FAO SECRETARIAT
The following are three case histories drawn from about 70 UNDP (Special Fund) projects which the Forestry and Forest Industries Division has operated and which serve to illustrate the relevance of forestry projects to the overall endeavors of FAO.
Forestry is not farming and forest products are not food. However, the relation of trees to dust bowls, floods and erosion is very real and this connection with the well-being of land would by itself be sufficient reason for FAO's involvement in forestry. But another reason is that forest industries can contribute sizably to the income of developing nations. The establishment and development of wood pulp, paper and timber industries require a whole range of specialized skills which these countries usually do not have to an adequate degree. FAO helps them conduct forest inventories, plan national forest policies, train personnel for work in forestry, study the feasibility of setting up specific industries, or develop forest recreational facilities.
On independence, India had at hand an efficient forest service but one which placed emphasis almost entirely on silviculture and the conservation of forests. Extraction and transport of wood were generally left to small local contractors who lacked knowledge and skill themselves and, having neither trained labor, capital nor equipment, managed with primitive and comparatively inefficient methods.
Some progress was made toward better logging and transport methods during the 1950s. Several FAO technical assistance missions were carried out in parts of India and a Logging Branch was established at the Forest Research Institute, Debra Dun, in 1957. This branch acted as a coordinating agency for the State Forest Departments and as a general clearinghouse for information on logging. It also collected statistics on the economics of various logging practices and conducted research on the efficiency of different equipment and logging methods. It studied foreign equipment and techniques with reference to Indian conditions, and published pamphlets, research notes, etc.
A training course on logging operations in 1958 was conducted by FAO in Kashmir under its technical assistance program and with Swiss Government support. Instruction was arranged for personnel at the forest officer, forester and foreman levels in the handling of manual and mechanical felling, logging and extraction tools, as well as in the theoretical and practical approaches to forest working techniques. The aim was to prepare the participants to act as instructors themselves on return to their usual duties. The course was managed by Hans Winkelmann of Switzerland, and can be claimed to have been a successful first experiment.
The scale on which it was conducted was too small, however, to have any significant effect on the efficiency of personnel throughout the State Forest Services, in view of the large numbers requiring training and the wide varieties of forest, topography and climate occurring throughout India. Accordingly, a request followed in 1962 for a Special Fund project, and eventually a Plan of Operation was signed for a four-year project, the money to be supplied from four sources. The Special Fund allocation was set at U.S. $555,500 and the Government of India counterpart contribution in kind at $570,852. Swedish and Finnish bilateral assistance contributions were to amount to $38,500 and $7,750 respectively. In addition Sweden expected to provide $348,000 for a follow-up program.
The purpose of the project as established under S.I. Sjöstedt (Sweden) was to train forestry personnel in:
1. planning and studies of efficiency of logging operations under different conditions with due regard to economic considerations;2. operation and maintenance of mechanical logging equipment (cableways, winches, tractors, trucks, loading devices, portable sawmills);
3. logging techniques including the use and maintenance of hand tools and power saws, felling techniques, hauling manually and with draft animals and other nonmechanical transport means.
The locations of the training centers were at Debra Dun, Chanda and Coimbatore.
This rig was provided by the UNDP (Special Fund) but much equipment has also been donated by the Governments of Sweden and Finland.
A pilot investigation was made by the Institute of Work and Physiology of Stockholm to determine the types of basic logging tools most suitable for logging conditions in India. Although the study lasted only for a period of seven weeks and covered a limited number of forest workers, it may be of general applicability because of its approach to the problem by way of combined physiological and work study, as a means of obtaining useful information on the suitability of tools at low cost.
It certainly had relevance for the instructors' training program in India, aimed at enabling the instructors ultimately to train some 200,000 to 300,000 forest workers, which involves considerable administrative, economic and psychological problems. However, the experience of other countries makes clear that such training is a very good investment. Effective training of forest workers will give visible and economically rewarding results within a few years.
The additional Swedish equipment to be used by the instructors for the training of the workers is being distributed to the various States, and training of the workers has already started on a small scale: a program of a minimum of two weeks is recommended. It is expected that during the last year of the project, 1968/69, the emphasis will be laid on this training, and that afterward the States will organize their own training schemes. It is also expected that local manufacture of suitable logging tools and equipment will be instituted.
Another school is being formed in Cameroon. Students here are learning to approach elephants on foot.
The setting is east Africa where tourism is a major source of income. For instance, tourism in Kenya, attracted principally to the five main national parks, is responsible for foreign exchange earrings which come third after coffee and tea. Tourism has been growing at some 15 percent per annum in the last five years and is expected to continue at this rate to 1970; in the near future it is likely to become the country's largest earner of foreign exchange.
Meanwhile, inside the national parks it had become evident that the relationship between animals and their habitat, or between different species of animal, was becoming upset, resulting in overpopulation of some species and the disappearance of others. In the past two decades research has contributed much to extending the principles of wildlife management to African conditions. However, in order to apply them to Africa's national parks and game reserves, there was clear need for game wardens trained in basic ecology and biology, and in the practical skills of manipulation of wild animal populations and their habitats.
These developments took place at a time when most of the African countries concerned were becoming independent, and when many of the European game wardens were leaving, so that there was an urgent need for trained African game wardens. The expense of such training and the relatively small number of men required for each country made national training schools unrealistic.
It was in these circumstances that the Mweka College of African Wildlife Management was set up, in June 1963, on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. The college, which was to have a regional function and to train students from English-speaking African countries, was financed initially by the Government of Tanzania, the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation and the United States of America, with assistance from the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom. A consultant mission to central and southern Africa in 1963, sent to consider possibilities for United Nations Development Program action in the field of wildlife management, visited Mweka and recommended the college as a suitable project for Special Fund assistance. FAO assisted in drawing up a request to New York which was approved in May 1965. The purpose was to strengthen and expand the college by increasing the teaching staff, developing the curriculum and the field program, and providing more equipment.
There are now two levels of instruction,- a senior diploma course lasting two years for trainee game wardens, and a junior certificate course of one year for game assistants. In addition, short courses are held from time to time for game scouts, schoolteachers, park guides, agricultural students or other interested groups, to introduce them to some of the elementary principles of wildlife management.
Training at Mweka is directed toward giving the students practical field experience, together with the classroom work necessary to understand basic ideas in wildlife biology, ecology and range management. The students spend half their time in the field, making censuses of wild animals and surveys of the habitat, helping to follow and arrest poachers and learning about law court procedure, maintenance of vehicles, map reading and surveying, and field works such as construction of tracks or temporary bridges.
Control of potentially dangerous wild animals such as elephant, buffalo or lion is an increasingly common task for wildlife officers and by the time they leave Mweka each student has gained experience by assisting with control operations in Tanzania or Kenya.
Mweka was created with east African needs particularly in mind. However, the importance of the training offered was quickly appreciated and requests for admission now come from all over Africa and even from Asia, although applicants from east Africa are given preference. The fees charged to sponsoring governments are fixed at U.S. $1,500 per year for each diploma course student and $1,350 for the certificate course.
A Governing Body of representatives of the three East African countries, UNDP and FAO holds the responsibility and powers associated with the running of the school (formerly held by the Government) including decisions on syllabus, counterpart staff and counterpart finance. Meetings of the Governing Body enable regular consultations to be held about the running of the school with representatives of the countries which will receive most of the graduates. Since the chairman of the board is the director of the East African Agriculture and Forestry Research Organization and since the
University College of Nairobi is represented, the closest liaison is maintained between these organizations and the Mweka program.
The main problem encountered at Mweka is the training of students, with a wide variety of backgrounds and different academic standards, for a number of different national requirements. Although minimum educational standards are stipulated, some countries have had difficulty in finding students of this standard from among their Game Department staff. Initially it was necessary to compromise and accept candidates of lower standard in order not to deprive some countries of the chance of sending students. However, since the first year, the caliber of the new students has risen considerably.
Since the beginning of the project some 50 game wardens have graduated at diploma level, and 70 game assistants at certificate level, coming from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, the Sudan, Ethiopia, Zambia, Nigeria and Cameroon. In addition there have been over 100 participants in the special short courses lasting from two weeks to two months.
The first FAO project manager was H.F. Lamprey (United Kingdom). He took up a special research post in the Serengeti plains of Tanzania in 1966 and his position has been assumed by A.J. Mence.
The future of the present expert staff and their ultimate replacement by local instructors are part of the problem of the future of Mweka after the end of UNDP assistance in 1970. In view of the considerable field experience necessary to teach wildlife management techniques, it is unrealistic to expect recent graduates to take over from expatriate officers in the near future. But it is expected that an increase in contributions from participating governments will enable the gap to be bridged until African biologists take over instruction in all subjects.
The first Mweka students have returned to their national departments and have by their work demonstrated the value of the training they received at Mweka. Perhaps the best comment on the success of the college is that a request for a similar school for French-speaking Africa has been approved by UNDP, and comparable projects are already being discussed for southeast Asia and Latin America.
In Peru, forests cover one half of the total area but only 20 percent of them are accessible. The principal impediments to the development of forest industries are lack of knowledge about the composition of the forests, lack of awareness about the technical possibilities for the use of the timbers, and an absence of modern utilization systems.
The Government of Peru requested assistance from UNDP for a five-year forestry research and training program in 1963 and a project became operational in that year. The purpose was:
1. to provide the country with a forestry faculty to educate forestry engineers of professional standard;2. to establish a forest rangers' school to train field staff to operate under the supervision of the forestry engineers;
3. to establish a forestry and forest products research institute to undertake research on the chief forestry problems of the country.
The forestry faculty was established as part of the Agrarian University at La Molina, near Lima, and a five-year study program started which included three years of basic studies on agricultural sciences and two years of specialization in forestry and field work. Intensive study courses in forestry were designed for students already holding degrees in agriculture or natural sciences and for staff members of the Forest Service already having practical experience.
The job of the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, now also established at the Agrarian University, is to collect and disseminate information about the development of forest industries; conduct research at four field research centers on silviculture and regeneration of tropical forests at high altitudes, the drying of wood, wood preservation, and sawmilling; and conduct forest inventories and related surveys as needed. Resulting information is made available to government agencies, forest owners and private industry.
The forest rangers' school is affiliated with the University of the Peruvian Amazonia at Iquitos and established in the lower tropical forest zone. It has a two-year curriculum covering mainly practical studies. In addition, special courses for experienced forest workers from the Forest Service and from private industry have been arranged.
The assistance given by UNDP to the project is due to phase out in 1968. The forestry faculty, now entitled Faculty of Forest Sciences, opened with the enrollment of 10 students in the intensive curriculum and 7 in the regular five-year curriculum. After completing their training, the students in the intensive curriculum recently he has been appointed Director, Office of Public Service and Continuing Education, State University College of Forestry, Syracuse, New York, received the degree of forest engineer and are employed full time at the forestry faculty and the rangers' school. Enrollment in the regular curriculum has now increased to 43 and 17 courses are being taught. Within the faculty there are two departments - the Department of Forestry and the Department of Forest Products - each with a separate curriculum. Beginning in 1967 enrollment was also opened to students from other countries.
Dr. Yavorsky had previously spent seven years at headquarters in Rome helping to build up FAO's program in wood utilization and technology. In 1967 he was assigned to UNDP headquarters in New York.
Discussions between representatives of UNDP, FAO, the Agrarian University and the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture have led to agreement that the present research institute should, with further assistance from abroad, be converted into a center for forestry development and investigations. The center would be an autonomous body responsible for applied research and planning in regard to forestry and forest products. It would also serve as the focal point for contact and co-ordination between the forestry faculty, the Forest Service and the forest products industries. Finance for the center will come from the present forestry fund, from congressional appropriations, and from income resulting from studies and investigations conducted for other government agencies and private industries. It is expected that regional and subregional forestry development projects, included in the Government's economic development programs, will add considerably to the national income of Peru.
L.J.V.
