ON 16 OCTOBER 1945, representatives of 42 countries met in Quebec to sign the Constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and to start the first session of the FAO Conference. FAO'S responsibility with regard to forestry and forest industries was formalized at this Conference. The Organization's work since then has been based on the wide mandate laid down in the Charter that FAO should be concerned with all aspects of forestry and primary forest products.
Nearly 25 years later, on the eve of FAO'S silver jubilee, the Fifteenth Session of the Conference has approved the upgrading in 1970 of the present Forestry and Forest Industries Division to departmental rank. The Conference looked upon the establishment of a Forestry Department as due recognition of the importance of FAO activities in the field of forestry and forest industries, and of the positive impact that the work carried out by the Organization has had and continues to have on world forestry and on the economic expansion of the developing countries.
Two documents presented to the Fifteenth Session of the FAO Conference which reflect the Organization's policy with regard to some aspects of forestry and forest industries development, are reproduced in this issue of Unasylva. It is significant that, though independently conceived and approaching the problems of forestry and forest industries development from different angles, both studies arrive at virtually the same conclusions.
It is clear that markets for wood and wood products are expanding. It is evident that many developing countries possess, or are capable of producing, raw materials to meet the requirements of new forest industries. It is certain that the world has the scientific and technological knowledge to produce wood and convert it into the end products which the markets will take. However, raw materials, markets, and scientific and technological knowledge, though essential components of the development process, do not in themselves guarantee economic progress. There is an additional requirement: personnel who are able to mobilize the resources necessary for the production of those goods and services which are in demand.
It is the contention of the two papers published in this issue that, given a favourable combination of raw material supply, rising demand and suitable technology, the limiting factors to forestry and forest industries development are institutional. The papers therefore advocate that the administrative structures of forest services should be modernized, that the training which is given to foresters should be more development-oriented, and that those other institutions which hinder development in many parts of the world should be examined with a view to improving the sector's economic growth. Since little is known with certainty of the process of economic expansion, it would be imprudent to guarantee that the institutional changes urged will automatically lead to growth of the forestry and forest industries sector of member countries. But, if the precepts are put into practice, the stage will at least be set for expansion.
It was a happy coincidence that the Fifteenth Session of the FAO Conference not only recognized that outmoded forestry institutions presented serious obstacles to economic growth in the developing countries but also grasped the opportunity to recast its own organizational structure to meet the changed needs of member countries. For the change in status from the Forestry and Forest Industries Division to the Forestry Department is essentially an organizational rearrangement designed to make FAO'S work more effective.
Expanding trade in tropical wood products
The provisional Indicative World Plan is based on a detailed analysis of trends in world agricultural and agro-allied industries in order to establish the objectives to which world agricultural policies should aim, to identify the obstacles that would need to be overcome and to determine the measures that would therefore need to be taken. Forestry is deeply and closely associated with IWP because of the land-use relationships between agriculture and forestry, and because of the impetus which forest industries can give to economic development with which agricultural development is so closely linked.
The FAO Conference took note that the reservations made by representatives of some countries with regard to the approach and conclusions of IWP did not apply to the forestry sector of the study. On the contrary, the representatives in question felt that the treatment of the forestry sector in I WP was realistic and its conclusions helpful.
There will not be a general reworking or new edition of the provisional IWP but various types of follow-up will be undertaken within the framework of the United Nations Second Development Decade, which will be proclaimed in late 1970. The methodology used for the forestry sector will be made available to Member Nations seeking to establish medium- and long-term indicative plans.
