Burma, Cambodia, Canada, Central African Republic, China (Mainland), Finland,
France, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Turkey, Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics, Kingdom, United States of America, Venezuela
Burma
· It is reported that Burma's first paper mill is under construction with financial and technical aid from China (Mainland). The mill is expected to have a capacity of 43 tons/day of paper. Water will come from the Sittang river and the raw material for pulping will be bamboo.
.
Cambodia
· Forest inventorying by means of aerial photography has enabled the Cambodian Forest Service to improve its statistical evaluation of the forest resources and to reappraise its work in forest conservation and development. Cambodia has 13,227 million hectares of land under forest which is 73 percent of the total land area. Detailed studies of the forest resources of selected areas in the western part of the country are at present being undertaken by a project jointly sponsored by the Government of Cambodia and the United Nations Development Pro gram and under the supervision of FAO (Tables 1 and 2).
Thus the total volume of growing stock is estimated at 1,300 million cubic meters.
As regards controlled forest production in 1964, and comparing it with the average for the ten years from 1954-63, the following points can be noted:
Lumber - increase of 32 percent
Firewood - unchanged
Bamboo - increase of 54 percent
Wood oils - decrease of 65 percent.
Table 3 reflects the evolution of Cambodia's principal forest products from 1954 to 1964:
The Forest Service intensified its efforts in conservation, controlling illicit forest activities, and forest fire control.
TABLE 1. - CAMBODIA: AREA UNDER VARIOUS TYPES OF FOREST
|
Type of forest |
Reserved area |
Protected area |
Total |
Percentage of total |
|
Million hectares |
% |
|||
|
Dense |
1 683.8 |
2 272.2 |
3 955.3 |
29.90 |
|
Semidense |
639.7 |
1 864.3 |
2 504.0 |
18.93 |
|
Low sempervirens |
113.6 |
175.1 |
288.7 |
2.18 |
|
Clear |
1 023.1 |
4 273.6 |
5 296.7 |
40.04 |
|
Pine |
13-0 |
4.8 |
17.8 |
0.13 |
|
Bamboo |
193.8 |
193.6 |
387.4 |
2.95 |
|
Freshwater swamp |
246.2 |
435.2 |
681.4 |
5.15 |
|
Mangrove |
11.4 |
26.9 |
38.3 |
0.29 |
|
Rear mangrove |
10.9 |
46.6 |
57.5 |
0.43 |
|
TOTAL |
3 955.5 |
9 292.3 |
13 227. 1 |
100 |
TABLE 2. - CAMBODIA: VOLUME OF MERCHANTABLE TIMBER (GROWING STOCK)
|
Commercial classes |
Classified area |
Protected area |
Total |
|
Million cubic meters |
|||
|
LUMBER |
370 423.5 |
652 168.5 |
1 022 592.0 |
|
Sawnwood |
221 505.5 |
342 642.7 |
564 148.2 |
|
Poles |
85 859.0 |
175 829.3 |
261 688.3 |
|
Other |
63 059.0 |
133 696.5 |
196 755.5 |
|
BRANCHWOOD |
98 343.0 |
11 74 484 9 |
272 827.0 |
|
BAMBOO |
1 684.6 |
1 470.0 |
3 154.6 |
TABLE 3. - CAMBODIA: PRINCIPAL FOREST PRODUCTS 1954-1964
|
|
Lumber |
Fuelwood |
Bamboo |
Wood oil |
|
Cubic meters |
Touques¹ |
|||
|
1954 |
180 823 |
281 128 |
12 106 |
99 406 |
|
1955 |
182 287 |
194 217 |
41 896 |
102 194 |
|
1956 |
183 815 |
115 325 |
52 783 |
40 346 |
|
1957 |
205 002 |
265 711 |
42 052 |
30 659 |
|
1959 |
235 590 |
249 107 |
50 311 |
48 604 |
|
1959 |
253 659 |
308 878 |
46 532 |
32 148 |
|
1960 |
427 426 |
260 399 |
42 483 |
31 037 |
|
1961 |
267 946 |
204 280 |
43 126 |
18 996 |
|
1962 |
217 382 |
270 484 |
62 659 |
10 469 |
|
1963 |
380 946 |
257 325 |
101 647 |
14 773 |
|
1964 |
333 570 |
241 133 |
76 685 |
14 767 |
¹ Touque 18 liters.
China (Mainland)
· Forestry in Communist China (S.D. Richardson, Johns Hopkins Press 237 p., illustrated, Baltimore, 1965 $6.95) provides a comprehensive account by a recent visitor of forestry and forest industries in China (Mainland). A general economic background survey is followed by chapters on natural vegetation, forestry administration and policy; production forestry practice (afforestation, seed collection, nursery practice, major species, silviculture and exploitation); water conservation and protection forestry; and education and research. The main text is completed by a chapter on Michurinist biology and one on arboriculture. A series of appendices includes the outline study of production and consumption of forest products which appeared in Unasylva 19 (1), No. 76, 1965, together with notes on some 116 species used in desert stabilization in northwest China.
This is the first recent account in English of forestry in China (Mainland). The author was until lately head of the Forest Research Institute, Rotorua, New Zealand, and has been working with FAO's Forestry Division at Rome before taking up the Chair of Forestry at the University of Wales, United Kingdom, in succession to Professor E.C. Mobbs.
· It is said that in China tree planting is becoming de rigueur for the progressive commune, and good results have recently been announced in the Green Great Wall project, which aims at providing a 10,000-kilometer belt of forest across three provinces of northeast China and the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region.
PHOTOS HAR. SKODSHOJ, HEDESELSKABETS TIDSSKRIFT, DENMARK
Finland
· Cows can thrive on an almost completely synthetic diet containing no protein at all, according to experiments carried out by the Nobel prize-winning Finnish scientist, A.I. Virtanen. Protein is normally regarded as an essential constituent of the diet of all higher animals.
Instead of protein the cows in the experiment received a mixture with a wood pulp base of ammonium salts and urea, a simple organic chemical which can be made cheaply and in vast quantities from ammonia and carbon dioxide.
In America urea is already used as a partial substitute for protein concentrates in cattle food as it is a good deal cheaper.
The ability of cows to do without protein depends on the fact that bacteria in the rumen (the first of the stomachs) play an important part in the animal's normal digestive processes. By feeding a cow a gradually increasing proportion of urea and ammonium salts, colonies of bacteria can be established in the rumen which are able to turn these simple chemicals into amino acids, the building brooks from which proteins are made.
In Dr. Virtanen's experiments, reported to the International Grasslands Conference organized by FAO in the summer of 1966, six Ayrshire dairy cows were fed a gradually increasing proportion of synthetic food until their daily ration consisted of "20 lb (9 kg) of briquettes containing starch, cellulose, sucrose, urea and ammonium salts, together with 8 lb (3.6 kg) of a cellulose-rich wet paste and small amounts of corn oil and vitamins A, D and E. To assist rumination, the cows also received strips of cellulose, impregnated with silicic acid in lieu of hay; to assist salivation, they were allowed to chew on hard rubber tubing."
On this unappetizing- diet, the cows' milk yields were almost the same as the average for the breed in Scandinavia.
France
· According to the degree describing the functioning of the Office national des forêts created by the fiscal law of 1965, it is a. "national public agency of both industrial and commercial character responsible for the management of public domain forests and the enforcement of the Forest Code in stands belonging to local communities and private owners that are entrusted to its care by the national government or public communities."
This forest service, which is financially autonomous though under the supervision of the Minister of Agriculture, came into being on 1 January the commercial and administrative tasks hitherto performed by the Service des eaux et forêts of the Ministry of Agriculture. Under the system hitherto in forge the proceeds from the sale of the out from public domain stands and from services rendered by government officials to communities went into the general budget, without any study having ever been made, either at the time the budget was being voted or while it was being prepared, of the revenue thus collected as compared with the operational costs of the Forest Service.
It was in order to remedy this state of affairs (which often led foresters to conserve the timber - in the literal sense of the term "conserve" - of the public domain stands entrusted to their care, rather than manage them on commercial bases) that the Minister had the new Office national des forêts created. This service will have its own resources to cover its operating expenses, derived from:
1. proceeds from the public domain forests and lands;2. payments by communities for forest ranges and management (the cost of such operations, which had never been charged for at their true value, may also be covered by subsidies from the national budget);
3. payments for services rendered, returns on loans, donations and legacies.
Since it is financially autonomous, the new service will be able to lay down and implement a long-term policy of stand regeneration and investment, impossible in the past owing to the fact that it was dependent on annual budget appropriations.
The Office has been created by earmarking the funds for operational purposes and transferring personnel from the former Administration des eaux et forêts - one half of its 420 officials holding the title of Ingénieurs du genie rural, des eaux et des forêts [having university degrees with specialization in forestry, water management and rural civil engineering], two thirds of its administrative staff and most of its field staff (160 out, of 230 ingénieurs des travaux) [forest technicians holding degrees from technical schools], and almost all their district heads and forest guards. This latter body, which has become a Direction des forêts in the Direction générale de l'espace rural under the Ministry of Agriculture, remains responsible for national policy, legislation, assistance to private forestry, home and foreign timber trade, national parks, hunting and fishing, and international relations.
Its annual revenues are in the order of 450 million francs (U.S.$92 million) of which 180 million FF ($37 million) will be forthcoming - from the sale of public domain timber, 200 million ($41 million) from sales on behalf of the communities and the rest from work carried out for third parties. It has 6,300 employees.
A significant point is that the forests remain state property, the Office national des forêts merely being responsible for their management.
Kenya
· Secondary schoolchildren in Kenya have a keen interest in and a sound knowledge of the wildlife of their country. This fact was high lighted in a recent wildlife essay competition in which 180 students from 23 schools took part, organized by John Pile, FAO Wildlife Public Relations and Extension officer with the Kenya Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife.
Students were invited to write an essay of not more than 1,500 words on either "The importance of nation al parks to Kenya" or "How the extermination of a carnivorous species affects the balance of nature."
"The greatest importance attached to our wildlife is the tourist industry," wrote Charles G. Mubia, one of the eight prizewinners. "At a stage in the history of mankind when travel is so easy and everybody wants a holiday, Kenya has provided an en viable resort for many lovers of nature, admirers of beauty and minds tired of the busy industrial West.
Thus the tourist industry is bringing huge sums of money to our country and the number of tourists is increasing year after year."
"Some of us," wrote Erastus Kinoti, "get tired of living among humans all the time and would like to live among wild animals for a few hours."
The Minister for Tourism and Wild-life, commenting on the entries, said that the standard of the essays showed that those responsible for the education of Kenya's youth were molding them to appreciate wild life for all its many values.
The eight winning students, grouped in pairs, spent a weekend in Kenya's wildlife lodges, including the famous Treetops Hotel.
Pakistan
· The Pakistan Forest Institute dates from November 1947. After various temporary homes the construction. of permanent buildings was recently-completed on the present site adjacent to the Peshawar University campus, institute was formally inaugurated by the President of Pakistan.
The Forest Institute, incorporating the Pakistan Forest College, comprises a museum and nine research branches: silviculture, botany, entomology, chemistry, medicinal plants, utilization, range management, watershed management, and forest economics. The entire estate now occupies an area of 230 acres. The main institute building contains 207 rooms, an assembly hall, a museum, a central library, lecture rooms, research and teaching laboratories, workshops, stores, garages etc. Beside the main building, the institute estate contains students' hostels, residential bungalows and quarters, a guest house, officers' and staff clubs, a dispensary and an insectory. A botanical garden, a number of experimental and research plots belonging to various research branches, nurseries, lawns, plantations and playgrounds have also been laid out.
The further development of the Pakistan Forest Institute is being assisted by a United Nations Development Program project operated by FAO, which has been under execution singe February 1964. During the last year the badly-needed modern equipment has begun to arrive, and the laboratories and work rooms are being adequately equipped.
Peru
· The Forestry and Wildlife Service of the Ministry of Agriculture has established a new forest research station within the Iparia national forest. Individuals or institutions interested in making collections of plants or animals in a rain forest area, or in studying tropical biology in its various aspects on a more permanent basis, may use the facilities providing previous arrangements are made with the Forest Service.
The Iparia national forest, with an area of 256,150 hectares of almost wholly virgin rain forests, is located in the Amazonian watershed of eastern Peru between the Ucayali and Pachitea rivers. Although its primary function is the sustained production of timber and secondary forest products, a major interest is to encourage scientific studies in botany, zoology, ecology, animal behavior, plant physiology, etc. Natural areas are to be reserved for such studies as are required and these will be permanently protected.
Facilities for housing, board, transportation, etc. are available. Ample enclosed work space, tables, etc. exist at the station for processing specimens. Special equipment or special facilities can be provided if prior arrangements are made.
· On 10 August 1966, Emilio David graduated as forest engineer at the Forestry Faculty of the Agrarian University, La Molina, becoming the first person to receive this degree after training in Peru. The Forestry Faculty of La Molina was established with the assistance of the United Nations Development Program (Special Fund) through the Forestry Research and Training project for which FAO is the executing agency. This project also includes the establishment of a forest rangers school and a forestry and forest products research institute which, together with the Forestry Faculty, are in full operation with a staff including seven FAO forestry experts. Mr David wrote his thesis on an "Economic study of the sawmilling industry in Peru." Other 10 students have completed their courses at the faculty and are working on their theses.
Romania
· The Center for Technological and Forestry Documentation, created in 1960 under the Ministry of Forest Economy, is now one of the best organized- of its kind in Europe. Its work consists in obtaining and classifying literature on forestry and associated sciences, compiling information bulletins on technical and scientific subjects, and publishing specialized reviews and bibliographies. The center also organizes exhibitions, arranges discussions and lectures, and makes documentary and educational films.
Among its many publications, Revista Padurilor, a monthly forestry magazine, has reached its 81st anniversary of regular publication. The center has also recently published a two-volume Forest dictionary which provides the equivalents of the most usual terms in forestry (about 6,500) in the following languages: Romanian, English, French, German, Russian, and Hungarian. The first volume gives a list of Romanian terms in alphabetical order with a reference number to each and the equivalent terms in the other languages. The second gives the index of terms by languages, with the reference number corresponding to the equivalent terms in the first volume.
Saudi Arabia
· Trees are introduced on irrigated farms either for fruit, citrus and berry crops or for windbreaks with a by-product of wood for fuel or small-scale construction. The cost of producing timber commercially under irrigation would be prohibitive, and it is far cheaper to import the country's requirements, the quality of imports being much better than the local product. For the most part, natural woodlands are found in scattered stunted stands and their value for animal forage exceeds that of wood products. report to FAO emphasizes that improved cultural practices, proper grazing management and controlled cutting for fuel, charcoal-making and small-scale construction are needed to prevent further deterioration of the scanty wood resources. Research is needed to explore seed-harvesting and planting methods for restoring stands or shrubs for forage and especially for erosion control on sand dunes. The rehabilitation treatment must be implemented through the range conservation program and is only slightly concerned with forestry.
Fortunately it is not too late to install corrective measures which, in time, will reverse the destructive trends and bring about improvements in the conservation of woody and other range plants. In order to establish a range code and implement a national land management program and put it into effect, the Ministry of Agriculture has set up a new Public Land Management Department with three divisions: range management, forest management, and arable land reclamation.
Sweden
· Sweden's largest forest industry group, the Swedish Cellulose Company (SCA), is to introduce a new streamlined transport system for its main products - pulp, paper, timber, kraftliner and board - during the latter part of 1967. Designed to speed up transport from its mills in northern Sweden and the handling of goods in port, the scheme includes the building of SCA terminals in Hamburg, Rotterdam and London, concentration of loading to three terminals on the Gulf of Bothnia and the use of special vessels.
The goods will be handled in larger units than at present. Before the arrival of the vessels at the terminals, pulp and timber will be packaged in suitable units. The pulp bales will be mechanically tied together with steel wire in units of eight bales. These units will be lifted in and out of the holds by hoisting equipment, constructed and patented by SCA, which in each lift can take up to eight units, i.e., 64 pulp bales or about 12 tons. The entire process is mechanical. No hands will be needed in the holds.
Newsprint and kraftliner reels will be sorted out approximately in the same dimensions and then lifted and placed in the holds by the use of a special vacuum unit which will take up to 12 reels in each lift without manual handling.
It is estimated that the loading and discharging capacity will be about 400 tons per hour per vessel, as compared with 50 tons for two conventional vessel vanes, and an operation which took 350 man/days will now be out to 39.
The handling of the goods at foreign terminals will be carried out in the same way as at Swedish ports. At Hamburg, SCA has acquired the rights to a terminal in the central Dradenau district, with quay and adjacent ground area. A warehouse is now being designed and will be ready in good time before the terminal is taken into use.
Within Eemhaven, a central harbor district in Rotterdam, SCA will have at its disposal sufficient quay and adjoining areas for warehousing and handling goods.
The third terminal will be located at Tilbury cook in London. It will have the same layout as the other SCA terminals and will also be ready for use when the new system is introduced.
SCA, which is a part-owner of the Canadian company Skeena Kraft Ltd. at present building a large sulfate mill in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, also plans to use the new terminal for shipments from this mill to Europe.
Turkey
· Santa Claus has been appropriated in modern times by the children of northern Europe and North America and comes through the snow to the sound of sleighbells. There are variations as to the actual of his visit but his essential job is to bring toys and gifts.
But the original Santa Claus (the name is a corruption of Saint Nicholas) came from Turkey, from the province of Antalya. The tomb and church of Saint Nicholas are to be found in the little port of Myra (or Demre, as it is now) where he was Bishop in the 4th century A.D. Demre is reached from Antalya driving west by way of a road which passes through the largest cedar forest in the world.
Many legends tell the story of the goodness and generosity of Saint Nicholas and have been charmingly depicted by the great masters of Western religious painting. One legend in particular tells of the three daughters of an impoverished nobleman who were unable to marry for lack of dowries. Saint Nicholas, secretly, on three separate nights in December, threw a purse of gold through the window while they slept, thus originating the idea of Christmas presents.
The church of Saint Nicholas was built in the ancient Roman port of Myra and the port has singe been silted up, so that the church now lies underground. It is well-preserved, however, and the tomb of Santa Claus can still be visited.
Tourism is being developed in the Antalya region under a project for integrated economic development in which FAO and the United Nations Development Program (Special Fund) have been go-operating with the Turkish Government. The report of the project has recently been published. The region possesses beautiful natural scenery, a fine seacoast and many interesting archeological remains. Thus, as a tourist attraction, the generous saint may yet bring gold to his impoverished diocese.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
· Under the title Forestry and industrial utilization of wood in the U.S.S.R., a bound volume of papers was contributed to the Sixth World Forestry Congress. Produced under the authority of the State Forestry Committee (under the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers) and the Ministry of Timber, Pulp and-paper, and Woodworking Industries, the volume presents 45 papers in the original Russian and in English translation, selected by an editorial board with I.S. Melekhov as editor-in-chief. Mr. Melekhov was the leading U.S.S.R. member at the Sixth World Forestry Congress in Madrid.
United Kingdom
· Educational Publications Ltd., 17 Denbigh Street, London, S.W.1, have published, in collaboration with the Timber Research and Development Association, a new series of 18 wallcharts, 37 ½ X 25 inches (95 x 64 cm) dealing with the growth and various uses of timber.
As teaching aids, the whole series is of interest to forestry schools. The first nine charts will also be found of general use in most secondary schools while the remainder, which are of a more technical nature, will be of more interest to secondary schools with handicraft glasses and technical schools and colleges.
The titles and subjects of the individual charts are:
1. How a tree grows
2. Timber sections
3. Structure
4. Plywood
5. Sawmilling machinery
6. Derivatives of wood
7. Seasoning
8. Woodworking machinery
9. Wood preservation
10. Utilization
11. Fungi in wood
12. Insects in wood
13. Moisture content
14. Joints and roof truss
15. Identification of softwoods
16. Identification of hardwoods
17. Joints in cabinet work
18. Joints in building.
United States of America
· The Forest History Society received a $35,000 grant from Resources for the Future, Inc., to finance a three-year study at Yale University on the History of American Forestry. Henry E. Clepper, formerly Executive Secretary of the Society of American Foresters and a longtime associate of FAO, is heading the project on which he is planning to base a volume. He will attempt to review the whole broad spectrum of forestry over more than the last century, accenting the management of forests as a source of continued supply, but including wildlife management, ecology, the history of forestry education, and federal forestry program.
