in paper and paperboard, however, it was entirely dependent upon imports. The eastern subregion as a whole imported more than its quite significant volume of exports in sawnwood; in the other categories of wood products it depended heavily upon imports and exported nothing. Northern Africa exported a small amount of paper and paperboard but nothing else; in all categories of wood products it relied almost exclusively upon imports. Southern Africa exported very little in the way of wood products; it did, however, produce about half of its requirements of sawnwood and paper and paperboard, over half of its consumption of plywood and veneer, and all its needs in fibreboard and particle board.
Although the roundwood equivalent represented by manufactured forest products imports was more than double that of the exports, this wood deficit was more than offset by the net export of more than 4.4 million cubic meters of logs. Africa as a whole, therefore, imported in 1959-61 the equivalent of 6.14 million cubic meters of roundwood and exported 6.53 million cubic meters. So in volume terms Africa had a net export surplus. In value terms, however, there was a net deficit: the value of imports was $289 million and the value of exports, $212 million.
In terms of supplying the continent's own needs let alone any exports, the forest industries of most parts of Africa are in an embryonic state. Africa is, however, in the greatest need of successful industrial projects and there are a number of reasons why the wood-using industries should play a special role in its economic development in the immediate future.
TABLE 1. - AFRICA: ANNUAL PRODUCTION, IMPORTS, EXPORTS AND CONSUMPTION OF SAWNWOOD, BOARD PRODUCTS AND PAPER AND PAPERBOARD IN 1959-611 (In millions of units as indicated)
|
|
Unit |
Production |
Imports2 |
Exports2 |
Consumption |
|
WESTERN AFRICA | |||||
|
Sawnwood |
m³ |
1.56 |
0.06 |
0.52 |
1.10 |
|
Plywood and veneer |
m³ |
0.16 |
0.01 |
0.14 |
0.03 |
|
Fibreboard and particle board |
tons³ |
- |
0.02 |
- |
0.02 |
|
Paper and paperboard |
tons |
- |
0.08 |
- |
0.08 |
|
Total in terms of wood raw material |
m³ |
3.52 |
0.43 |
1.39 |
2.56 |
|
EASTERN AFRICA | |||||
|
Sawnwood4 |
m³ |
0.71 |
0.30 |
0.19 |
0.82 |
|
Plywood and veneer |
m³ |
0.01 |
0.01 |
- |
0.02 |
|
Fibreboard and particle board |
tons |
- |
(0.02) |
- |
0.03 |
|
Paper and paperboard |
tons |
0.01 |
0.09 |
- |
0.10 |
|
Total in terms of wood raw material |
m³ |
1. 47 |
0.94 |
0.38 |
2.05 |
|
NORTHERN AFRICA | |||||
|
Sawnwood |
m³ |
(0.09) |
(0.91) |
- |
(1.00) |
|
Plywood and veneer |
m³ |
0.01 |
0.08 |
- |
0.09 |
|
Fibreboard and particle board |
tons |
- |
0.02 |
- |
0.02 |
|
Paper and paperboard |
tons |
0.12 |
0.21 |
0.04 |
0.29 |
|
Total in terms of wood raw material |
m³ |
0.56 |
2.70 |
0.12 |
3.14 |
|
SOUTHERN AFRICA | |||||
|
Sawnwood |
m³ |
0.54 |
0.58 |
0.03 |
(1.08) |
|
Plywood and veneer |
m³ |
(0.02) |
0.01 |
- |
(0.03) |
|
Fibreboard and particle board |
tons |
(0.09) |
- |
0.03 |
(0.06) |
|
Paper and paperboard |
tons |
0.18 |
0.20 |
0.02 |
0.36 |
|
Total in terms of wood raw material |
m³ |
1.87 |
1.78 |
0.19 |
3.46 |
|
TOTAL, ALL AFRICA | |||||
|
Sawnwood |
m³ |
2.88 |
1.85 |
0.73 |
4.00 |
|
Plywood and veneer |
m 3 |
0.20 |
0.12 |
0.14 |
0.18 |
|
Fibreboard and particle board |
tons |
0.10 |
0.05 |
0.03 |
0.12 |
|
Paper and paperboard |
tons |
0.31 |
0.58 |
0.06 |
0.83 |
|
Total in terms of wood raw material |
m³ |
7.44 |
5.87 |
2.07 |
11.24 |
1 Subregional figures may not add to regional totals due to rounding.
2 The import and export figures include the small volume of trade within the subregions and within the region.
3 Metric tons.
4 1960-62 averages.
First of all, there is the possibility of import saving. For countries in the early stages of economic development import saving of all possible kinds is necessary, not only as part of industrial development itself but also as an ingredient in the elimination of the structural balance of payments problem from which such countries habitually suffer. Import saving in the forest industries is both particularly easy and particularly necessary in view of the comparatively simple techniques and the high elasticities of demand which their products exhibit. For the purpose of the forthcoming timber trends study the various income elasticities of demand (the extent to which demand responds to changes in income) in Africa have been estimated from cross-section analysis. They indicate that, for sawnwood, demand will rise at the same rate as income (slightly faster in certain wood surplus countries); for board products, demand will rise between 1.5 and 2.5 times as fast as income; and for paper and paperboard, the rise will be nearly as high as for board products.
Import saving need not only take the form of the substitution of home-produced for identical imported products. On the contrary, there is scope for the replacement of a wide range of substitute goods, which are currently imported, by home-produced wood products. One of the features of wood products is the extent to which they are substitutable for a large number of other products. In many parts of Africa wood appears to be used much less than economic rationality would dictate. Governments should give a good deal of thought to the need to encourage the substitution of wood for other products by means of various measures to stimulate the market and to improve the quality of certain wood products.
Secondly, the wood-using industries possess strong linkages with other industries; in other words, a large part of the demand for the products of the wood-using industries comes from other industries and not for final consumption (forward linkages); in addition, a proportion of the inputs of the wood-using industries consists of the products of other industries (backward linkages).2 By increasing the availability of their products and by creating demands for the products of other industries as inputs, these features of the wood-using industries should be an important stimulus to further industrial development. While in the long run, however, the linkage of these industries should also stimulate further industrial development, in the short run they are a mixed blessing since they may entail a high demand for imports. A balance of payments problem, kept out of the front door by means of import substitution in timber products, may sneak in through the back door by way of the new demand for imports resulting from the linkages. When endeavoring to industrialize on the basis of import substitution in wood products, therefore, planners will have to make a careful study of the likely total balance of payments effects. It is also necessary to look at the possibility of domestic production of those inputs which might otherwise have to be imported in the short run. It will often emerge that demand for these is unlikely to be sufficient in the early stages of development to support a plant of minimum economic size; in this event, the case for regional industrial co-operation will be strengthened.
2 JACK C. WESTOBY, 1962. Forest industries in the attack on economic underdevelopment. Unasylva, Volume 16 (4), Number 67, FAO, Rome.
Thirdly, the timber industries may have a special role to play in economic development with regard to the question of economic dualism. One of the crucial problems of economic development in Africa is to find a satisfactory means of integrating the two sectors of the economy. In many cases this integration has been happening too suddenly. The traditional sector has disintegrated while the modern sector has been in no position to assimilate the extra labor which is thereby released; social and economic problems arise in town and country alike. The forest-based industries can play an important role in easing the economic transition between traditional and modern sectors. They provide employment in the forests themselves in felling and allied activities; and, since the value to weight ratio of unprocessed roundwood is comparatively low, it also makes good economic sense to carry out at least some of the processing (to sawnwood, or even to plywood and veneer, or pulp and paper) near the forest itself. Where the forest is close to areas of rural population this can provide local employment without the housing difficulty and other social and economic problems involved it a move to the cities. In this way, the money economy can be brought to the rural areas without the complete destruction of the traditional economy, thus allowing time for traditional agriculture gradually to be modernized and stabilized so that valuable production is not lost. At the same time, a nucleus of rural development is established. In addition, because of their nature, activities within forestry and the forest industries may provide seasonal employment for those people on the land who are subject to periodic underemployment or unemployment.
Fourthly, the wood-using industries have employment-creating characteristics. Many African countries are in the greatest need of industries which create employment since, during the early years of economic development, almost of all them have suffered a decline in aggregate numbers employed. In many industries the available spectrum of techniques is narrow and predominantly capital intensive - and intensive also in highly skilled labor which often has to be imported. Some of the timber industries, especially sawmilling and the secondary wood-using industries, are technologically flexible in that a wide spectrum of techniques is available of various factor intensities. Where labor intensive techniques are used, therefore, the timber industries can be significant creators of employment, often in places where it is most needed - the rural areas. In addition, operations within the forests, felling and so on, provide a greater volume of employment than the wood-using industries themselves.
Fifthly, the wood-using industries have a valuable role in the export market. The market for tropical woods differs in two ways from that for other tropical products. In the first place, income elasticities of demand for some wood products in the developed countries are higher than for most tropical products; and the demand for certain tropical hardwoods is particularly strong. In the second place, with wood and wood products, unlike the cases of products where they have a near monopoly of supply, the developing countries can expand their sales by means of obtaining a greater share of the world market in addition to expansion through rising income levels. Wood and its products are one of the few fields in which there is direct competition in world markets between developed and developing countries.
Since, as has been seen, in many forest products Africa supplies but a small proportion of her needs, and since also there are a number of special reasons why the timber industries can play a decisive role in economic change and development, it would appear that there is a great deal of scope for the expansion of these industries in Africa. On the basis of the demand elasticities assumed in this study, the future continental requirements for various wood products are expected to grow from 1959-61 to 1975 by the following proportions: sawnwood by 77 percent, panel products by 165 percent, and paper and paperboard by 146 percent. From these figures the prospects look bright for the expansion of the panel products and paper and paperboard industries in both of which Africa, is at present a deficit area. Nevertheless, the existing consumption of sawnwood is much larger than that of the other two categories, and it will continue to be the product in the greatest demand.
If by 1975 Africa is to continue to produce the same proportion of her needs in wood products as she produces today, the total capital investment indicated is in the order of $75 million for sawnwood, $60 million for board products and $400 million for pulp and paper. These are aside from the further requirements for investment for export production, and for the production of the raw material. In addition a large increase in the available skilled manpower will be needed. If the capital is available, however, then there is ample scope for the continent to supply an even larger proportion of its requirements than it did in 1959-61.
In view of the small and fragmented nature of African markets, not all of this development can take place in individual countries. Some pulp and paper production, and probably the production of fibreboard also, possesses strong economies of scale which cannot be realized except on the basis of levels of output which are higher than the levels of consumption in separate African countries. This fact suggests that, if African countries are to reap the benefits of large markets in these and other products, they must be prepared to accept various measures of industrial co-ordination, if not even closer economic and institutional integration. In order that the gains may be distributed between countries, any measures of this kind which are taken will have to be part of a general program of industrial co-ordination over a number of industries facing the same problem of markets which are individually too small. In a continent of small countries in need of industrial development, this implies not only the co-ordination of tariff and industrial location policies but a large measure of interlocking between various national economic plans.
Not all the wood-using industries, however, require large-scale production units to exist economically. The sawnwood industry, the particle board industry, the manufacture of plywood and veneer, and many of the secondary industries using wood and pulp products are technologically flexible, possessing a wide range of possible factor intensities and scales. There is almost certainly a place in African development for small, labor-intensive enterprises of this kind - small-scale sawing, carpentry, joinery, and so on. The products of such enterprises are, of course, not always of a very high standard. Nevertheless, the domestic market in Africa is at its present stage of development fairly tolerant of many levels of quality. Constant insistence upon only the highest quality of production can often be more of a hindrance than a help to economic development. Lower quality, small-scale, labor-intensive enterprise may sometimes be the answer to rapid beginnings in industrial development since it spreads skills and saves capital. There is another advantage - that lower quality production may enable a larger number of species of timber in the forest to be exploited.3 The domestic African market might accept timber produce of a wider range than that insisted upon by the major export markets. This is not to say that all investment in these products should be of this kind but simply to stress that, where a demand for them exists, as it probably does in many parts of Africa, this is the most rational way to satisfy it.
3 It is interesting to compare here the tolerance of the Spanish market which enables a wider range of species to be utilized in the Spanish Equatorial Region of Africa than in other parts of the continent.
The industrialization of the African wood economy will not only be on the basis of import substitution in home demand. Exports should also play a major and growing role, and the main export markets will continue to be in the developed countries. Africa currently accounts for roughly one half of total exports of wood and wood products from the underdeveloped to the developed countries (in 1959-61 the region's exports of these products being worth $212 million). It has been estimated tentatively that imports by the developed countries could increase by about $1,000 million by 1975.4 A major share of this new trade could go to Africa. Since the estimate is based on the assumption that a larger volume of the trade than at present will be in processed products, this will require a larger amount of investment not only in maintaining and harvesting the forest resource but also in capital equipment for the processing industries. Europe will certainly continue to be the major market for Africa's exports. In 1959-61 about 80 percent of African timber exports by value went to Europe, largely to western and southern Europe. Consumption is growing rapidly in these regions, as it is in eastern Europe and North America, which could also draw upon African production. In all these countries the demand for wood and wood products continues to be buoyant; the income elasticities of demand in countries of their income levels are still greatly in excess of unity for most types of wood products.
4 Prospects for expanding forest products exports from developing countries, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, E/CONF. 46/70.
Part of the new demand for wood and wood products will be for these things which Africa has traditionally exported - broadleaved wood and its processed products. An increasing demand, however, will come in the category in which an unaccustomed deficit in some developed countries is looming in the years ahead pulpwood, and pulp and paper. The areas of Africa which possess reserves of the appropriate woods can have a share in this increase. At the same time, other areas of the continent will find an added incentive to experiment with plantations of suitable woods. Recent information suggests, for instance, that east African plantation-grown pulpwood would be highly competitive. At a typical cost of $6 per m³ it compares with approximate costs of $9 per cubic meter in the Pacific Northwest of America and $15 per cubic meter in Scandinavia5. Although there are also, of course, further costs where the advantage is in the other direction, this cost advantage could be a major stimulus to the development of a pulp and paper industry in Africa.
5 These costs refer to pulpwood delivered at the mill.
In addition to the encouraging prospect for exports to developed countries, there is room also for a major expansion of inter-African trade, whose volume is at present very small indeed in wood and wood products as it is in most commodities. Some of this new trade will be in processed products, and this would be stimulated by measures of industrial co-ordination between African countries, especially in the paper and paperboard industries. The need of all African countries to industrialize, however, and the vast disparity in forest resource endowments should stimulate a major trade in unprocessed wood from the timber rich to the timber poor areas. Additional inter-African trade should be encouraged by the need in some areas to supplement the available wood resources with long fiber materials for pulp and paper production. Increased inter-African trade may require additional investments in transport facilities. In general, however, measures to increase the economic interdependence of the continent should reap dividends in the form of economies of scale and more easily available supplies.
In its export trade Africa has a major opportunity to change the nature of its exported wood from raw roundwood to processed products. Many of the processes in the wood-using industries are not overcomplex, and thus offer an ideal opportunity to break the syndrome of the colonial pattern of economic development. The arguments for processing in Africa, however, are not simply part of a crude ideological predilection; there is good economic backing for them. The case for developing wood-using industries in Africa has been stated in general terms above. In addition, transport costs of raw wood are usually high and are increasing as it becomes necessary to exploit wood deeper and deeper in the forests, and it makes increasingly good sense to process the wood before transportation. Processing on the spot can also serve to increase the yield of many of the natural African forests by allowing more species to be exploited - species which are economical to transport in processed form, but not in unprocessed form. An additional reason for the local processing of exports is that this enables economies of scale, where they are important, to be reaped when domestic levels of demand are not as high as the necessary critical minimum at which production becomes economic. This will become particularly valuable if pulp and paper come to be exported in large quantities.
Exports and production for the domestic market are to some extent complementary in that products rejected for export can normally find a ready market domestically, thus allowing for a much fuller use of the resource than production for export alone.
It has sometimes been argued that the return on capital employed is lower when timber is processed domestically than when it is exported in the unprocessed state. If this is an argument against processing of exports, however, it fails on a number of scores when looked at from the viewpoint of a country intent upon economic development. First of all, the relevant comparison of yields on capital is not with the exploitation of timber for export in the raw state but with all other industrial uses of capital; and this is certainly a comparison that should always, if possible, be made when any investment in the wood sector is contemplated. Besides, the higher yield on capital in unprocessed wood would be relevant only insofar as such production could be significantly expanded, which is often not possible. Secondly, it is well known that the demand for unprocessed raw materials is more fluctuating than that for manufactured goods; a steady yield, therefore, may be ample compensation for a higher unstable yield. Thirdly, at present the processing of raw materials in Africa often requires a high level of working capital; this will decline as transportation facilities improve and, where processing is based on imported roundwood, as co-operation between African countries increases. Finally, the argument ignores the fact that the establishment of processing industries creates external economies in the form of linkages, increased employment, the integration of the subsistence into the money sector of the economy and the easing of balance of payments problems. For these reasons the social marginal product of the wood-using industries is very high.
Consequently, a low yield on invested capital may not be a true reflection of the value of the product to the national or regional economy as a whole. In cases where lower capital yields inhibit the entry of private capital into the wood-using industries, there may be a case either for state activity in these industries or for subsidies or special treatment with respect to taxation. Any such case for measures of this kind, however, would have to be examined with great care since there will be many competing claims.
This poses the question for governments as to what part private capital in general is to play.
There is no doubt that, if the immense capital requirements needed to expand production both for consumption in Africa and for export markets are to be achieved, a large proportion of them must come from nongovernment sources. Measures can be taken which may stimulate the amount of available domestic capital by encouraging the formation of producer co-operatives in forest industries, by tax exemptions which are a stimulus to investment and by low stumpage charges for industrial users. Some of the necessary capital, certainly in the smaller scale ventures, could come from domestic sources by these means. There is little doubt, however, that for the forseeable future, especially in large-scale enterprises, the bulk of nongovernment capital will be private foreign capital. Already many expatriate firms have seen the benefit of transferring some of their processing operations to Africa in order to take advantage of lower wood costs. Before the full potentialities of the wood-using industries in Africa are realized, this trend must be greatly magnified. It is unlikely that this can be achieved unless foreign investors can feel confident as to the security of their capital. Where foreign private capital is needed, therefore, it may sometimes be necessary to offer specific safeguards and guarantees against expropriation, or at the very least to refrain from creating an atmosphere hostile to the participation of such capital in development. Indeed it may well be necessary to offer special inducements to foreign investors. Nevertheless, African countries should take care to see that they maintain within their control the management of the forests and their overall use.
One reason for this control is that the forests have more than a productive use. The three major branches of forest utilization - productive, protective and recreational tend to be considered in that order of importance in the course of economic development. This is the justification for concentrating in this study on the productive uses of the forests. Already, however, the other uses are of increasing importance and in some parts of Africa the primary function of the forest is protection.
It is difficult to overstress the purposes of forests which are not productive in the direct sense. They play a crucial role in the management and preservation of other resources. A correct forestry policy, for example, is an essential part of the management of water resources. Not only are forests necessary in watershed control, they may also play a major role in the prevention of flooding and in irrigation schemes upon which increases in agricultural productivity must be based.
The proper use of forests in this way will provide numerous examples of powerful external economies, especially in the agricultural sector. The use of windbreaks and afforestation to prevent soil erosion can immeasurably improve the possibilities of a settled agriculture with a high level of productivity which Africa so desperately needs. The use of forests as agricultural fallow may in some cases be one way of preserving the fertility of exhausted land. The history of the African land abounds in instances of areas which, once fertile, have succumbed to a hostile climate, to overstocking, and to bad cultivation. Afforestation and the use of trees as windbreaks in many areas, especially in the deserts of the north and in the more desolate parts of the savanna, may be the means whereby submarginal land is restored to fertility.
A further use of forests to which attention must be paid is their amenity value for recreational purposes. Although the population of Africa remains predominantly rural, a demographic revolution is beginning, bringing a vast and increasing shift to towns and cities. Within the foreseeable future the population of Africa will be making increasing use of its countryside, some of which must be preserved for this purpose.
The amenity for which Africa is justly famous is its wildlife, which is the richest in the world and, as well as being of value to its own people, is one of the major attractions of Africa for tourists. As such it is an increasingly important earner of much needed foreign exchange. In many parts of Africa it is also an important source of much needed protein, and of raw material for industry in the form of skins for the production of leather. The forests have a crucial role to play in the preservation of wildlife since the forest is often the natural habitat. The challenge to forest policy here is that the destruction of the forests can decimate the ecological system which sustains the wildlife just as the creation of forests can sometimes bring such a system into being.
No forest policy can be considered adequate which shows no regard for the manifold uses of the forest and the ways in which it affects the whole ecological and economic systems. Some of the nonproductive uses of forests, in fact, conflict with the productive uses, although at times they may complement each other. In either case a rational forest policy for Africa must show awareness of them all.
Most of what has been said applies to those areas which have substantial forest reserves or which succeed in creating them. In spite of the forest wealth of Africa, however, many countries are by any standard poor in wood resources. This does not mean that they must remain divorced from the timber economy. In they first place, they may possess other resources which make them suitable for wood-using industries based upon imported supplies. Certainly, almost all countries should be able to establish some of the secondary wood products industries based on imported materials. The commonest of these are furniture, paper manufacture such as of paper bags and so on. In addition, it may be possible to substitute other raw materials for wood; in particular, bagasse and various grasses have been found practicable raw materials in the manufacture of pulp and paper.
In many cases the best approach to wood shortage will be to grow plantations. Many plantations have already been established, and many experiments have been carried out or are in train. There is almost certainly room for many more, concerned both with growing trees where present forest cover is slight or nonexistent and also with growing species which are not currently grown. A good deal of the development of the pulp and paper industry in Africa is likely to be based on wood grown in man-made forests. Even in areas rich in natural forest, plantation could be important as a method of using the land more intensively and taking advantage of faster growth rates.
Regardless of the level of the natural forest wealth of some areas, it remains true everywhere that the realization of the benefits to be derived from the development of wood and the wood-using industries will depend crucially on Africa's existing forest resources and their management. Africa possesses 16 percent of the world's forest cover and only 9 percent of its population. Thus, while there are areas of the continent with only sparse forest resources, some African countries are rich in forests and many African woods are justly renowned.
But the distribution of the forests is far from uniform. Parts of western Africa, for instance, are wealthy in closed high forest, while other areas, often within a few hundred miles, are desert. And the disparity of resources between different areas of this subregion is a microcosm of the position in Africa as a whole. In western Africa, 32.2 percent of the land area is forest and in eastern Africa, 29.1 percent; in southern Africa, however, only 5.7 percent of the land is forested, and in northern Africa a mere 1.6 percent. These figures compare with the world average of 29.6 percent. The aggregate subregional figures conceal not only the vast range between the separate countries but also the facts that much of the forest in Africa is sparse savanna of limited productive use and that a considerable proportion of the African forests are at present inaccessible. Thus in eastern Africa only 7 percent of the forest area is closed high forest. In southern Africa the proportion is about 10 percent and in northern Africa about 20 percent. Only in western Africa, where nearly half of the forest area is closed high forest, does this forest condition, which contains the greater part of the region's merchantable timber, occupy more than 2 percent of the total land area.
Like other natural resources forest wealth can be depleted. And, while Africa as a whole faces no immediate problem of the exhaustion of its forest resources, there are already many areas where this has happened and others where timber must be felled in increasingly difficult locations thus raising the costs of production. Depletion of Africa's forest reserves, however, has come not only from productive harvesting but also from burning through natural fires and from shifting cultivation. An alarming amount of valuable reserves are being wasted each year in this way. In addition, many parts of the forests used to produce wood are felled indiscriminately. These problems make greater protection of the forests by means of forest reserves essential. In eastern and western Africa, only 69 million hectares, or 11 percent of the forest area, is reserved; this is certainly too low a proportion of the whole.
It is unlikely that Africa can spare the manpower to protect her forests from natural fire to the same extent as Europe. Nevertheless, the menace to the forests of shifting cultivation, stock cropping and indiscriminate cutting must be curbed. This implies not only a policy to conserve the forests themselves but also a rational policy to control and modernize traditional agriculture, and to control and direct the taking of fuelwood; in some areas it indicates the need for fuelwood and polewood plantations. At every turn forestry policy comes up against other mutually necessary policies. It must be seen as one of the elements in effective land-use planning.
In Africa land-use planning meets with special problems because agriculture and the forests are so closely intermingled. The problem is to combine a rational economic use of the forest resource with the maintenance of a delicate ecological balance. In many parts of the dry savanna the ecological problems are paramount for here much of the land is marginal and threatened by the encroachment of desert. How this land may best be conserved is a highly complex matter, and much research is necessary before it is fully understood, while its urgency will often dictate economies of research in the form of rapid survey techniques.
Wood is unlike many other natural resources in that it is renewable. Too little attention has yet been paid, especially in the forest-rich areas of Africa, to the necessity to take careful stock of the forests and to further the process of renewal. As a result, there is still need for research into the appropriate techniques of forest management. Enough is not yet known to answer all the silvicultural problems with which Africa is faced.
A comprehensive inventory of all the forest wealth of the countries of Africa is also essential. Such an inventory exists in only very few African countries, and in compiling the timber trends study for Africa one of the major difficulties has been the necessity of working with inadequate knowledge. If such inventories are not to prove an impossible burden, then many of the forestry departments of Africa will have to recruit greater numbers of highly qualified staff. Yet there is no doubt that a fully rational exploitation of the forests must wait upon a detailed inventory of available assets. Before such a tally of resources is made, it would be useful if all African countries could agree on the appropriate definitions of forest to be used. The present inconsistency in use is unhelpful to analysis and will be a handicap to future co-operation.
While making inventories is a job for qualified members of forestry departments, decisions about replanting or the establishment of plantations of types of trees which do not exist locally must be taken by a wide spectrum of people. Such decisions concern not only departments or ministries of forestry but also departments of natural resources and of agriculture. Decisions about the forest cannot be taken in isolation from considerations of possible alternative uses of the land. Nor should decisions to plant forests be taken without adequate knowledge of what they are to be used for. Forestry policy must also be an integral part of economic policy and planning. It is not enough to grow trees: the number and types of trees to be grown must be decided with reference to future patterns of demand as well as to the ecological limitations of the site. In spite of this reservation, however, it is almost certainly necessary for more planting to be done in many parts of Africa. There are three major reasons for this. The first is to replace some of the depleted resources; the second, to remedy the deficiencies of those areas without forests; the third, to supply types of wood which are needed and do not at present exist. Western Africa, for instance, is almost entirely devoid of long-fiber woods required for the production of some grades of pulp and paper. Several types of long-fiber wood are already grown in some countries in Africa on a substantial scale, but there is need for further experimentation elsewhere. Once again this proposal will call for a greater supply of highly skilled foresters.
The development of forestry education and training is in fact an integral part of forest policy. The participation of a wide and growing range of different professions is needed for the successful development of the sector, but the key figure will remain the professional forester. In contemporary Africa the professional forester must be made aware in his training of the many-sided aspects of the resource he is managing - the forests themselves, their harvesting, and the industries based upon them - and of the other professions which will provide the specialized expertise needed to complement his own. To this end, professional-level forestry schools are needed on a subregional scale - their number being determined by common geographical and language needs - and technical and vocational schools to give subprofessional training are needed at the country level. If soundly located and structured, these schools could be not just good educational establishments, but also centers for research, advisory assistance, and extension services.
From all this, one thing is clear: decisions about the land must be taken and its use must be carefully planned. In Africa at present many of these decisions are not being taken; as a result, much land and a large part of the forest resources are being wastefully depleted. A good deal of African forest wealth is bound to be lost unless this can be stopped. The necessary decisions cannot only be part of forest policy but must be seen in the broader context of overall economic and agricultural planning.
The rational development and exploitation of Africa's forest resources will not be achieved unless policies to that end are pursued by the African countries themselves. In addition, both the developed countries and the international agencies have a role to play. The full utilization of forest resources will require a vast expenditure in terms of capital investment, manpower, and planning energy and vision. The best use of the forests can only result from a basic integrated policy for natural resources, agriculture and industry; there is no substitute for overall planning. In turn, the planners must attempt to balance the immediate needs of the present generation for rapid industrialization and the provision of employment, with the interests of future generations who must not inherit a wastefully depleted resource.
The developed countries, especially those which once had colonies in Africa, have long benefited from Africa's forest wealth; they have a responsibility to ensure that more of these benefits now accrue to Africa itself. Where there still exist tariff structures in the developed countries which discourage the processing of timber in the producing country, these should be abolished in the interests of economic rationality. In addition, if the full potentialities of the forests are to be realized, the developed countries and the international agencies must provide an immense amount of technical assistance. One form which such assistance could take is the orientation of research in the developed countries toward some of the unsolved problems which face forestry in Africa. In addition, the growing wood deficits of some of the developed countries should stimulate the initiation of various joint projects between them and the African nations in the fields of forestry and the forest industries.
It has been seen that there are many functions of the forests which, while essential, produce no immediate direct economic return. These will require finance, some of which must come from the international lending agencies. There is a strong case here for relaxing the more stringent requirements about rates of return on invested capital and the terms of loans. Only if this is done can the potential external economies of the forests be realized. The necessity for easier financial terms applies equally to forests planted for the purpose of commercial use in the future.
From the point of view of production and resources, the forthcoming study on timber trends and prospects in Africa concerns itself less than previous studies on other regions with prediction on the basis of trends. This is primarily, of course, because for Africa the detailed information which must be the basis of such prediction does not exist. There is also, however, another reason: the problem in Africa is often not one of predicting a trend; it is one of reversing trends.
· The strength of the forestry field staff is of course constantly fluctuating as new assignments start and others are concluded. A recent count shows the following distribution of field staff by nationality:
|
Argentina |
3 |
|
Australia |
11 |
|
Austria |
3 |
|
Belgium |
9 |
|
Bolivia |
1 |
|
Brazil |
1 |
|
Canada |
14 |
|
Ceylon |
I |
|
Chile |
2 |
|
China |
1 |
|
Colombia |
1 |
|
Denmark |
4 |
|
Finland |
5 |
|
France |
10 |
|
Germany, Fed. Rep. of |
26 |
|
India |
4 |
|
Israel |
1 |
|
Italy |
5 |
|
Japan |
2 |
|
Mexico |
1 |
|
Netherlands |
17 |
|
New Zealand |
3 |
|
Norway |
2 |
|
Pakistan |
3 |
|
Portugal |
3 |
|
Rhodesia |
1 |
|
Spain |
5 |
|
Sweden |
18 |
|
Switzerland |
6 |
|
Syria |
2 |
|
Turkey |
4 |
|
United Kingdom |
27 |
|
United States |
22 |
|
U.S.S.R. |
4 |
|
Yugoslavia |
3 |
|
Venezuela |
1 |
