FAO SECRETARIAT
This article is the reprint of a special chapter in The state of food and agriculture 1969. FAO, Rome. It was written by K.F.S. King, Forest Policy Branch, with the assistance of other members of the Forestry and Forest Industries Division.
THE FORESTRY and forest industries sector possesses a number of economic and technical characteristics which enable it to act as an important base for economic growth and to play a decisive role in the attack on underdevelopment. However, despite this and the fact that more than half of the world's forests are located in the developing countries, it is evident that this sector is making a much smaller contribution to the improvement of their national economies than its potential warrants.
This is not to deny that in recent years forestry and forest industries have made significant and increasing contributions to the economic growth of some developing countries; indeed, between 1962 and 1967 the exports of wood and wood products from developing countries increased at a faster rate than their total exports. However, the base from which these exports grew was small, and very little of the timber exported was subjected to any sort of mechanical conversion process in the countries of origin. In addition, many of the developing countries, including some with extensive forest resources, are still net importers of forest products, especially of the more highly processed types.
Because of the predominance of roundwood and simply processed timber such as sawnwood in the forestry exports of developing countries, most of the value added to their total wood production accrues to the already industrialized countries. In many cases this may reduce the export-earning and import-saving capacity of the developing countries, retard the diversification of their economies and the introduction of their labour force to more complex processes, and in general result in slower rates of economic growth.
The situation is all the more disappointing because forest products constitute one of the few agricultural commodity groups for which demand is growing rapidly both in the developing countries and in the industrialized regions. It has been estimated that in Africa, Asia and Latin America the annual demand for wood-based panels will rise between 1962 and 1975 from 3.64 to 12.8 million cubic metres, for paper and paperboard from 13.76 to 39.9 million metric tons, and for roundwood from 65.9 to 90.4 million cubic metres) In the developed countries it is expected that the overall demand for paper and paperboard will increase over the same period from 63.71 to 122 million cubic metres) and for wood-based panels from 26.9 to 63 million cubic metres.¹ The forestry and forest industries sector therefore has a great potential for both export earnings and import substitution. Why, then, are the forest resources of the developing world not making the desired impact?
(¹ FAO, Wood: world trends and prospects, Unasylva, Vol. 20 (1-2), 1966. Also FFHC Basic Study No. 16, 1967.)
There are, no doubt, many obstacles to the development of the sector. In the past the state of forest science and technology was such that the development of indigenous forest production was severely restricted. But, as a result of advances made in recent years this is no longer the case. The absence of adequate investment remains an obvious impediment. It will be shown, however, that this is not so much a root cause as a symptom reflecting other factors which appear to make investment in forestry less attractive than that in some other fields. There are also infrastructural deficiencies such as lack of roads for transporting forest products and shortage of electric power for forest industries. Also, the efforts of developing countries to expand their exports are hampered by various barriers in the developed countries, which tend to protect their own processing industries and give preference to imports of logs.
All these handicaps are undoubtedly significant. Experience shows, however, that the most serious obstacles to the rapid development of forestry and forest industries in the developing countries are institutional. These institutional impediments are therefore the main topic of this study.
By way of background, the study begins with a discussion of those characteristics of forestry and forest industries which render the sector an important catalyst for economic development. This is followed by a brief exposition of some recent advances in forest science and technology, in order to show that lack of knowledge is no longer an obstacle to the transformation of forestry in the developing countries into a modern development-oriented sector. The rest of the study is devoted to a discussion of three principal institutional restraints on forestry development. It will be shown that structure and constitution of forest services in most developing countries are not suited to the development-oriented management of forest resources. This is followed by an examination of a number of shortcomings in education? research and forest extension. It will be further demonstrated that fore it legislation in many developing countries has not been specifically designed to speed up the rational utilization of this resource. In addition, because it is frequently contradictory, it often hinders purposeful development. Throughout this discussion suggestions are made for improving the institutions ooncerned, to make them more suitable for modern requirements. Finally, the problem of resource evaluation will be considered.
One of the main social problems in many developing countries is the increasing urban unemployment which results from the drift of population from the country to the town, since the rate of job creation through urban industrialization is not high enough to absorb these migrants. Any undertaking which provides significant employment opportunities in rural areas can therefore play an important part in rural stabilization and in general economic development.²
(² For a fuller discussion see, in particular, The role of forest industries in the attack on economic underdevelopment, in FAO, The state of food and agriculture 1962, Rome, 1962. C.A. D'Adamo, Financiamento de las plantaciones forestales en América del sud, document, FAO Symposium on Man-Made Forests and Their Industrial Importance, Canberra, 14-24 April 1967, Rome, FAO, 1967. G.R. Gregory, Forests and economic development in Latin America, Journal of Forestry, 63, 1965, p. 83-88. - K.F.S. King, The formulation of forest policies in developing countries, document, Ninth Commonwealth Forestry Conference, New Delhi, 1968, and J.A. Zivnuska, The integration of forest development plans and national development plans, document, Sixth World Forestry Congress, Madrid 1966, have also discussed this subject.
Most production forestry activity is based on wood. Because wood is bulky, it is not only difficult to transport, but its value relative to its weight is often low. Moreover, most forest industries are weight losing, and the wood raw material generally accounts for a significant proportion of production costs. Consequently, although some forest industries, particularly the less capital-intensive types such as sawmilling, are somewhat flexible in their locational requirements, most others, like the pulp industry, are more or less tied to the forested areas. The economics of location thus favour the establishment of forest industries near the source of the raw material. By creating significant employment opportunities in rural areas, forestry and forest industries can therefore provide an excellent means of alleviating the problems of underdevelopment and unemployment.
Another relevant characteristic is the ability of forests to yield a great number of products which vary considerably both in their properties and in the uses to which they can be put. This diversity is caused partly by the floristic composition of the forests, partly by the multiplicity of products obtainable from a single tree, and partly by the fact that the composition of wood is such that it is capable of providing the raw material for a group of related but very divergent industries. In addition. wood itself is a versatile material. It is comparatively easy to work, is strong in relation to its weight, is often beautiful in appearance, is elastic, and is nonconductive. [forest products there fore range from commodities such as fuelwood and sawlogs to complex products such as pulp and paper; from by-products like resins, latex and essential oils, to particle board and plywood.
This catholicity of end use is one of the chief reasons for the importance of the forestry and forest industries sector in the attack on underdevelopment. The products which the forests yield and the processes employed to convert them into other articles are such that there appears to be some type of forest industry suitable for virtually every stage of economic development.
A few primary industries may serve as illustrations. At one end of the scale is the sawmilling industry in which the value added in processing is often very low. Sawmilling is not a very capital-intensive process and, as economies of scale are not of paramount importance, the size of mills can range from very small units with simple machinery to large concerns that are heavily mechanized. Not surprisingly, this is usually the first forest industry to be established, because it does not require a high degree of technical skill and its foreign exchange outlay is low.
At the other end of the scale is the capital-intensive pulp and paper industry. Although investment needs are high, so is the value added. Perhaps equally important to investors, pay-out time (total investment divided by annual gross output) is low, ranging from 18 months to three years. More than half of the investment costs are for equipment and engineering fees which often necessitate high foreign exchange expenditures. On the other hand, the potential foreign exchange earning and saving capacity of the pulp and paper industry is high. The pattern of production costs varies considerably depending on the process used, the size of the plant, its location and whether the production of pulp is integrated with that of paper. A large proportion of the labour force should be skilled, but unskilled labour has been easily trained in the techniques of pulp and paper production in a number of developing countries, including, Burma, Colombia, India and Swaziland.
Plywood manufacture dies between sawmilling and the pulp and paper industry in technological requirements and in production costs. Although higher than for sawmilling, investment costs are much lower than for pulp and paper, and economies of scale are not as great as they are for pulp and paper. Formerly the availability of logs of large diameter was thought indispensable for plywood manufacture, but this is no longer a prerequisite.
This small but representative sample of forest industries is sufficient to illustrate the wide range of scales available for developing countries, the varying intensities of capital and labour demanded, the different degrees of skills required and the consequent possibility of growth by stages. In addition, this group of industries possesses a feature which makes it eminently suitable for the attack on economic underdevelopment. Forest industries not only slip easily into the existing economic structures of developing countries, they also provide the basis for succeeding stages of economic development. Much of the demand for wood products comes from other industries and the inputs of many wood-using industries are products of other industries. Through these forward and backward linkages,³ the expansion of forestry and forest industries can therefore act as a stimulating force for many other economic activities.
(3See, for example, H.B. Chenery and T. Watanabe, International comparisons of the structure of production, paper presented at the Cleveland meeting of the Economic Society, 1956 (cited by A.O. Hirschmann, The strategy of economic development, New Haven, Conn., Yale University Press, 1968). The authors ranked 29 industries in Italy, Japan and the United States according to their combined backward and forward linkages. They considered that more weight should be given to backward linkage for development potential, and found that paper and paper products ranked third (57 backward/78 forward), timber twelfth (61/30) and forestry, with agriculture, twenty-third. Both paper and timber have higher than average backward linkage indices.)
Forestry and forest industries can also make a special contribution to development through the earning and saving of foreign exchange. Two attributes possessed by wood and wood products are valuable in this context. First, in contrast to most other tropical products, the income elasticities of demand for forest products in the developed countries are, in general, relatively high. Secondly, the developed countries of the temperate regions do not have significant forest resources for the manufacture of certain grades of sawnwood, plywood and veneer for which there is demand. There is therefore a growing dependence on tropical forests, and it appears that further expansion of high-quality hardwood consumption will be based on tropical hardwoods.
Finally, although the developed countries undoubtedly possess some advantages in the growing and processing of wood - such as cheaper capital, a greater supply of skills, and a more adequate infrastructure- these appear to be more than counterbalanced by certain factors which tend to favour the developing countries. The growth rates of forests in developing countries are generally higher than those in developed countries; labour costs per unit of forest product are lower in developing countries;4 freight costs of processed forest products emanating from the developing countries are lower than the costs of transporting unconverted wood for manufacture in the developed countries;5 and, because of the increasing demands on the forests of developed countries for nonwood services such as recreation, production costs per unit area are rising steeply. These demands are not likely to be experienced with such intensity by the developing countries for some time to come.
(4 R. Eklund, R. A. de Rosayro, H. Lühr and L. Nagoda, Forest industries development in west Africa, Addis Ababa, United Nations Economic and Social Council, Economic Commission for Africa, 1966.)
(5 R. Eklund et al., op. cit.)
Recent developments in various branches of forest science and technology have eased the biological and technological constraints under which forestry operates as an economic activity. A full discussion of these advances is beyond the scope of this study, and attention will be drawn only to those innovations which are considered specially relevant to developing economies.
In the past, forest production in the developing countries was primarily dependent upon natural forests. Because natural tropical forests are extensive and possess fine hardwoods that are required both in the developing and developed regions for many grades of sawnwood, plywood and veneer, and also because of recent advances in forest technology, natural forests will play an important role in world forestry. However, it is now recognized in the developing countries that forest plantations must- in many cases be established to complement these natural forests or to replace those that have been overexploited. The advantages of forest plantations are many and far-reaching. They utilize time and space more efficiently, and yield raw material of comparatively uniform size and quality. Their products can be more or less custom-made to meet certain technological requirements. They are relatively simple to manage and, unlike natural forests, their location can be planned. They are also more responsive than natural forests to the advances of science.
Forest fertilization
Significant progress in forest fertilization is of fairly recent occurrence. In the past it was generally held that a considerable amount of the fertilizers applied to forest would be lost through leaching. And even where the fertilizers were demonstrably effective with regard to the growth and survival of young and recently planted trees, there were doubts concerning the duration of the effects. Little was known about the nature and size of the response which trees would make to fertilizers that had been applied in the pole, sapling, and semi-mature stages of growth, and there was no knowledge of the quality of the wood produced by fertilized trees.
The position is now somewhat changed. Reports from all over the world show that on many forest sites the fears expressed with regard to the leaching of applied nutrients were exaggerated. Even on gravelly soil, five years after nitrogenous fertilizer had been applied, it was found that nitrogen had been leached only from a small part of the upper soil horizon.6 This is explained by certain characteristics of the forest ecosystem which enable it to retain applied fertilizers for very long periods. The fertilizers are absorbed by the roots of forest trees, are eventually incorporated into plant tissues, and are returned to the soil when the dead leaves, twigs, fruits and branches fall. This cycle of uptake, deposition, and uptake again, obviously influences the duration of the effect of applied fertilizers, and the evidence suggests that this effect may be experienced up to 40 years after application, depending upon the type and quantity of fertilizers applied, the nature of the soil, the climate, the drainage pattern, and the efficiency with which the nutrient cycle functions.7
(6 S.P, Gessel and T.N. Stote, The use of nitrogenous fertilizer with Douglas fir, document, Sixth World Forestry Congress, Madrid, 1966.)
(7H.S.D. Swan, The fertilization of man-made forests, document, FAO Symposium on Man-Made Forests and Their Industrial Importance, Canberra, 14-24 April 1967, Rome, 1967.)
The magnitude of the effects can also be surprisingly high. Growth increases have been recorded which range from 15 to 200 percent more than unfertilized areas of similar species composition and on similar sites, and experience in Scandinavia indicates that increases in periodic annual increment of between 30 and 50 percent are easily obtained. This type of response has been observed in all the stages of a forest plantation's growth, and fertilizers have been shown to increase the productivity of forest plantation crops even after the plantations had closed canopy.8
(8S.O. Heiberg and D.P. White, Potash deficiency of reforested pine and spruce stands in northern New York, Proceedings of the Soil Science Society of America, 1950, 15, 1951, p. 369-376.)
Nor is increased growth the only advantage to be gained. It has been found in Zambia, for example, that an application of boron in quantities higher than those normally used for trace elements has resulted in the successful establishment of eucalyptus in areas in which this genus had previously failed.9 In other parts of the world, even checked or extremely slow-growing plantations have been stimulated to greater growth.
(9L. Nwoboshi, A case for fertilizers in Nigerian forestry, Obeche, 1 (4), 1968.)
These remarkable increases in productivity have not adversely affected the quality of the wood raw material, and the wood produced by fertilized trees has been found to be eminently suitable for most end uses.
Forest tree breeding
Recent progress in the field of forest tree breeding has been no less spectacular. With the spread of tropical forestry activity to the establishment of plantations in which management is of necessity more intensive, it, has become possible and indeed necessary to choose those species, provenances and genotypes which are capable of exploiting the available environments to the best advantage. It has also become obvious that where otherwise desirable species do not possess certain characteristics, and where desirable characteristics are distributed among species, it would be profitable to breed for those characteristics.
Hence, throughout the tropical world, forest tree breeders have been collecting seed from various provenances, conducting provenance trials, selecting individuals from successful provenances for breeding purposes, establishing seed orchards, testing progeny, and attempting interspecific crosses and vegetative propagation. They have also been examining the quality of the wood produced by the trees, provenance taxonomy, phenology of growth and flowering, pollen disposal, etc.
Considering the short time which has been devoted to this field of endeavour, the intensity of research in some countries and the results so far obtained are encouraging. In east Africa the impetus has come chiefly from the tree-breeding section of the East African Agriculture and Forestry Research Organization. Already much progress has been made in Tanzania in seed stand selection and there is a series of progeny trials, perhaps the most important of which, that of Pinus patula, has been replicated in Kenya and Uganda. There are many provenance and progeny trials, seed orchards and tree banks, and there is a sound programme for the coming years. Kenya and Uganda are also forging ahead. As a result, knowledge has become available on the species to be grown for form and vigour and on the areas to which they are best suited.10
(10E. Vaclav, Tree breeding in Tanzania, document, FAO Symposium on Man-Made Forests and Their Industrial Importance, Canberra, 14-24 April 1967, FAO, Rome, 1967.)
Provenance trials are considered to be an essential part of genetic improvement work, and in Zambia, for example, replicated trials have been established with such species as Pinus khasya, Eucalyptus maculata, and some Mexican and Caribbean pines. The discovery of the vigour and form of the F1 generation produced by the natural hybridization of Eucalyptus grandis and E. tereticornis has led to the controlled pollination and systematic exploration of hybrids in diallel hybridizing patterns. A seedling seed orchard has been established to utilize seed of superior phenotypes of Pinus khasya which had been collected in the Philippines, and clonal seed orchards of pine and eucalypt species have been laid down. These seed orchards are intended to provide phenotypically good strains of species from which seed is in short supply, and material for the diallel pattern hybridizing experiment.11
(11E.N. Cooling, Improvement of seed of exotic forest trees for use in Zambia, document, FAO Symposium on Man-Made Forests and Their Industrial Importance, Canberra, 14-24 April 1967, Rome, 1967.)
In Nigeria relatively extensive species trials are being conducted with various species of pine and eucalypt, and with teak, and attention is increasingly being paid to provenance trials. Some of the teak results have already been adapted to large-scale plantations. In Trinidad, a successful technique has been evolved for teak grafting, and much work has also been done on the grafting of Pinus caribaea although the results, promising as they are, have not been as gratifying as those obtained for teak. Clonal teak and pine gardens have been successfully established.
In the Republic of Korea genetically improved seeds have been obtained from the interspecific crossing of Pinus taeda with P. rigida, and elsewhere in Asia, particularly at the Thai/Danish Teak Improvement Centre, there has been much activity in this field.
It is apparent from these by no means exhaustive examples that much rewarding work is being done in those biological areas that are relevant to the production of the wood raw material, and that biological knowledge is not a critical obstacle to forestry development. It is not being suggested, however, that there is no room for further improvement. In the field of fertilization there is obviously need for more fundamental research. More knowledge is still needed on, for example, the nature of the laws governing the assimilation of nutrients by trees, the optimum amounts of fertilizers which should be applied in order to create satisfactory soil conditions, the effect of slow-acting fertilizers on tree growth, and the best techniques of fertilizer application.
There is also an urgent need to test the techniques and results obtained in some countries, most of them temperate, under more widespread tropical conditions. In the field of tree breeding it is necessary to adopt the methods of quantitative genetics, particularly as the characters of vigour and form, for example, are likely to be under polygenic control and will therefore certainly show complex inheritance patterns. Also, there are still many bottlenecks in seed procurement and distribution, and the logistics of this whole operation need to be worked out more efficiently. As a general proposition, however, existing forest biological knowledge is quite considerable, and this aspect of forest science ought not seriously to hinder forestry development. The development problem in this respect appears to be the application of existing knowledge.
Wood pulp for paper
The impact of technology is felt in varying degrees in all the stages of forestry and forest industries, from relatively simple operations such as the preparation of soil mixtures for forest nurseries to more complicated processes such as the manufacture of paper. It is evident, therefore, that although there have been significant advances in many areas, particularly in those processing stages which permit a more integrated utilization of the forest crop, all of them cannot be discussed here. Three topics have therefore been selected for examination, partly because of their importance to the more sophisticated of the forest industries, and partly because they relate more directly to natural forests, which were excluded from the treatment of recent advances made in forest biology. The topics concern the nature of the raw material required for the production of wood pulp for paper manufacture, log size in plywood manufacture, and wood and wood products transport.
In the past it was generally held that tropical hardwoods were unsuitable for paper pulp because of the shortness of their fibres. It is important to realize that the raw material base for paper pulp manufacture has changed considerably throughout the development of paper technology. Partly as a result of the increasing demands for paper and paper products and partly because of the reduction in supply of the traditional materials used for pulp manufacture, new processes have been evolved from time to time to utilize more abundant raw material. Succeeding techniques have tended not only to correct the imperfections of preceding processes but also, in doing so, to incorporate a wider range of wood species into the pulp-making ambit. It is more than probable that, if tropical hardwoods had been in abundant supply near the main centres of paper consumption, their raw material would have been utilized earlier for pulp and paper production.
Be that as it may, because of the relative abundance of hardwood species and the favourable price differential which they possess in many parts of the world over coniferous species, -the use of semi-chemical and chemi-mechanical processes, for which these woods are particularly suited, is becoming of increasing importance. It is already well established that combining- the mechanical and chemical pulping processes leads to the utilization of a range of quite unconventional raw materials. Many investigations have revealed that tropical hardwoods are capable of producing paper pulp and there are companies in all parts of the world which are translating the research findings in pulp and paper technology to practical advantage. The important factor seems to be the process and machinery used, rather than the structure of the wood.
This is not to imply that, given the present state of technology, tropical hardwoods in mixture can be used for the production of all types of paper. There seems to be some correlation between the morphological characters of wood fibres and certain properties of the resulting pulp and paper.12 It seems obvious therefore that developing countries with large areas of tropical high forests should concentrate on the production of those types of paper for which they have a comparative advantage in terms of raw material supply and equally that they should not permit old ideas concerning the quality of their wood resources to inhibit their potential for growth in this industry. Above all. they should not consider that short-fibred hardwoods are merely substitutes for long-fibred softwoods; they are a valuable raw material in their own right.
(12An investigation was conducted recently in which 12 species of African hardwoods, of greatly differing densities, were treated by the Kraft process. Many cooks were made and the result revealed correlations between flexibility coefficient and the following characteristics: density of the wood, rate of impregnation of the wood by alkaline reactive agents, beatability rate of the pulps, dryness of drained pulps, tensile, bursting and folding strength of paper, bulk and porosity. See D. Normand and C. Petroff, The correlation between the physical and mechanical properties of paper and dimensional characteristics of fibre from, tropical hardwoods, document, Conference on Pulp and Paper Development in Africa and Near East, Cairo, 8-20 March 1965.)
Plywood log size
The former technological necessity for large logs in plywood manufacture has sometimes been one of the factors which have limited the growth of this industry in developing countries. For, although many of them possessed woods which displayed all the physical characteristics that lend themselves to easy peeling, the preponderance of small sizes often meant that only a few suitable logs could be extracted per unit area, and extraction costs were therefore relatively high. Moreover, in many of the old processes, the heavy losses on conversion were mainly due to the often considerable dimensions of the residual cores, which were perforce left by the machinery used.
While there is little doubt that the presence of large logs would sometimes make the economics of plywood manufacture more attractive, recent developments in manufacturing methods make it possible to utilize much smaller girths.13 This means that a whole range of species which at maturity are small in diameter, in addition to the smaller sizes of those species that are already being utilized can now be processed.
(13This advantage is partly achieved by using a kind of telescopic spindle to hold the log in place while it is being rotated. As the log is peeled and becomes progressively smaller, the large spindle required to support the weight of the initially large log is no longer necessary, and the outer casings are withdrawn leaving a small spindle, sometimes with diameters as small as 5 centimetres.)
Other reasons for this change in the nature of the raw material used for plywood manufacture are the evolution of new market patterns for plywood for construction purposes, and the consequent technological advance that has been made in veneer cutting. As the quality of the wood raw material is not of as great importance when plywood is used for construction, the new type of industry is able to utilize wood of a quality and size intermediate between that needed for sawn timber and pulpwood. New veneer cutters with automatic chargers are capable of peeling logs of sometimes indifferent quality at very great speeds, and this can lead to a wider use of species. If these technological advances are applied in the factories of the developing countries, they cannot but, improve the competitiveness of their plywood industries.
Wood and wood products transport
Until recently the harvesting of wood has been based essentially on standard agricultural tractors and motorized vehicles. In many developed countries these traditional means of wood transport are now obsolescent. In their place, highly mechanized multipurpose harvesters, of which the most important new component is the articulated tractor, are being developed. Many systems are being tested, and it is as yet too early to assess the full operational consequences of the various methods. However, the range of wood harvesting machinery is now extremely wide, and the developing countries are therefore in a position to choose and adapt those types that nave been adequately tested, are best suited to their condition, and-most important - are commensurate with their socioeconomic needs. It must be emphasized however that, even if it is considered to be socioeconomically desirable fully to mechanize wood harvesting, the efficient use of these machines requires detailed plans of operation. Without research in the logistics of forest operations, mechanical innovations of this type are to a great extent useless.
Remarkable strides have also been made in transporting wood in bulk. This has been mainly due to the increasing interest which is being shown in chipping wood within the forests. The fluidized movement of pulp by air pressure is also becoming more widespread. Another development which may be adapted with advantage by many developing countries is the use of pallets or flats for the transport of unit loads of forest products. This advance enables loads to be packed and handled at relatively low cost. It could therefore make the exports of some forest products from the developing countries more competitive. Here again it must be stressed, however, that the full effect of these improvements can be realized only if parallel improvements are made in the conversion processes that are employed.
In these important aspects of forest technology which have been chosen for their illustrative value, there are signs of a significant breakthrough. Much remains to be done, even in the fields selected for illustration. The technology of pulp production with mixed tropical hardwoods is as yet in its infancy, and it is still a vast, comparatively unexplored field. Much more needs to be known about the optimum proportions of species to be employed in given mixtures, about solving the problems of chemical recovery, about the improvement of appearance, and therefore of the marketability, of the finished product. So far, much of the paper produced from tropical pulps has been sold in local markets. This has saved foreign exchange. But to compete successfully in the harsh international markets the existing processes must be continually refined.
The plywood produced by the developing nations is often as good as that manufactured in the more industrialized countries. But there is still scope for improving the economics of production by the further refinement of the quality of the glues that are used and by their greater local manufacture. Better surface treatments will also improve the appearance of the produce and increase its salability. More research should also be conducted on those technological and market features which lead to the production of new types of plywood.
Inevitably, the list of gaps in knowledge, of the areas in which it is necessary to break new ground, and of the fields in which technology must be refined is long. Nevertheless, it appears that sufficient information is available to warrant the claim that the forest resources of the developing countries constitute one of their greatest assets.
It should be clear from what has already been said that, because of its special characteristics and because of the increasing demand for wood and wood products in all parts of the world, the forestry and forest industries sector of the developing countries is capable of making a significant and perhaps unique contribution to economic development. Moreover, the world now possesses sufficient scientific knowledge to transform this potentiality into reality: to increase the productivity of forest plantations, to utilize more fully the natural forests, to harvest forest products more efficiently, and to convert the wood raw material to utilizable end products. Yet, because of certain critical institutional obstacles, which it is well within the competence of the developing countries to remove, their forestry and forest industries sectors are not playing the propulsive role necessary for development.
Because of the differing stages of development in the less industrialized nations, even within the forestry and forest industries sector, the obstacles they must overcome will vary from country to country. Some countries possess abundant productive forests and viable forest industries. Others, although they are well forested, have few if any wood-based industries. Some countries have managed to establish forest industries based on imported raw material, even though their forest area is small or poorly stocked. In others, although there is a virtual absence of both productive forests and forest industries, there is much protection forestry activity.
This classification is by no means exhaustive, and various permutations of the conditions are, of course, possible. However, there are some obstacles which experience has shown to be present, in one form or another, in all developing countries. It is the principal argument of this study that these are basically institutional and that, if they are removed, the stage will be set for the desired acceleration of progress in the sector.
Forest administration
FUNCTIONS AND EXPERTISE OF FOREST SERVICES
Traditionally, forest services in developing countries have been concerned with the identification of the indigenous forest flora and with investigating the ecology of the forests. Where indigenous forests did not exist, or where existing forests were considered inadequate or unsuitable for protection and production, efforts were devoted to the establishment of plantations and all the necessary operations that were concomitant with their establishment. Convinced that a permanent forest estate, often a fixed proportion of the country's land area, was a necessity for sound forest administration, they paid much attention to the reservation and demarcation of the forests. The forest services also controlled the issue of leases, and generally the wood raw material that was produced from those leases was either exported in log form or was subjected only to the most rudimentary conversion processes. They paid a great deal of attention to the contribution which the forests could make to government revenues, and much of their administrative activity was geared to the measurement of timber for the assessment and collection of royalties and fees. Wood technology was mainly confined to ascertaining the strength of timber for structural purposes, and the suitability of the woods for various simple end uses. Some planning was attempted but this was, as it were, in a vacuum, being merely concerned with the management of forests in particular areas. Very little consideration was given to planning the overall role of forestry in, and the contribution it could make to, the national economy as a whole. What is perhaps especially important is that very little thought was given to forest industrial development.
Criticism of these activities is not intended. In the past many of them were, as they still are today, absolutely necessary. The failure to plan on a national scale merely reflected the imperfections of the times, or was the result of the philosophies which then guided the proconsular classes who governed many of these lands. Indeed, much of the past thinking in forestry was in advance of that in other fields of endeavour, for foresters, concerned as they were with a crop which took many years to mature and one in which the capital and interest were inextricably joined, were evolving admirable planning techniques within the confines of their own sector and their limited objectives.
However, the functions of the forest services in the developing countries have changed and broadened. The modern forester must now weld the traditional conservationist approach to a more dynamic attitude toward development. It is therefore necessary to adjust and widen the administrative base of forestry. This is true for most activities in developing countries but it is particularly important in forestry because, unlike government agricultural, geological, and veterinary services, the forest service is concerned not only with research, extension and the provision of advice, but also with the direct management of a resource, and one which often covers vast areas.
The duties of forest services should embrace all those activities which are connected with the regeneration and maintenance of the forests, the harvesting, processing and marketing of forest produce, the maintenance and improvement of soil and water resources, and the establishment and maintenance of amenity areas. The range of expertise required is wide, and forest services must now be prepared to draw upon trained personnel in quite diverse fields. The ever important biological aspects of forestry are reasonably well covered in developing countries, and the training of most foresters in these countries has been heavily weighted in favour of this discipline. The discussion which follows will therefore he confined to an examination of the more serious shortcomings of the other important branches of forestry and forest industries.
Forest economics
Forest economists are needed in almost all activities connected with forestry and forest industries. Yet, there are no forest economists in more than 90 percent of the developing countries. Because in almost all industries production is carried out in anticipation of demand, the forecasting of demand should be a prerequisite of production. This is particularly true in forestry where the primary production process often covers a considerable period. It is especially important in modern forestry where, because of the diversity of forest products, demand forecasting is not a simple exercise concerned with a particular end product, but a complex operation involving a multiplicity of end uses and joint products. III some developing countries, however, plantation schemes are embarked upon with not even the vaguest idea of the size and nature of the future markets for the products envisaged. In others, opportunities for the establishment of plantations are forgone because the necessary investigations are not carried out, and decisions continue to be based on guesses rather than on careful examination of the evidence. Economists are therefore needed to help in the assessment of the size and pattern of future markets for various products.
In addition to this analysis of wood requirements and the markets for wood and wood products, forest economists are required to conduct cost/benefit analyses, trade and market surveys, transport appraisals, and forest industry feasibility studies; they are required to advise on location decisions; and they are needed to integrate the results of all these enquiries with resource evaluations, and to convert them into comprehensive development plans for the forestry and forest, industries sector, consistent with the aims and objectives, of national and regional planning. This last is an important task. For forestry development plans can no longer be formulated in vacuo, but must form part, of the general economic plan.
The influence of economics extends even into the realms of silviculture. Simply stated, the practice of silviculture can be looked upon as an attempt to control and regulate the growth of forests and plantations in such a way that the forest or plantation which wild produce most efficiently the types and services that are required is ultimately attained. In the attempt to achieve the object of management many silvicultural techniques will be employed. In many instances, however, the practices that are ultimately followed are employed merely because of their silvicultural, and not because of their economic benefits. The physical out puts are not translated into monetary terms, and the inputs are :not weighed against the monetary outputs. Sometimes, perhaps fortuitously, the physical and monetary benefits coincide, but where they are in conflict the economy may suffer. Silvicultural practices must therefore always be tested for their economic efficiency, for it must be remembered that, in production forestry, money is becoming a more important consideration. The -forests are only the means by which this is obtained.
Forest industries
The second great weakness in forestry expertise in the developing countries lies in the field of forest industries. In very few forest administrations are there personnel with the knowledge required to advise on, let alone manage, the range of sophisticated forest industries that is becoming so important in modern forestry development. It is not being advocated that each forest service should possess experts in all the various ramifications of the forest industries complex, that they should employ particle board, plywood, and pulp and paper specialists, and that they should have at their day-to-day disposal professionals such as chemists and engineers. What is necessary, however, and what is being urged here, is that foresters in developing economies, particularly because of the general shortage of these specialists in their countries, should be in a position to identify, at least at the preliminary stages of investigation, the requirements of the various forest industries, and the suitability of their wood resources for a number of processes.
More specifically, they should be able to advise governments, planners and sometimes financiers on the technical suitability of the principal raw material for the end product envisaged. They should know if power, water and secondary raw materials are needed for the industry and, if so, in what amounts, whether they are available, or whether they can be made available. They should understand the technical requirements of various processes, so as to be in a position to advise governments and interested persons and organizations on what processes are most suitable. And they should be capable of assessing the manpower requirements of the industry, the degrees of skill that are desired, and the local availability of these skills.
Without this kind of knowledge, indigenous forest industrialization remains solely dependent upon external advice. And although such advice may be forthcoming from the international agencies and through bilateral aid and is usually presented objectively and without bias, it would obviously be advantageous for the local forest administrations to be in a position to appraise the value of the work that has been done for them, if not to provide the services themselves, and to initiate requests for such advice on a well-informed basis.
Land use
Another area where new emphasis is required is general land use. The modern forest service should possess foresters who are able not merely to express in qualitative terms the influence of the forests on soil and water, and the contribution which the efficient management of the forest habitat may make to wildlife production, to recreation, to tourism, and to the entire social environment; they ought to be capable of expressing these quantitatively, and of translating their assessment into monetary values. They should possess the tools to determine the various land-use priorities, to advise whether multiple-use management should be pursued and, if so, what should be the dominant use in the combination. To do this properly, they should not only be au are of the possible combinations, and appreciate the interactions of the various uses, but they should also be able to assess the demands of society for the goods and services that are to be produced, and the costs and benefits which flow from these uses. The vague, often unsupported arguments of the past should be replaced and bolstered by factual evidence.
Business management and administration
Perhaps the greatest and most frequent shortcoming of forest services in developing countries is the inadequacy of business management and administrative understanding. This defect is not confined to the nontechnical aspects of forestry, but is found even in the narrow field of forest management in which foresters have for a long time been active. In view of the traditional emphasis in the less developed countries on the conservationist aspects of forestry, this is perhaps not surprising. In today's socioeconomic environment, however, forests should be fundamentally regarded as development resources to be managed in a businesslike way. There is a great need, therefore, for staff with training in, and the understanding of, business management techniques.
In the past the preservation of nature seemed to dominate all other considerations in the practice of forestry. Although the value of the wood produced from the trees was considered to be of some importance, the pursuit of wealth at the expense of the forests was, in many cases, frowned upon. Foresters were aware of the interactions of forests, water and soil. They had noted that the ravaging of the forest resource often resulted in erosion, soil deposition, siltation, floods and droughts. In addition, they were concerned with the provision of wood to communities which depended upon local forests for their supplies. Because of the limitations of transport facilities they feared the disruption of these supplies, and their thinking, plans and management practices were controlled by these factors.
They therefore evolved certain cultural tenets which emphasized that the forest resource, if not kept intact, should not be unduly disturbed. They also insisted that the physical yield of timber and other forest products should be sustained, in order to produce an even flow of output. These guiding principles and the philosophy underlying them, admirable though they might have been at the times and in the places in which they were formulated, were later given the imprimatur of universal sanctity, and are still followed unquestioningly in many developing countries, in situations in which they have little relevance.
It is now becoming increasingly urgent that the philosophy of forestry be broadened to incorporate unabashedly the concept of economic values. Capital is a scarce resource, and so in many countries is land. Forestry therefore has to compete for those resources, and in order to do this effectively its operations must be efficient. It is only in this way that the forestry and forest industries sector can make its full contribution to economic development. Forest administrations must therefore employ those administrative and management tools which enable them to make the most effective use of the available resources. The forester must be able to make decisions on the analysis of the data and information at his disposal. He must know how to develop alternative solutions, to set goals, to check on performance, and to evaluate results. Put in another way, the task of the modern forester is to determine what goals should and could be achieved, where they could be accomplished, who are the best persons to assign to the necessary duties, the methods that should be employed, and the time when they should be performed. He must also be able to justify these actions and decisions.
It is easy and tempting to suggest that the developing countries should all employ those modern tools which have come to be known under the generic description of operations research. Many of them, for example linear programming, dynamic programming, game theory and probability theory, have their place in forest management and administration and may be used in many forestry and forest industries operations. As a general rule, however, the time is not ripe in those countries for the general applicability of these methods, if only because the information for estimating the required parameters is not always present.
There is, however, one group of planning and control techniques which may be recommended for general use in forestry and forest industries operations in developing countries. This group consists of what is called the programme evaluation and review technique (PERT) and the critical path method (CPM). These two approaches are generally referred to as network analyses. In network analysis a network or graphic model is constructed which illustrates a project or a programme. The technique used in constructing this model is to list the major activities which must be performed to complete the project or programme and to draw up graphically a plan of the logistics of the activities: their sequence, the time needed to complete each of them, and the resource (manpower, money, raw material, etc.) to be allocated. The network therefore shows the interrelations of the activities: when each begins, when each ends, and their influence on each other.
This is not the place to consider the system in detail.14 It may be employed in several situations in forestry and forest industries planning and management operations, offers a way to greater control over many aspects of development and production, and makes it possible to present large amounts of . data in a brief, orderly way. It offers solutions for difficulties such as determining the time which will be needed for executing a project, and the costs which will be incurred. It enables policy makers to detect gaps in the availability of personnel necessary for particular activities. It shows where and when new controls should be put into effect. It can be used as a basis for determining material and capital requirements. Finally, it enables forest managers to handle the uncertainties involved in projects and programmes where no standard cost and time data are available.
(14 For further information see: J.J. Moder and C.R. Phillips, Project management with CPM and PERT, New York, Reinhold, 1964.
Most important perhaps for the developing countries, it is a manual technique which does not depend upon sophisticated and costly machines but which necessitates a rigorous and logical approach in the evaluation of the individual operations and in the formulation of the sequence of activities. Nor is the acquisition of the working skill that is needed for its performance a formidable task.
Whatever modern administrative and managerial tools are employed, the important factor is one of attitude. The former approach of foresters in the developing countries must give way to a new professionalism in which the efficiency of their management and the quality of their planning should be the paramount considerations.
In summary, therefore, a modern forest service in a developing country should have at its disposal, in addition to the forest biologists who traditionally constitute the bulk of the professional staff, forest economists, forest industrialists, land managers and competent administrators. It is not being suggested -that each forest officer should possess all the skills or the knowledge to use the tools that have been described. What, is being urged, however, is that not only should those skills and knowledge be available arid used by the forest service, but also that all forest officers should appreciate tile interplay and indispensability of the various disciplines, and should themselves have at least a rudimentary understanding of them.
ORGANIZATION OF FOREST ADMINISTRATIONS
Possession of expertise will not in itself ensure that a forest service has the essential capacity to organize forestry development. The efficiency with which a forest service is able to initiate and promote forestry and forest industries is to a great extent influenced by its position in the overall administrative structure of the State, and by its own organizational structure. Because the type of organization should depend upon the goals which it is established to achieve, and upon the prevailing socioeconomic circumstances, there is obviously no single formula which would be applicable to all the forest services of the developing countries. However, several of the defects discussed are to be found in many of the nonindustrialized nations, and it is hoped that the treatment below will provide guidelines along which governments could proceed in the reorganization of their forest services.
It must be emphasized that production forestry is a business, and that the organization of forest services must therefore differ in some important respects from that of other government departments in which the duties are limited to the provision of services. It must also be pointed out that administration is not an end in itself, but a means of efficiently achieving desired objectives. From this it follows that the structure of administrative organizations must change as new knowledge becomes available, as socioeconomic conditions alter, and as goals change. This, of course, is a fact frequently forgotten not only in developing but also in developed countries, and changes in administrative attitudes and structures tend to be difficult to bring about. It is therefore :not surprising that in many developing countries the forest services are structured in tile same manner as those government services that arc concerned with noncommercial activities, and are still controlled by organizations that were fashioned at a time when the goals were substantially different from the modern objectives of forestry.
Among the possible ways of incorporating forestry administrations into the framework of a nation's public services are those of:
1. placing forestry and forest industries into a ministry which caters for other departments such as agriculture, or natural resources, or industries, or planning, etc.;2. constituting forestry and forest industries administrations as a separate ministry;
3. giving the forestry and forest industries administration a relatively extragovernmental and more business-like character by making it into a public corporation;
4. while keeping forestry and forest industries within the civil service, affording it a degree of autonomy by establishing a forestry commission to supervise it.
There are advantages and disadvantages in all those arrangements. By placing forestry and forest industries into ministries which are concerned with problems of a broadly similar nature, it should be possible to communicate ideas, to influence those responsible for other related fields of endeavour through daily contact, and to achieve that integrated approach to the nation's problems that is so desirable. Sometimes, however, not only are these ideals not attained, but the very presence of different agencies in one ministry may increase competition among the various departments in a way that is inimical to the country's welfare. In addition, when the portfolios of ministers comprise several responsibilities it is almost inevitable that some of them be given more weight than others, and the case for particular projects and programmes in fields which do not appear to be obviously vote-catching is not presented to cabinet ministers with the necessary conviction.
It is for these reasons that it is sometimes urged that forestry and forest industries should be placed in a separate ministry. Here, however, the advantages of the many-sided approach to the solution of the nation's land-use and relevant industrialization problems are lost. Although the case for forestry and forest industries is more likely to be presented with single-minded dedication, there is some understandable controversy as to whether this sectoral advantage outweighs those of the more integrated approach outlined above. Moreover, the trend in business administration and management (as opposed to government administration) seems to be toward the organization of cross-sectional teams to plan and implement particular programmes, and this trend is likely to influence government organization in the future.
Many governments have established public corporations to administer and manage those undertakings that are considered to be mainly commercial. The arguments in favour of public corporations, with respect to forestry and forest industries, are based on some characteristics of the civil service which make it difficult for civil servants to perform efficiently the business and commercial aspects of forest administration. In certain circumstances, many of the traditional strengths of the civil service may become weaknesses. The security of tenure which a civil servant enjoys, and the general absence of the need to compete for promotion, should impart a sense of objectivity and a disinterest which it might be difficult to achieve in a business climate. However, these same conditions of service sometimes lead to an absence of drive, a reluctance to adopt new ideas and to take risks, and a hesitancy in changing traditional practices and venturing into new fields.
By contrast, because promotion is on merit in public corporations, there is a spirit of competition among the staff, productivity is consequently in many cases increased, and there is a tendency toward innovation. Also, because tenure is less secure, the staff member is consciously and constantly aware of the need to improve himself. And, perhaps most important of all, public corporations are freed from the annual budgetary control of finance ministries and government treasuries, and are thus able to plan and implement forest management with a reasonably clear view ahead.
The main danger which might follow the establishment of such a corporation in the field of forestry, particularly in the developing countries, would seem to be that it might result in a greater turnover of personnel once the guarantee of permanent employment and promotion was removed. This would be a serious impediment not only because forestry requires continuity in planning and in effort, but also because of the small number of trained foresters available in these countries. In addition, the achievement of the measure of autonomy that would be gained through public corporations would, in some cases, hinder the integrated approach to solving the nation's problems.
Another possible solution is to establish forestry commissions. These commissions would have direct access to the minister responsible, would advise on the formulation of policy, and would exercise executive control over the staff of the forestry departments. If the members are properly chosen, the establishment of forestry commissions permits the infusion of fresh ideas into the forest administration, and provides the necessary links with industry and forest owners. However, because forestry commissioners are usually chosen from outside the public service, many governments are loath to delegate so much authority to them.
This brief review of some methods of fitting forest administrations into the systems of national institutions has revealed that there is a variety of choices. The final decision will therefore probably depend upon the philosophies of governments. However, whichever method is chosen, there appears to be a strong case for affording forest services a greater degree of autonomy than obtains within the normal civil service organization. The long-term nature of forestry, the unity of the production process and the indispensable connexion between the growing of trees and the processing of wood, the need for continuous contact between producers and consumers, and the necessity for anticipating changes in demand and effecting procedural and functional reforms to accommodate these changes, suggest that forest services should be guided and controlled by somewhat flexible administrative arrangements. These seem to be best provided in an autonomous organization. The integration of the activities of such an organization with those other sectors of the economy which are relevant to forestry and forest industries development would then become of primary importance.
INTEGRATION
In addition to providing that flexibility which results from autonomy, the organizational structure of forest services should be capable of performing a threefold function:
1. It should facilitate the integration of forestry development planning with national and regional planning, for, as has been shown, forestry and forest industries are influenced by, and influence, quite diverse sectors of the national economy.2. It should permit the coordination of forestry and forest industries activity, not only with the physical and recreational services which the forests provide, but also with other land-use practices that are influenced by forestry.
3. It should ensure the interchange of ideas between those responsible for forestry and those whose chief interest lies in forest industries. There must be a realization, and this realization must be reflected in the structure, that forestry and forest industries are interwoven; that what is grown and tended determines what is manufactured; and that what is demanded by consumers should dictate what is grown. Each depends upon the other. Production forestry is a whole process, and not a set of distinct, unconnected activities.
The integration of forestry development planning with national and regional planning, and the coordination of forestry with other land-use practices may be achieved by assigning forestry officers to the national or regional planning units or development ministries. An officer who is assigned the responsibility for advising on the planning of forestry and forest industries should, of course, be a person with a knowledge of the relevant disciplines. There is frequently some doubt concerning the type of training such an officer should have had. There appear to be three possibilities: a person who has been formally trained in both forestry and development economics; one whose main area of training has been in forestry but who has acquired a knowledge of economics through experience of working with the tools of economists, and through seminars and in-service courses; and one who has been trained in economics and has gained a know ledge of the fundamentals of forestry. It is probable that the first sort of person is -the most suitable for the type of task that is envisaged, but it is rarely possible to find. such an expert, even in the developed countries. Forest services in developing countries must therefore choose from the personnel available. In any case, formal training is not the only criterion. What is required, perhaps even more, is a person with the ability to look art matters objectively, to ensure that the case for forestry is considered in its proper perspective and, while paying special attention to the sector for which he is responsible, to consider the national economy as a whole.
The officers whose duty it is to assist in the coordination of forestry and other types of land use, particularly with regard to the cause/effect relationship between the practice of forestry and the presence of forests on the one hand, and erosion and water control on the other, should of course be specialists in these matters. They should be continuously available to advise not only on the physical impact of forestry on the general environment, but on the effects, both short- and long-term, of those land-use practices which lead to the clearance of forests and the disturbance of wildlife, and which have an impact on recreation. The channels of communication between forest services and other government officers who deal with land matters are often tortuous and clogged, and it is for this reason that it is essential that this type of' officer should also be placed in a coordinating department) such as a planning unit or a development ministry. Although both these c lasses of officer wild be physically assigned to the department responsible for planning, they should remain in the forest service, be under the control of its head and be ultimately responsible to him, for the essential links between the forest service and the central or regional governments in these areas must be maintained.
The problem of achieving the desired cross-fertilization of ideas and information (regarding policies, technology, markets, supplies, and future trends in the forestry and forest industries sector) between those responsible for the production of the wood raw material, and those concerned with its con version into semifinished and finished products, is complicated by the fact that there is, in many nations, an ancient dichotomy between forestry on the one hand and forest industries on the other. This is an artificial and untenable distinction, but it is so ingrained in some countries, in which the State produces the wood and private entrepreneurs control the conversion and manufacturing processes, that many aspects of the national economies, or attitudes to public or private sector behaviour, would have to be radically altered if the integrated planning of forestry and forest industries and the implementation of these plans are to be ensured.
It is possible, of course, by employing fiscal and legal measures to direct industrialization along the lines which the State desires. But these measures do not offer guarantees that investment will be made in those industries and areas considered desirable. They merely provide restraints and incentives which it may not be possible to make strong enough to achieve the objectives.
Another way of ensuring the desired integration and cooperation is through the establishment of forestry and forest industries consultative committees. These should be statutory bodies, and their composition should be such that they reflect the opinions of a wide range of forest industrialists as well as those responsible for the growing side of forestry. In this manner a forum for the closest cooperation between those two indispensable arms of the forestry and forest industries complex would be provided, without too drastic an alteration of the existing structures.
This sort of approach is already being pursued in a few developing countries. In Western Nigeria, for example, following the report 15 of a committee set up to enquire into forest policy and management, a forestry commission was established. The important points in the present context are that it is a statutory requirement that membership of the commission should reflect the various interests concerned with forestry, namely; production, utilization, marketing, and ownership, and that at least two of the seven commissioners should be representatives of forest industries. In the words of the report, one of the main purposes of the commission would be: " to formulate and administer a long-term system of planned forest management and forest industry regulation."
(15A.L. Mabogunje et al., Forest policy and management in Western State of Nigeria: Report of the Committee set up by His Excellency the Military Governor of Nigeria, Ibadan, 1967.)
However, the most effective means of achieving the integration of the forestry and forest industries complex is, perhaps, for the State to become actively involved - for this and other reasons - in the processing of wood products as well as in raw material production. In Ceylon, for example, a State Timber Corporation has been established since 1957. This corporation manages and controls such forestry and forest industries activities as timber extraction, primary wood conversion, and the manufacture and marketing of wood products. In the Sudan and some Indian states a somewhat similar arrangement exists. In Malawi a chain of sawmills is owned and operated by the State. In Tanzania a recently established particle board mill is entirely owned by the Government, which also possesses shares in a plywood factory. In Paraguay at least one sawmill is government-owned. In Honduras plans are already at an advanced stage for government participation in a pulp and paper factory. Although the financial interests of the Honduran Government will be quite sizable, the majority of shares will be owned by private investors.
The range of active participation which a government may take in forest industries management and control is, therefore, quite wide. Since these industries possess distinct social and economic developmental characteristics, in addition to the financial profits which they undoubtedly provide, it might be good policy for more developing countries to undertake this type of investment.
RULES AND REGULATIONS
Apart from these organizational defects there are, in many developing countries, procedural obstacles to efficiency which appear to be unnecessary even within the civil service structure. Most governments in developing countries have not changed the functional machinery of the administrative services which they inherited at the time of independence, and the rules and procedures governing the day-to-day administration remain, to a great extent, as they were in the preindependence era. The implications of this to the general national administration are not of concern here. What is important, in the present context, are their effects on the forestry sector.
The pivot of the present functional machinery in most forest services is the necessity for civil servants rigorously to follow a set of general or government orders or some such body of rules, and to be guided by precedents in the tendering of advice and the solving of problems. There are, of course, many advantages to be gained by the possession of rules and procedures which direct the actions of personnel, for they impart a certain uniformity of approach, and tend to limit nepotism and corruption. However, in an activity such as forestry, they should be a framework and not a straitjacket. Moreover, many of those which obtain in developing countries were formulated in circumstances which bear little relevance to the developmental needs of forestry today and they should, in such cases, be revised. With regard to administration by precedents, this is again desirable in some situations but there are few precedents, in the developing countries, which are based on decisions in the forestry industries sector under political independence. There is a clear case, therefore, for the formulation of a set of rules specifically for the forest service. This does not necessarily mean that the forest service should be outside the general civil service organization. There are many cases of branches of the civil service, such as the police, which, while operating under rules and employing procedures specially evolved with their particular functions in mind, are yet responsible to legislatures through a minister, and remain within the general framework of the civil service.
DISPOSITION OF FIELD PERSONNEL
Another legacy of the past under which forest services operate is the spatial distribution of their personnel. In a study 16 made of three developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America in order to determine the rationale of' the distribution of professional forestry staff in the field, certain parameters were used,17 based upon the activities of the forest services Even v-hen factors such as the ease of communication within the region were taken into account, the postings appeared at first to be irrational and haphazard. It was only after the history of the forest services in the various countries had been investigated that it became obvious that forest officers were being posted to particular areas merely because these were the traditional places to which they had always been sent. These are not isolated examples, and in many developing countries the result is that the deployment of field personnel is such that some districts are undermanned while others are overstaffed.
(16 K.F.S. King, Some aspects of forest administration in developing countries, Obeche, 1 (1), 1965.)
[17 Because forest officers in those countries were exclusively concerned with overseeing timber exploitation, inspecting leases, sawmills and other conversion plant, and in regenerating the forests either naturally or artificially, the parameters were the area under their charge and the number of leases, etc., on it, the volume of timber produced in those areas, the number of' processing plants they inspected, and the silvicultural activity (calculated in terms of area regenerated, thinned, etc.).]
In other countries there is overcentralization. Professional forest officers are concentrated in one or other of the main towns, are not provided by governments with the necessary incentives for living in the often difficult field conditions, and are not given adequate travel allocations. This failure of governments to provide the necessary physical environment leads to poor supervision of the junior field staff, increases the opportunities for corruption, often permits encroachment on the forest estate by shifting cultivators and illegal operators, and inevitably results in the destruction of the forests, the wasteful exploitation of a valuable resource, and the loss of revenue.
It must therefore be clearly understood that the way in which staff are organized in the field is an important aspect of forest administration. Their deployment must be guided by the volume and complexity of the work they have to perform, and by the availability of means of communication such as roads, rivers and vehicles, which permit them to travel to the work areas. In this, as in most matters, the exercise is mainly one of assessing the costs to be incurred and the benefits which would result from the various alternatives of disposition, and deciding on those which would maximize net returns within the social context of the country.
Often complementing this organizational shortcoming is a failure of communication, an absence of the skills that are so necessary in personnel management. This is particularly important in forestry where efficient administration requires that professionals visit, and sometimes live in, the forest, in circumstances in which such postings are often interpreted by the local population as a sign of inferior status. The best men, they feel, are kept at headquarters.
Before leaving this examination of the various defects of forest administrations in developing countries, it may be useful to stress that although formal structural arrangements, special rules and regulations, and a more rational deployment of staff undoubtedly help to influence the efficiency of' the forest service, in the final analysis it is the attitude -toward forestry and economic development that is most important. In order for the sector to make the c contribution to development for which it has the potential, governments, forest officers and tile public must be development-oriented. Governments should appreciate not only the contribution which the forestry and forest industries sector can make, but also its special features and the need for establishing the links which have been discussed. They ought to understand that, because of the long-term nature of forestry, funds should 'be allocated not on a year-to-year basis, but for long enough periods for foresters to be assured that their plans will be implemented, that the forests which they have planted will be tended, that the industries which they have advised should be established will be provided with the necessary wood raw material. Without this understanding, there is danger that scarce resources will be frittered away on projects which remain unfinished.
By the same token foresters must understand that their profession and their activities are not outside the general framework of the nation's economy, but are a part of it. They must strive therefore to achieve an integrated approach to planning and, where necessary, to the execution of these plans. In these matters, the spirit and attitude are often more important than the formal organization although, undoubtedly, the latter can be of great significance.
To recapitulate, the following suggestions are made:
1. Because of the characteristics of forestry and forest industries, forest services should be given a greater degree of autonomy than is normally possible within a civil service.2. Means need to be found for integrating the growing side of forestry with the industrial side. To this end it may be advisable for governments either to control forest industries or to participate in their ownership and management.
3. Specialists in the fields of forestry development planning, and the nonwood services of forestry, should be assigned to the ministries or other units that are responsible for national or regional development planning. They should, however, remain members of' the forest service, and be ultimately responsible to the head of that service.
4. The administration of' forestry departments should be guided not by the general body of rules and regulations which govern the civil service, but by a special set of rules and regulations which take in-to account the characteristics of the forestry and forest industries sector, and the business nature of government forestry.
5. The distribution of field personnel should be rationalized, special attention being paid to the input/ output relationships that are involved in the deployment of staff in different areas.
6. Above all, the nation must be development-oriented, and governments must provide forest administrations with the necessary funds to perform their manifold duties. This may mean a special dispensation with regard to the time-honoured system of allocations through annual budgets.
Education, research and extension
From the discussion of the administrative difficulties under which most forest services operate in the developing countries, it will be evident that there is need for a reorientation in the training which foresters have traditionally been given. This task is complicated by the fact that, in addition, the number of trained foresters must be increased at all levels if the forest resources of the developing countries are to be mobilized to their best advantage.
Table 1 gives an estimate of the number of practising professional foresters in the world, and their geographical distribution.
It will be noted that the more industrialized countries utilize 71000 or about 80 percent of the world's total of forest practitioners. It will also be observed that, of the 17 000 foresters who are estimated to work in the developing countries, 11000 are believed to be in China (Mainland), leaving a mere 6 000 or fewer than 9 percent of the world total in the less industrialized countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. By contrast, these countries possess over 50 percent of the world's forest land.
FAO has also estimated the number of professional foresters and technicians 18 who will be required by 1985 in 57 selected developing countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, if the various forest services are to be able to manage and service their forestry and forest industries sectors effectively (Table 2). To make this kind of estimate is, admittedly, a hazardous exercise. However, the gap between what exists and what is wanted, even in the restricted sample of countries so far investigated, is so enormous that any deficiencies in the criteria and methodology 19 are likely to be of only minor significance.
[18 Throughout this chapter the term professional is used to describe a graduate of a university, or equivalent institution, in forestry or ancillary subjects. A technician is a person who, after a minimum of nine years of schooling, has undergone formal full-time training in a recognized institution at the subprofessional level. No estimates are given in Table 2 of the personnel required at the vocational level (i.e., forest guards, foremen, etc.).]
(19 In a study of this nature, it might have been more appropriate to determine the work-force requirements for each forestry activity and then to apply supervision ratios to assess needs for trained personnel at various levels. However, for lack of locally derived measures of labour requirements, it was not possible to adopt this approach. Instead, empirical norms of technical personnel per unit area of forest and unit of production were used. Estimates of requirements for professional personnel were derived by applying empirical supervision ratios. These norms and supervision ratios are largely based on data from the various regions and, while they are considered to be workable averages, they will need to be adjusted for each country and revised in the light of technological advances and changing socioeconomic conditions.)
TABLE 1. - NUMBER AND GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PRACTISING PROFESSIONAL FORESTERS IN 1968
|
|
Number |
|
Europe, including U.S.S.R. |
32 000 |
|
United States and Canada |
30 000 |
|
Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa |
9 000 |
|
Total developed regions |
71 000 |
|
Africa |
500 |
|
Asia, excluding Japan and China (Mainland) |
4 000 |
|
Latin America |
1 500 |
|
China (Mainland) |
11 000 |
|
Total developing regions |
17 000 |
|
Total all regions |
88 000 |
TABLE 2. - TRAINED MANPOWER REQUIREMENTS FOR FORESTRY AND FOREST INDUSTRIES, 1985
|
|
Technical manpower |
Professional manpower |
|
Latin America (24 countries). |
30 600 |
6 500 |
|
Asia and Far East (9 countries) |
22 800 |
5 700 |
|
Africa (24 countries) |
9 600 |
1 800 |
|
Total |
63 000 |
14 000 |
Not surprisingly, a similar disparity is found in the number of institutions which provide forestry and forest industries education at university level. FAO surveys, the results of which are shown in Table 3, show that over 70 percent of these forestry institutions of higher learning are in the more industrialized countries and that, if China (Mainland) is excluded, the developing countries possess only about 17 percent of the existing forestry schools.
Although this poverty of numbers of forestry education institutions is an undoubted weakness it may, paradoxically, be a future source of strength for the developing countries, provided that they strive immediately to remedy the situation. For it provides them with the opportunity to create those institutions in which the personnel whom they require will be trained not, as in so many cases in the past, in a manner irrelevant to their development; needs, but in a way in which the future requirements of the entire national economy will be taken into account. It is much easier to educate and train a mind that is uncluttered by the dogmas and false tenets of the past, than it is to attempt to recast old and hardened attitudes into new moulds. Nevertheless, provisions should also be made for further training to be given to those officers who are already qualified.
TABLE 3. - NUMBER AND GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF FORESTRY INSTITUTIONS AT UNIVERSITY LEVEL
|
|
Number |
|
Europe, including U.S.S.R. |
56 |
|
United States and Canada |
44 |
|
Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa |
34 |
|
Total developed regions |
134 |
|
Africa |
3 |
|
Asia, excluding Japan and China (Mainland) |
16 |
|
Latin America |
1 5 |
|
China (Mainland) |
20 |
|
Total developing regions |
54 |
|
Total all regions |
188 |
In the following paragraphs three types of activity which greatly influence forest administration and, consequently, forestry and forest industries development - education, research, and extension - will be considered. It is realized that these activities are interconnected and interdependent. They are discussed separately only in the interests of a clearer presentation.
EDUCATION
In this section an attempt will be made to answer two questions:
1. Where should the vast numbers of trained foresters who are needed in the developing countries be taught ?2. What kind of education should they receive?
It is sometimes urged that, because the cost of producing a professional forester is high, and because many of the techniques and technologies with which the student would have to be familiar may not be readily available in developing countries, it would be wise policy to train professional foresters in institutions that are already established in the more industrialized countries. It may be argued, however, that the protagonists of this point of view, though rightly cost conscious, and though sincerely concerned with the use of the scarce capital resources of the developing countries, have not given sufficient weight to the benefits. They frequently do not consider the full range of social and economic advantages which accrues to the student, and ultimately to the nation, through his being educated in a physical, social, and economic environment similar to that in which he will have to work on the completion of his training.
Even if it is true that the initial costs of educating a student at the undergraduate level in a developing country are higher than those of training him at a similar level in developed countries,20 these costs are reduced with time, and the graduate is often better equipped to deal with local problems because he has been trained to think about them in the context in which they are found. And although a higher degree of teaching ability is often demanded in relatively nonindustrialized countries when explaining certain aspects of forest industries, these difficulties may to a great; extent be overcome through the use of visual aids. What is more important, however, is that these drawbacks are more than compensated for by the advantages that are gained in the teaching of those other aspects of forestry and forest industries which rely heavily on local examples, and on the local environment: dendrology, silviculture, land use, forest influences, wildlife management, the place of the sector in national economies, forest management and forest administration. Independent thought, moreover, is a habit which does not come easily but yet is vitally needed in the developing countries and which may best be nurtured III familiar environments. It is equally desirable that the closest links should be established, at the outset, between the future leaders of this sector of the economy and the people whom they will ultimately serve. These links are better forged if the leaders do not consider themselves as beings apart because of their overseas education.
(20 This, however, is not always the case. FAO has compared the costs, in purely financial terms, of educating Iranian foresters in a developed country with those of educating them at home, and has found that it is cheaper to train them in their own country.
Two last points need to be made. First, it can be demonstrated that the failure rate of students from the developing countries who seek education in developed countries is higher than that of those who are educated in environments similar to their own. The reason for this is not, generally, because of lower educational standards in the developing countries, but, usually because of the difficulties in living and studying in alien societies.
Secondly, in most developing countries those who are selected for overseas education are usually from among the best qualified of the student population. It is a sad fact, however, that a, very high proportion of those who are successful, in some countries as high as 60 percent 21 and usually the most gifted, do not return to their countries of origin. In contrast, the number of successful locally trained personnel who ultimately seek permanent employment abroad is extremely low-. Foreign education encourages the brain drain.
(21 Jahangir Amusegar, Technical assistance in theory and in practice, London, Praeger, 1967.)
For these reasons, therefore, it appears best on balance that undergraduate education be provided in the developing countries themselves. It must be stressed that what is being suggested is not the establishment of forestry institutions of learning in each country which hopes to develop its forestry and forest industries sector. There is great need for a careful evaluation of the national manpower requirements of the sector, for an assessment of these on a regional basis, and for the planning and establishment of forestry schools in such a manner that they serve large areas with similar physical environments, at similar stages of economic development and with similar problems.
The solution which has been offered to the first problem posed in this section raises a supplementary question. If it has been decided to train undergraduates in forestry in the developing countries, in what sort of institution should they be educated ? The answer to this depends upon the existing educational system of the country or region that is being considered. However, as a generalization, it would appear advisable to establish forestry faculties or forestry departments within universities, rather than as separate institutions.22 Apart from the psychological advantages to be gained in many developing countries from possessing a university degree which has been awarded by an institution that also confers degrees in other fields of learning, there are usually benefits to be achieved both in the quality and range of the teaching offered and in the reduction of the total costs per student.
(22 The FAO Advisory Committee on Forestry Education has repeatedly emphasized the advantages to be gained from such an arrangement.)
Forestry education at the undergraduate level should be interdisciplinary. The modern forester needs to receive training in a very wide range of subjects, many of which are taught in other disciplines and to other professions in the university. It is obvious, therefore, that costs would be considerably reduced if the embryonic forester were able to draw upon the existing resources for those aspects of knowledge that are not peculiar to forestry. It is also more than probable that the quality of the teaching given in these sometimes basic interdisciplinary subjects would be higher than if taught by forestry specialists. However, in order to achieve the desired forestry slant, it may be necessary either for special courses to be arranged for the forestry student or for the members of the forestry department to apply the basic material taught in other departments and faculties in their own, more specifically professional lectures. Whatever the system employed it is essential for the undergraduate to appreciate that, although he is being trained as a forester, forestry is only one of the many important national activities; and it seems that a university is a better place than an autonomous institution to give him the desired intersectoral outlook.
What should be taught in these forestry faculties in the universities of the developing countries ? To a large extent the answer should be clear from the earlier discussion of the expertise required of the modern forester. A few points will, however, be specially stressed. It is fashionable for the advocates of this or the other relevant discipline to draw up a list of subjects, and to emphasize that his particular speciality deserves considerable attention. The result is that in many countries, both developed and developing, forestry curricula frequently become extremely crowded, or there is an imbalance which often reflects not the needs of the students and the nation but the ideas of the most persuasive or influential professors.
It is not possible to make a universal declaration of the contents of forestry curricula. There are, however, certain general observations which can be made. First, it must be broadly based at the undergraduate level. The professional forester is essentially a resource manager and he must therefore be given the type of education which equips him for advising upon, planning and supervising the use of these resources. This means that he must understand how all the ramifications of the economy of the forestry and forest industries sector operate and how the sector is, and can be, integrated with the national economy. Because the resource which he manages is one which includes not only the forests but lands which may be used for forestry, for recreation, for wildlife and for other forms of land use which influence or are influenced by forests, he must have an appreciation of the interactions of all these activities and their social implications. This does not mean, however, that the courses which he is given must be cluttered with detail, for the professional forester is not a technician. This is often not clearly understood, and the result is sometimes a person who is unsuitable either for a professional's or a technician's post. The courses offered the undergraduate forester must be a judicious selection and combination of the past and present knowledge that is relevant to the practice of his profession. In particular, he must be trained to think, to question, to seek information for himself, and to continue to learn, always.
Secondly, the emphasis in the curriculum must be on those areas of knowledge which are especially relevant to the country or region for which the students are being prepared. These areas should be identified by studies of the national economy, national development plans and manpower requirements. It follows that as times change courses will have to be revised, not only to keep in line with new developments but also to meet the changing demands of the society which the student is called upon to serve.
Thirdly, the forestry undergraduate should be taught to use the relevant tools of scientific management and administration. This should be an important part of the curriculum wherever the institution is established. The significance of this has already been discussed in the context of the day-to-day administration which forest officers are called upon to undertake. It must however be emphasized here that, if the professional forester is not to perform the duties of a technician, his role as a manager must be performed more efficiently, for he will, to a considerable extent, have delegated many routine duties to the subprofessional cadre of the forest service.
Above all, the undergraduate should be so educated that he is development oriented. This requirement has been touched upon when discussing the necessity for his education to be broadly based. However, it deserves mention in its own right because development is his raison d'être.
In short, the object of the education of the undergraduate is to produce a development-oriented resource manager, with a wide basic knowledge of forestry and forest industries, who would supervise a body of subprofessional technicians, guards, foremen, etc. However, in addition to this flexible generalist, the forest service requires specialists on the one hand, and technicians on the other.
The considerations which govern tile place in which the specialist receives his training are somewhat different from those which have been examined with respect to the undergraduate. If the student has received his initial professional training in his own environment, he will already have profited from the advantages which have been discussed, and it should greatly widen and deepen his experience if he carries out his postgraduate work in a developed country. The importance of this will, it is true, depend to a great extent on the nature of the. specialization that he follows. Many aspects of ecological research, for example, are best done in -the home country if the academic and research facilities are available. Nevertheless, as a general rule, it is desirable that both the generalist and the specialist who have been trained in their own environment should be given the opportunity, at some future time, to study abroad in order to add to their experience, and to achieve the necessary interchange of ideas.
The type of specialization undertaken should be geared to the nation's requirements. But there is such a great need in developing countries for forest economists and forest industries specialists that it would appear advisable for many countries to try to provide suitable opportunities for specific training in these fields as soon as possible.
Specialists are required not only for research but also to carry out certain specialist tasks of forestry and forest industries, both in the public and private sectors of national economies. For example, in an analysis 23 of the job functions and educational experience required in the pulp and paper industry, it was considered that 18 areas of academic training were relevant. There were 27 job functions which ranged from timber operations (including forestry research, logging, and forest management), through manufacturing-operations, marketing, research and development, and engineering, to administration. As might be expected, it was considered that a knowledge of industrial engineering and of pulp and paper technology would be useful in most of the job functions. What is significant, however, is that next in importance to these was training in business administration, and the call for economists was considered to be almost as high. :Forestry training per se was thought to be useful only in 7 of the 27 functions, and biology only in. three.
(23 American Paper Institute, Of paper and opportunity, New York, 1965.)
Admittedly, the pulp and paper industry is a rather exceptional type of forest industry, in that the engineering, industrial and management skills that are required are somewhat more complex than for most other forest industries. However, this analysis does indicate that, if the development of forest industries is being planned, it is advisable to have or to train specialists in areas other than those of traditional forestry.
The training given to the two types of specialists, researchers and operators, ought to be quite different. The researcher must be trained and encouraged to innovate, to adapt techniques and ideas to his own requirements, and to design and analyse experiments in such a way that significant results are obtained. Primarily, however, his training should be attitudinal, so that he may be better prepared to question ancient concepts and the traditionally accepted views of his profession.
The operations specialist should be given the training which would make him a person with a deep knowledge of his particular field, one who is able to perform his functions with expertise and with facility. Although the two types must inevitably overlap in conceptual and in technical and scientific ability, the sort of person required for those types of activity often possesses different attributes.
At the other end of the scale of educational requirements are those who should receive technical and vocational training. The great shortage of trained workers at this level in forestry and forest industries in the developing countries cannot be too strongly stressed. Too frequently professional foresters who have been educated at great expense to perform managerial tasks are, because of this deficiency, forced to perform functions which should be assigned to the subprofessional cadre.
If the wide and general training which has been suggested for the general forester is accepted, it is absolutely necessary that, a strong staff of technicians be available. Forestry education plans should therefore not be formulated in a piecemeal manner, but the whole range of manpower requirements should be considered, and educational institutions to accommodate all levels of training should be coordinated and established concurrently.
Because of the nature of the work these subprofessional officers will be called upon to undertake, it is essential that they should wherever possible be trained in their own countries. They should be made familiar with all aspects of forestry and forest industries that fall within their competence. Here again, the tendency to overload curricula should be avoided; for instance, the methodology of forest policy formulation, the details of the various industrial processes, the chemistry of wood, the physiology of the forest vegetation, certain aspects of soil genesis, etc., need not be stressed. These are the tools of the professional forester who sees not only the particular forest but the whole forest estate, not only the forestry and forest industries sector but the whole national economy. The technician and the forest worker are craftsmen who must be taught their crafts.
It has been stated above that there is a dearth of foresters at all levels in the developing countries, and that this deficit should be met by the establishment of schools in the developing countries themselves. It should, however, be apparent that, if the forest services and the forest industries do not have at present the necessary trained manpower to perform their duties, it would be difficult to provide teachers for these new institutions.
FAO very conscious of this difficulty, and has assisted in the establishment of forestry educational institutions at all levels in various developing countries.
Many of the more industrialized countries are also interested in this problem and are helping to improve forestry teaching facilities within the developing countries by means of bilateral aid.
The responsibility of foreign experts in the field of forestry education is great. They set the pattern for future development by assisting in the choice of the counterparts who will run the schools after their departure, by planning the courses of study and by formulating a guiding philosophy of forestry education. It is important that they be chosen not merely for their technical and scientific knowledge, but for their ability to impart this knowledge, for the spirit of humility with which they face the problems of an alien society, for their commitment to the economic development of the countries and regions in which they work, and for their appreciation of cultures and ways of life sometimes vastly different from their own.
The language of tuition may not be that in which the teacher habitually thinks. Very frequently, particularly in Africa, although the student has facility in the language of exposition, it is his second language, and he is happier in his local language. These two factors greatly increase the difficulty of teaching, and demand great patience and ingenuity from the teacher. Moreover, the difficulty is compounded by the virtual absence of textbooks which reflect the local scene and are primarily concerned with the development of tropical forestry and forest industries.
It is therefore essential that these teachers be carefully selected. It is also important that suitable textbooks be made available and that modern aids be used at all times. Here again, FAO is trying to remedy this situation by collecting and collating the texts of its project officers engaged in teaching in the hope that books relevant to conditions in the various regions may be issued.
RESEARCH
There is little dispute concerning the necessity for research in all forestry and forest industries activities. But there is much controversy over the level and type of research which should be conducted in developing countries. Although the reasons given for taking this or that position in the forest research controversy are many, the essence of the problem appears to be the high capital costs of some forms of research. It may therefore be advisable, for the purpose of this discussion, to identify two broad categories: the relatively inexpensive and the expensive types of research.
In most developing countries what is considered to be inexpensive research is usually undertaken. Much of this is of necessity relatively unsophisticated, but even here there is much scope for improvement. Many of the advances made in forestry in the more industrialized countries can be comparatively cheaply adapted to tropical situations. Yet the gap is very wide between what is known and practiced in the developed countries and what is being done in the developing countries, in those fields in which there are apparently possibilities for adaptation.
This is not to say that all the progress made in the developed countries can be transferred to the developing countries. The application of technological advances cannot be separated from the social, economic and ecological context, and from the institutional framework in which the forestry and forest industries sector operates. This is extremely important, but it does not mean that the technology of the developed countries should be rejected out-of-hand. What it does imply, is that very careful consideration should be given in adaptive research to socioeconomic factors which have little to do with the efficiency of the machine or technique that is being tested.
In some countries it appears that a disproportionate amount of time and energy is spent on the growing side of forestry to the neglect of other areas of research. The work done on forest products utilization is often quite inadequate and little research, if any, is conducted in such areas as forest products marketing and work science. There is also a large neglected field of social and economic problems which pertain to forestry, which does not demand any expensive equipment for their investigation but needs to be carefully researched if progress in forestry is to be achieved on all fronts.
The most important gap, however, exists in what has been classified as the expensive research category, and it is here that there is conflicting opinion concerning the role which the developing countries themselves must play. It may be useful therefore to show how this concentration on what seems to be low cost research might fail to solve some problems that are fundamental to the progress of forestry in certain areas.
One problem which has plagued foresters in developing countries for a long time is the difficulty of utilizing completely the mixed tropical hardwoods found in their forests. In many places the proportion of species considered to be marketable is low, and the remainder are therefore classified as weeds. Much research effort has been devoted to regenerating those species that are considered to be economic in the sense of being salable, not necessarily in the sense of returning the cost of growing, and to eliminating those species that are considered to be unmarketable. In some countries the research has been going on for almost all of this century, and yet only in a few have economic answers been supplied, even on a local scale.
The amount of money spent over the years in various countries in the attempt to provide superior stands by natural regeneration methods is quite considerable. It is being suggested here, however, that this problem is not really one of silviculture and of ecology, but of utilization, and ought to have been tackled in a way which seems likely to give greater returns, though it might initially cost more than the conventional regeneration methods. It is not improbable that, if some of the resources expended on natural regeneration research had been partly diverted to technological research on the utilization of mixed tropical hardwoods for various end products, the results would have been more fruitful. The approach that has been followed may appear to have been inexpensive in the short run, but there is little doubt that in the long run it has been quite costly.
Those who oppose complex research of this type in forestry and forest industries being carried out in the developing countries argue that, because it requires highly trained experts and much financial expenditure, the less industrialized nations cannot afford to take the attendant risks, and that proposals for sophisticated research institutes are unrealistic. They assert that the forestry problems of developing countries are not unique, and that therefore these countries should utilize the facilities and experience of the more industrialized nations. On the other hand, a case may be presented which shows that the opportunity costs of the developing countries not pursuing this category of research themselves are quite high.
Where there are differences of opinion of this nature it is often advisable to examine the available empirical evidence in order to determine if a valid judgement may be given. It has been shown that in recent years there have been advances in many aspects of forestry which affect the developing countries. It is now possible to utilize mixed tropical hardwoods for pulp and paper; the technology for the conversion of small-sized logs to plywood is now well established; the utilization of mixed species for particle board manufacture is a daily occurrence. All these advances have come about as a result of research which originated and which was first applied in the developed countries.
However, the research was undertaken as a result of the pressures on the forest resources of the more industrialized countries, and because of their rapidly increasing labour costs. In general, it was not carried out to help the developing countries to solve their problems, and any gains which they obtained were incidental to the main purpose of the exercise. It :is therefore implicit in the arguments adduced by those who urge that expensive research should be confined to the more industrialized nations that the developing countries must not only await the timing of research activities in the developed countries, but that they must, at the same time, hope that the results of these activities will be of use to them. It appears that, unless the habits of the developed countries change, it would be fortuitous if the advances which they make in forestry and forest industries could be applied to the developing countries at the time when they need them most.
Moreover, the high-level research undertaken locally would be of great assistance to the forestry institutions of higher learning which have been advocated. - The universities would be stimulated by the achievements of the research centres, and the latter in turn would be inspired by the presence of the universities. In addition, the absence of organizations concerned with the complex type of research often retards the development of a capability for design, and for the solution of all but the simplest of problems. The presence of these institutions might also help to dam the stream of trained personnel which flows so relentlessly from the poor to the rich countries.
Nevertheless, the difficulties caused by the high costs of trained manpower and facilities for complex research are real, and it would be irresponsible to advise all the developing countries to attempt to undertake this category of research. One solution to this problem is for specific research projects to be carried out in tile institutions already established in the more industrialized countries. However, although this is desirable and ought to play an increasingly important rode in future forestry research and in future bilateral aid, there is no guarantee that these facilities will always be available, or that the projects considered important by the developing nations will be given the same priority by the developed world. In addition, the valuable experience to be gained through the formulation and solution of problems would be denied many of the forestry researchers in the developing countries.
On balance, therefore, it would seem desirable for the developing countries to establish regional forestry research institutions. The contribution which research has made in the developed countries to the improvement of the forestry and forest industries sector is so great that, provided they are well planned, the establishment of research institutes in developing countries would not be a luxury as is so often argued.
Almost inevitably, in tile initial period, many of the research posts will have to be staffed by experts from the developed countries to be relieved by local personnel as they become trained. This, of course, raises career problems for the expatriate researcher - not only in forestry, but in all fields in which such personnel are required. It is therefore important that a system be established whereby those workers who are needed for certain periods in the developing countries may be made available for as long as they are required, but may be reabsorbed into their own forest services without being penalized for having helped the developing countries.
Whatever the category of research undertaken, it is important that it be planned to meet the short- and long-term development requirements of the nation and not the whims of individual researchers, and that priorities be clearly established. It is essential that there should be cooperation between the various forestry and forest industries research institutes and, wherever possible, coordination of their activities. Above all it must be appreciated that the results of research have a greater chance of being applied if they are conceived with the social, economic and technical needs of the potential recipients constantly in view, and if they are fostered in the local context.
EXTENSION
The problems of communication which beset the forester are somewhat different from those which are faced, for example, by an agricultural extension officer. Part of the latter's work is concerned with convincing the farmer that he should adopt new technologies, use improved strains and employ modern practices in the raising of his crops. In contrast, because the forester in a developing country in most cases produces the raw material himself, he does not generally have to persuade anyone else of the necessity to modernize and make more efficient those aspects of forestry concerned with the regeneration of trees.
As has been stated, the forester is a resource manager. It has also been indicated that the use of this resource might affect the livelihood of those people who live in or near the forests, as well as those who are far removed from them. An important part of the forester's work therefore is to explain the influence of other land-use practices on the forests.
It is perhaps not surprising that many farmers in developing countries do not understand the cause/effect relationship which exists between forests, water and soil. As a result they seasonally burn the forests, practise shifting cultivation, fell forests on steep slopes in order to cultivate the land, plant crops which tend to hasten erosion, and generally ravage the forest estate. What is more reprehensible is that sometimes governments and those officials responsible for other forms of land use either do not appreciate the effects of these practices or choose to ignore them. The consequences are that the valuable forest resource is wasted, water regimes are sometimes adversely affected and agriculture in other areas often suffers.
Foresters have long been aware of this problem of maintaining their production and protection forests, and have tried to prevent their misuse by, inter alia, advising governments to enact punitive legislation, and by organizing patrols around and within their forests. Although useful, these methods exert only a limited effect and it is therefore necessary to persuade and demonstrate to the people that they are dissipating their patrimony. This is especially important in those countries in which there are valuable pockets of forest not owned by the State but held privately - either individually or communally.
To be effective, extension methods should depend upon the prevalent types of offence and existing social conditions. It is of little value to produce television programmes deprecating the practice of shifting cultivation if the communities for which the advice is intended do not possess television sets. However, it may be advisable to train forest officers in extension work, so that they may go to the people and explain to them the problems which they create for themselves by the practices they employ.
Advice and exhortation are not enough. For it is perhaps expecting too much to ask people to give up their time-honoured practices without offering them suitable alternatives. The best approach is therefore interdisciplinary. Agriculturists and foresters should travel together, not only to tell the farmers what is wrong and why it is wrong, but to show them what is right. It must be demonstrated to them how they may prevent erosion, what areas should be chosen for the production of different crops, what strains they should use and what fertilizers they should employ so that yields may be improved and soils not prematurely exhausted, and, if they have to burn, how and when to do so. The protection of the forests is as much the agriculturist's problem as it is the forester's.
It is not only in the field of conservation that there is need for extension. In many developing countries most of the simpler types of wood conversion processes are owned and run by local inhabitants. Often, even where the machinery is not outmoded, the design and layout of the factories are poor, labour is inefficiently organized, the location of the plant is uneconomic and productivity is usually low.
There is therefore much scope for the organization of experts to advise on these matters. There is, for example, need for time and motion studies so that bottlenecks in production may be identified and the necessary redeployment of labour suggested. The experts should actively engage in the designing of factories and their erection. They should study the economics of transport, the relationship of possible plant sites to the raw material and to the markets, and should be in a position to advise on the most economic location of proposed ventures.
Forest services should also disseminate the knowledge which they have acquired with regard to the quantity and quality of the available wood species, and the uses to which they may be put. Too often suitable local wood materials in the developing countries are not utilized and scarce foreign exchange is spent on more expensive substitutes. Certain grades and types of wood may also frequently be used in situations for which they are neither physically nor economically suitable.
These are the areas in which extension work will be of immediate relevance in most developing countries. The results of all the investigations and research applicable to the nongovernmental arm of the forestry and forest industries sector which have been carried out should be communicated to the people concerned. To do this effectively, all the available media must be employed. This is essential if forest policies are to be properly implemented.
Forest legislation
Although in many countries in Latin America, and a fey., in Africa and Asia, an appreciable amount, of forest land is privately and individually owned, most forest lands in the developing world are held under public or communal ownership. Those forests that are individually or communally owned are covered by an often chaotic mixture of customary law, statute law which relates to the general land tenure situation, and specific forest law. In some countries, where most of the forest land is owned by the State, the laws pertaining to forestry have not been systematized, and the various statutes sometimes contain conflicting clauses. As a result, the particular branch of law which relates to specific forests is often not readily ascertained, ownership is not easily identified and, because of the general uncertainty, the laws are sometimes not enforced. Even in those countries in which the State owns all the forest land and a coherent body of forest law has been promulgated, the laws generally tend to relate mainly to the definition and protection of the forest estate, the terms and conditions of concessions, and to the punishment of offences.
Forest law has not generally been conceived as a positive agent of development, but merely as a means of preventing the misuse of the forests. It has been considered not in terms of its general constructive function, but chiefly in terms of litigation. The consequence of this emphasis on the deterrent and punitive aspects of forest law, combined with the uncertainties and conflicts just mentioned, is that in many cases the law becomes an obstacle to development. It therefore seems necessary to examine the role that law should and could have in moulding and shaping forestry and forest industries development, before discussing some of the defects to be found in existing forest legislation.
It must be recognized that in drafting forest laws it is inevitable that certain conceptual antinomies will be encountered. Should the rights of the individual prevail over the welfare of the State as a whole? Should the emphasis be placed on stability or on change, on tradition or on progress? These are only two of the problems to be met, but they indicate that the law must be placed in the ideological or philosophical context of the nation for which it is being formulated. If this is not done, its provisions may be generally unacceptable and its enforcement impossible or, at best, extremely unpopular.
However, within these limitations it may be acceptable as a general proposition that in the modern situation the object of all laws relating to forestry should be the promotion and regulation of forestry and forest industries activities so that the forest resource may be utilized for the general economic development of the nation. It seems, therefore, in order to draw up laws which meet this objective, and particularly because what is being advocated here is to some extent a departure from the normal practice, that an analytical approach to forest legislation would be most, rewarding. Discrepancies between the existing laws and the economic plans of the nation must be identified, and the legal means that are employed to ensure that tile plans are implemented must be examined both for their adequacy and for their possible acceptance by society. The transfer of forest laws which have been conceived at different times and in different places will not necessarily help development.
The collection and analysis of several types of data should therefore precede either the revision of an existing forest law or the drafting of entirely new legislation. All laws relevant to forestry ought to be examined: land law, land-tenure systems, rules of succession, various taxation and industrial laws, the law of contract and the legal conditions under which labour may be employed, minimum wage rates, etc. The criminal law should also be carefully scrutinized, for any recommendations with regard to such matters as penalties would have to fit within its framework. Most important of all is constitutional law. It is often extremely difficult to alter the terms of a nation's constitution, and it is therefore essential that the full implications of its clauses be clearly understood before legislation for any form of activity is drawn up.
Legal investigations are, in themselves, not enough, however. If the laws that are finally formulated for the forestry and forest industries sector are to have the desired propulsive effect, if they are to be employed as an instrument of development, it is equally advisable to consider any land capability classifications that are available, any land-use plans which the nation may have and, indeed, the general socioeconomic situation.
With this background knowledge, the nation will then be in a position to revise those other laws which it considers might hinder forestry development. It will be better able to create a forest law that will assist development by clarifying questions of ownership and by regulating the transference of land both inter-vivos and through succession. It will be able to legislate for the scientific use of its land and for the equitable distribution of suitable forestry industries. Forest legislation cannot be approached by considering only the forestry and forest industries sector. In this, as in all development matters, the integrated attack is often the most effective.
It is not intended to minimize the difficulties of enacting and enforcing this type of comprehensive legislation, which takes into account other sectors of the economy and in which is implicit the function of reforming and modernizing a particular sector or sectors of an economy. This intrinsic difficulty is increased :in the case of forestry because many of the reforms and regulations inevitably concern rights in land: how it is held, how it may be transferred, who manage it, how it should be used. These are matters in which ordinary people take more than a passing interest and it has been found, in Africa for example, that it is generally easier to change the criminal law, to amend those aspects of civil law which deal with contracts and torts, even to tamper with laws which concern such institutions as marriage, than it is to alter those laws and customs which affect the holding and disposition of land.
To state the difficulty is not to say that an attempt should not be made to solve it. Where forest legislation infringes upon and is directly influenced by time-honoured and traditional customs of ownership and use, it may be necessary to proceed slowly and to appreciate fully the possible social and economic results of any reforms that are advocated. But where there are inconsistencies and doubts they should be removed, where there are discrepancies and divergencies of opinion on what is local custom they should be resolved. It would also be helpful if the varied and confusing terminology which is often used to describe tropical land-tenure systems were made nationally uniform.
The treatment of forest legislation in the developing countries has been couched thus far in general terms. An attempt has been made to show that forest law is specialized and not basic, and that it should be used as an instrument of development. It has also been indicated that in many countries the very concept of the purpose of forest law is outmoded, and that there should be a more functional, a more developmental approach. If this approach is to be followed, the laws will have to be revised from time to time as socioeconomic conditions and technology change. The procedure for the revision of main laws is often cumbersome and time-consuming. It may therefore be advisable to frame the parent forest law in such a way that its provisions are skeletal, but that it authorizes in clear terms a well-defined authority to enact subsidiary legislation, in specific circumstances, by rule, regulation, by-law or order. Amendments to subsidiary legislation can often be comparatively easily performed, and it is here that the details of the law should be included.
In addition to such general shortcomings, there are defects even in the narrowly conceived laws which now regulate and control forestry and forest industries in most nations. The remaining parts of this section will therefore be devoted to these specific obstacles to forestry development. The problems vary from region to region, from country to country. Indeed, sometimes they differ within countries. However, the list which is given below, though not exhaustive, is a representative example of the most common defects which should be removed to enable the sector to develop to its full potential:
1. inconsistencies in the general forest law;24
2. confusion in the definition of forest land;
3. imprecision in the definition of the powers of forest officers;25
4. conflict between forest legislation and other related laws;
5. incompatibility of forest laws among the states, and between them and the central government in federal types of government;
6. multiplicity of legally sanctioned authorities concerned with forestry matters even in some states with a unitary form of government;
7. dual control of forest lands;
8. prevalence of various rights of usage over forest lands;
9. absence of control over privately owned forests;
10. unnecessary number of types of forest tenure;
11. unsuitability of existing types of forest tenure for development;
12. inadequacy of legislation affecting investment in forestry and forest industries.
(24 The forest ordinance of one developing country has been said to give " the impression of a pack of cards that has been thoroughly shuffled and dealt with several kings and aces accidentally excluded from the pack." W.A. Gordon, The law of forestry, London, H.M.S.O., 1955.)
(25 In one country relatively junior forest officers are given important powers that are denied the chief conservator of forests, the professional head of the forest service. This has, to some extent, removed the decision-making process from the chief conservator, placed it in the wrong place in the administrative hierarchy, and might conceivably affect the implementation of forest policy, lead to inconsistent action and, indeed, the balkanization of the forest service.)
All these problems will not be discussed because it is believed that, once identified, some of them are easily rectified if there is the will to do so; in addition, the difficulties are not all of the same importance. Consequently, those listed from (1) to (5) above will not be examined further.
Multiplicity of forest laws and regulations
A case study from a country in west Africa may best illustrate this problem. In that country the forest estate is managed and controlled under three sets of regulations and rules, all of which were passed as a result of powers granted to different authorities by the forest ordinance. These rules and regulations are concerned, inter alia, with the granting of licences for the erection of sawmills.
In deciding whether to refuse or grant an application to erect a sawmill, the authorities are supposed to take account of its proposed location, the adequacy of the supply of logs, the possible markets for the timber, the suitability of the machinery, the layout of the mill, and the financial status and experience of the applicant. However, many of the applicants who are refused by one authority are given permission by another, and the result is that there is a greater number of sawmills than it is the national policy to encourage. Because there is a captive market for sawn timber, the high log prices which are asked as a result of the relatively poor log supply/demand situation, and the high costs of conversion which result from permission being given to inefficient operators who do not possess the necessary experience, can be passed on to the consumer.
It is not intended to examine here the underlying policy of sawmill regulation. The purpose is to show how any policy may be circumvented if the legal machinery for its implementation is ill conceived or, as in this example, if there are too many instruments of law and too many authorities to decide the issues. Nor must it be thought that this problem is peculiar to west Africa and the sawmilling industry. These have been chosen merely as illustrations of a more pernicious malady: the underwriting by law of futile competition between authorities.
Dual control
In some countries, particularly in Africa, there is a legal arrangement whereby forest lands owned by communities are supposed to be managed by the State on their behalf. The owners are represented by councils or other groups of persons who control the issue of forest leases, licences or permits, and employ and supervise the lower echelons of the subprofessional forestry staff. The State provides advice through professional and certain levels of subprofessional staff which it employs and controls, and decides on the type of regeneration to be pursued, the felling cycle to be followed, the rotation of the forests and other technical aspects of forestry. This state of affairs has become known as the dual control of forests.
The arrangement was evolved in many countries in the days before independence, and was presumably designed to protect the rights of indigenous communities from the expatriate ruling classes. It worked reasonably well at a time when forest industrialization was rudimentary, when forestry was essentially a local as opposed to a national undertaking, and was mainly concerned with the extraction of the wood raw material. Nowadays, however, dual control leads to a number of problems. Conflicts between the State and the local authorities arise because the definitive power over forest labour rests with the owners and not with the professional and technically trained officers appointed by the State, because the policies formulated by the State are drastically amended by the local councils, and because there is almost constant friction between the State and the local authorities on such matters as to whom leases, licences and permits should be issued. In several cases, agreement cannot be reached on the leasing of contiguous blocks of forests, owned by different communities, to a single lessee, even when it, is clear that because of economies of scale a large area would be essential for the establishment of conversion plant.
Although there are strong indications that dual control reduces efficiency, the actual effect of the separation of ownership and management on the profitability of the forest enterprise has not, been the subject of analytical study. However, evidence from other sectors of national economies suggests that, where ownership and control are vested in one authority, a much higher return on investment is provided, there is a better managed capital structure and a more efficient allocation of resources.26 It would therefore seem desirable for those developing countries in which dual control exists to devise means of overcoming this conflict of responsibility.
(26 See, for example, R.J. Monsen, J.S. Chiu, and D.E. Cooley, The effect of separation of ownership and control on the performance of the large firm, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 82, 1968, p. 435-451.)
Unfortunately, it is frequently very difficult to change this situation, particularly as the old arrangements have been compounded, in many of the new constitutions of the former colonial territories, by clauses which guarantee the right of ownership and appear to prevent its transference from the communities to the State. One possible answer to this problem, which has been canvassed, is to leave ownership with tile communities, but to transfer all those powers that are necessary for proper forest management from the owners to the government.
In many countries, however, the law does not appear to accommodate such a solution. As ownership is legally considered to consist of an aggregated bundle of rights, governments are not permitted to strip owners of these rights if by so doing their residual powers become mere tokens of ownership. The right to dispose, to control and to manage are part and parcel of ownership27 and, if these are all taken away, compensation must be laid. A more feasible solution to the dual control problem would therefore probably be a contractual arrangement between government and owners whereby all aspects of management are vested in the State and, as a consideration, an agreed proportion of the fees and royalties or a fixed annual sum is paid to the owners. There should of course be provision for annual or periodic review.
(27 It should be noted, however, that ownership is not considered to be an absolute right in those countries which operate under the principles of Roman law.)
Rights of usage 28
(28 A right of usage may be defined as a legal interest, generally in land, held by a person or persons, either severally or in groups, giving the power to use or to prevent the use of land or the products of land which is held by another.)
Another restriction on -the efficient use of the forest resource in developing countries is the prevalence of various rights of usage over forest land. The presence of rights and obligations which are determined, not by transactions between parties but by considerations such as age, sex, religion and tribal affiliation, often reflects a stage of socioeconomic growth in which society is guided, in the main, by status rather than by contract. The exercise of these rights was perhaps desirable when there was not much differentiation of labour and when economies were primarily of the subsistence type. Indeed, they may still be useful in very localized areas. In general, however, are obstacles to development when exchange economies are introduced, and when efficiency demands the uninterrupted use of a resource.
Apart from the right of entry, the most common rights over forest land in the developing countries are those which concern the taking of forest produce, collection of wood for fuel, planting of crops in the forest, grazing of cattle, lopping of trees for fodder, and taking of soil. In some countries it is even held that shifting cultivation may be practiced as a right. Moreover, these rights are frequently heritable, seem to exist in gros, and in many cases the law is not clear as to whether they are alienable.
From the development point of view it is desirable that forest land should be unburdened of rights as far as possible. Every effort should therefore be made to remove those which exist in the forest estate. Rights may, of course, be extinguished by voluntary abandonment. They may also be extinguished by limitation, by commutation, or by compensation. Whatever the legal methods, the increased security of the forest estate which may be gained often justifies their use.
Private ownership of forest lands
In those developing countries in which there are areas of private forests, they are usually either unmanaged or inefficiently managed. Private forests are found in many parts of the developed world but there are generally provisions for their proper management by the State if the private owners so desire or if the State considers it necessary; moreover, these provisions are enforced.
In the developing countries two sets of factors have generally militated against such a solution. Either the private forests are owned by a class of persons who are politically so powerful that they impede all attempts at legislation and the enforcement of legislation, which they consider to be against their own interests even if it is designed to ensure that forests are managed for the nation's benefit or, as was the case with the communal ownership of forest land which has been considered earlier, national constitutions effectively prevent the imposition of controls over the exercise of the right of private ownership.
The ultimate solution to the problems which arise from both private and communal forest landownership is for the State to assume absolute ownership of these lands. If such a step is contemplated it may be necessary either to change the constitution or to convince the courts that it is in the public interest that the lands be expropriated. Neither of these courses ought to be followed without a thorough investigation of all the consequences which might arise. However, it seems advisable to assemble the various considerations which tend to impede rational forest resource management by private owners, and which therefore call for alternative solutions including, where conditions warrant it, state ownership.
Forest lands possess a distinctive character and specific, complex technical and managerial requirements.29 Because of their special physiographic features forests minimize erosion and reduce the possibility of floods and drought. These effects are far-reaching and the activities of almost every citizen in many areas may be affected by the way in which forests are managed. In some communities the forests are also much used for recreational purposes. Private owners do not always appear to possess the social commitment to provide these protectional and recreational services and, as these services are frequently vital to the development of the community, it would appear desirable for the State to own forests serving such purposes.
[29 See: J. Prats-Llauradó, forestry and agrarian reform, document, World tend Reform Conference, Rome, 1966. (RU: WLR 66/B).]
The case for state ownership of forest land does not rest, however, merely on the characteristics of protection and recreation forests. In most cases forest areas are able to provide forest products as well as these services. This interdependence of the various functions adds another dimension to the complexity of the managerial requirements of forestry, and often makes it imperative for the State to ensure that one aspect, for example erosion control, is not neglected in the short-term pursuit of another, for example log production.
There are other features which seem to prevent private forest owners from developing their forests, and might therefore justify the intervention of the State, once the necessity for forestry has been established. Forest crops take a long time to mature, sometimes longer than the life span of the persons who regenerated them. Apart from the psychological difficulties which some people experience when undertaking a task the results of which they know they will not live to assess, the private owner is sometimes unwilling to invest in projects with a long gestation period, whatever the possible financial and economic benefits. Moreover, in many developing countries, such as the Republic of Korea, privately owned forests often cover areas that are too small to be economically viable, and it is necessary to group these individual forests into economic units. This may, of course, be achieved through such institutions as cooperative societies. Experience has shown however that, unless they are voluntary, forestry cooperatives are seldom successful. The final recourse may therefore be state expropriation of such lands.
Again, although the liquidation of forest capital can be justified in certain circumstances, as a general rule it is desirable to ensure continuity of supply. The ability of the forest, if properly managed, to yield supplies in perpetuity is one of its chief assets. The forester is able to exploit his forests in such a way that he removes an amount more or less equal to the accumulation of interest or growth, leaving the capital. behind. the capital and interest of the forest are inextricably connected, and achieving tire correct cut is a somewhat difficult operation. Private owners in developing countries generally either do not have the requisite knowledge for this operation or the means to employ persons with this knowledge. As a result, even with the best intentions their forest estates are frequently ravaged.
Another limitation to the progress of forestry in developing countries which arises from the private ownership of forest lands is tile failure of owners to conduct research designed to improve the efficiency of their forest operations, or to utilize the research findings of the State. It has been shown that even government forest services in developing countries are not always provided with resources to undertake many types of research projects. Private owners are considerably less active in this regard.
However, the impact of forestry and forest industries on development and the wide and pervasive influence of the sector on national economies are perhaps sufficient justification for advocating state ownership of forest lands. In the developing countries this sector may be likened to a public utility which has the capacity to provide basic socioeconomic services to the community. This characteristic has already been discussed in the earlier parts of this chapter. It is merely necessary to state here that those developing countries endowed with forests or in which conditions are suitable for the establishment of forests ought to consider the sector not only as one from which adequate financial returns may be obtained but, more important, as one which can be vital to sustained economic growth.
There are already signs in those developing countries in which the rights of private forest landownership impede development that the established systems are being questioned and means are being devised to change them. Even in those countries in which the sanctity of private ownership is enshrined in the national constitution the case is being argued, not necessarily by members of governments, for an extension of the State's power to limit the exercise of property rights in the interests of public welfare.30
(30 See, for example: Yu Chin-O, Report of address to the Royal Asia Society, Korea Times, 8 February 1969. - Hahm Pyong-Choon, The Korean political tradition and law, San Francisco, Tri-Ocean Books, 1967.)
It may be that for political or ideological reasons, however, it is considered unwise to expropriate private forest lands. In such cases it is advisable to legislate so that private owners are directed to manage their forests in accordance with the principles of good forestry as determined by the State. These principles must be clearly defined and elaborated. If the owners fail to follow them, the State must be in a position either to supervise the management of the forest or to manage it itself. The State should also be in a position to direct the management of, or itself to manage, as a unit, those private forests which individually cover areas that are too small for economic exploitation and development. All these measures have been adopted in one or other of the developed countries in the fields of either agriculture or forestry.
Tenure
The principal defects are the apparently unnecesary number of types of forest tenure which exist and the unsuitability of many of them for forestry development. Apart from freehold and various forms of communal ownership which have already been discussed, the three most common tenurial systems in forestry are leases, licences and permits. A [Lease is an interest in land in which the owner confers upon another person, or group of persons or a corporate personality, the right to the exclusive possession of a defined area of land for a fixed period. A licence does not contain the special ingredients necessary for a lease -its fixed duration and its right to exclusive possession - but confers a right to an individual or individuals to do something which would otherwise constitute a trespass. It is a personal agreement between the parties as the rights conferred cannot be transferred and the burden does not pass with the land. The legal distinction between a licence and a permit is not very clear but, in the special circumstances in which the latter is issued in connexion with forestry in some developing countries, it usually confers rights to fell and remove a smaller number of trees than is normal under a licence.
Although in most developing countries what are called forest leases are often :issued, in many cases their conditions do not conform strictly to the requirements of the legal systems on which they are based. They sometimes do not give exclusive possession of the land, and they frequently do not permit its transfer. As a result, there are many reported cases from the developing countries in which the terms and conditions of certain leases have been found to be unenforceable mainly because, on interpretation, the judges have leaned toward the common law requirements of leases. Nor is the solution to be found in the issue of licences, in their legally acceptable connotation, because a licence does not necessarily give exclusive possession and is essentially a contractual arrangement which may be revoked at will. As a result, security of tenure, which forest operators consider so essential, is often lacking.
It appears that there is a great opportunity for the developing countries to evolve arrangements applicable to the practice of forestry in local conditions. What are needed are contractual agreements which would encourage investment and at the same time safeguard the interests of governments. The agreements must also be such that the development of the forestry and forest industries sector is integrated with the development of other relevant sectors of the national economy.
If the policy of governments is to encourage the local conversion of their forest resource, it seems evident that concessions for the exploitation of the forests should be tied to the establishment of conversion plant, and if possible to integrated forest industries. However, many countries in which there are plans for industrial development continue to sign agreements in which there is no necessity for exploiters to ensure that any sort of conversion is done locally. Indeed, many agreements do not contain any clauses which insist on minimum processing requirements, and in some countries there is no legal compulsion on forestry authorities to choose the most efficient concessionaires.
Most developing countries either do not attempt to provide a rational body of rules to guide their personnel in deciding on the duration of forestry concessions or, if they do, base them on criteria which often bear little relation either to national aspirations or to the needs of entrepreneurs.
Yet this is an important policy decision. On the one hand, it might be argued that land owned by the State should not be granted for long periods: it ties the hands of governments for too long, restricts the possibility of transferring the land to some other form of land use which might be considered more economic in the future, and might give inefficient operators too secure a tenure. Such operators are those who, although they follow the terms of the lease, do not innovate or explore new markets, do not manufacture new kinds of products or try to sell new species. There is also the argument that, because of the general shortage of local capital, it is usually foreign firms and companies which operate the concessions. All these considerations suggest that the duration of the concessions should be as short as possible.
On the other hand, it might be urged that as forestry is a long-term venture, agreements should be for long periods: roads and bridges have to be built, felling and extraction equipment must be purchased. If the concessions are appurtenant to processing plant, long concessions are also necessary to justify expenditure on conversion equipment.
Because of these often valid but conflicting views it is necessary to establish guidelines which control the length of concessions. These should be based not on the area of the concession, as is the custom in those few countries which have provided rules for the solution of this problem, but on factors which will depend upon the availability of forests, the degree of competition for concessions, and on whether the policy is to encourage log export or local conversion.
If there is much competition for forest land, the State will be in a position to impose its terms on prospective concessionaires. However, it seems advisable either to link the duration of concessions to the yield of the forest area and not to its size if the main object is merely the exploitation of raw material, or to relate it to the amortization period of the processing plant if the objective is forest industrialization.
The relevant legal provision in countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico might be of some interest to others which are experiencing difficulties in solving this problem. In these countries the regulations decree that concessions should be given to enterprises so that they may operate " industrial forest exploitation units. " These units are blocks of forests which it is estimated are able to maintain a forest industry on a permanent basis. The size of the concessions varies from place to place, but the duration cannot exceed 25 years. The regulations also state that all concession agreements should contain timber processing clauses, and that preference should be given to the person or company which undertakes to bring about the greatest degree of industrialization.
There are other conditions which may be included in agreements in order to assist the development process: a " merchantable clause " which expressly lists the species which must be exploited and which provides for the alteration of the list as economic and technical conditions change; a provision for the equitable assessment and periodic revision of schedules of fees and royalties; a right of renewal which might indicate that the concessionaire will be given preferential treatment if he has satisfactorily complied with all the clauses of the agreement; a condition under which transfer of the concession might be granted, care being taken to ensure that transfer is not possible unless the proper authority approves; and a clause which permits the repossession of the land in certain well-defined circumstances.
It might also be desirable to include clauses on the establishment of forestry villages. Too often the living conditions of rural workers in forestry and forest industries in the developing countries do not meet the planning requirements of urban centres: the result is the creation of forestry slums. Here governments might assist in the provision of schools, hospitals and communication services in much the same way as they provide these amenities in other areas.
Finally, in this review of the clauses of forest concessions in developing countries, it must be stressed that agreement should be reached on the manner of working the concessions, and that there should be frequent inspections to ensure that the terms are followed. This is important, for although the concession may be worked as a unit, its operation should fit into the national forestry plan.
Legislation and investment in forestry and forest industries
In many countries with large forest estates the existing forest legislation does not specifically encourage private investment in forestry and forest industries. Even in the comparatively new branch of legislative activity concerned with the promotion of private investment, forestry and forest industries often seem to be excluded.
Where the promotional legislation (which grants incentives in the form of tax-free periods, tax rebates, exemptions from certain import and export duties, depreciation allowances, permission to foreign concerns to repatriate a certain proportion of profits, differential locational taxes, etc.) is phrased in general terms, it is often possible to interpret the relevant clauses so that various forest industries may be included. Frequently, however, in this general type of investment legislation, operations such as logging are not covered if the clauses are strictly and legalistically interpreted.
There are countries which have deliberately considered forestry and forest industries in their investment legislation, and Indonesia, for example, has recently prepared a guide for foreign capital and investment that is specifically concerned with forestry.31 The scope of this study does not permit an examination of the various forms of incentives that may be granted by legislation for different forestry activities. But in order to assist those countries which, though their policy is to encourage investment in industry, have legislated in terms which inadvertently either do not include forestry or exclude certain important aspects, some possible areas which might be covered by forestry investment legislation are listed below. What is actually included in the laws will depend upon the industrialization and investment policy of each nation, and upon the nature of local participation in forestry and forest industries. Nevertheless, it should be understood that incentives must sometimes be given for the performance of a whole range of forestry activities that do not appear to be directly connected with the final stages of conversion.
(31 Technical guide for foreign capital investment in forestry. Indonesia, Jakohutan Ditusa, 1968.)
Incentives may be granted for:
1. the establishment of forest plantations;
2. logging operations;
3. providing wood storage, wood seasoning, and wood preservation facilities;
4. the distillation of wood;
5. the establishment of various types of forest industries: sawmilling, plywood manufacture, pulp and paper production, etc.;
6. the establishment of integrated forest industries;
7. the exploitation of forests in certain areas;
8. increasing wood product exports;
9. the local manufacture of those wood products which may be demonstrated to earn or save foreign exchange;
10. employing a minimum number of workers.
Provision may also be made for:
1. employing a certain number of local technical and managerial staff;
2. training local staff;
3. local participation in investments.
All these conditions, whether they concern the types of tenure to be used in forestry, the terms of forestry agreements or the nature of the investment incentives to be given, should accord with the general aims and purposes of a country's overall development plan, and should be designed to encourage the development of the forestry and forest industries sector.
Forest resource evaluation
A considerable amount of general information concerning the forests of the developing countries is already available. It :has been estimated, for example, that of the world's total area of 4126 million hectares of forest land,32 2 226 million hectares or approximately 53 percent lie in the developing countries, and that the world's forests (stocked forest land) cover a total area of 3 792 million hectares; of this, 2 141 million hectares or approximately 56 percent are situated in the less industrialized countries.
(32 The term " forest land " is used here to mean all land which bears vegetative associations dominated by trees of any size, which are either capable of yielding forest products or are able to provide various protection services for the community. This is the definition used by FAO in its world forest inventories.)
It is also known that, one of the important characteristics of the tropical high forests, which are found mainly in developing countries, is the great number of species to be found within them. The total number of identified species of larger trees in the Indo-:Malaysian rainforest has been estimated to be as great as 3 000. Next in order of numerical importance are the Latin American forests, intermediate between the Asian and African, and containing about 2 500 species of large trees. The least rich of the floras of the tropical regions, the African, has also by temperate standards a prodigious number of species: Just under 1000 woody species. One significant factor about these tropical floras is that very few species, and not very many of the genera and families, are represented in all regions. In consequence, the total tropical flora is even more considerable than that found in individual continents.
Interesting though it may be and important though it is from the point of view of indicating the broad potentialities of the tropical forests, this sort of generalized forest resource information is of little value for programme and project planning. For although in some areas there is a tendency toward gregariousness in some families (e.g. Dipterocarpaceae, Leguminosae), genera (e.g. Eperua, Shorea), and even species (e.g. Ocotea rodiaei, Tectona qrandis), in general the numerous tropical woody species ale intimately mixed in a given area. They are also of such varying sizes and complexity that there is no known method of reasoning a priori, from an ecological knowledge of the associations and consociations within the forest community as a whole, to such specific facts as what species may be found in a particular area, the numbers of trees which represent the species, the spatial distribution of these trees, their sizes, and their growth and mortality rates. This, however, is the type of knowledge that is required if rational preinvestment decisions in forestry industry establishment or expansion are to be made, and if the forests are to be managed efficiently.
Forest services have long been aware of this need for a greater and more detailed knowledge of their resource base. Many of them have therefore attempted to obtain the necessary information, and the list of countries in which forest resource evaluations have to some extent been carried out is quite imposing. :Forest inventories of at least parts of the forest area have been conducted in most of the forest-rich countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. These have usually been made by private concerns before or after the granting of concessions and, on the whole, governments have not been active except in those countries which have only recently become independent.
Most of the forest inventories so far conducted suffer from various defects. In preparing them, certain important points seem, in many cases, to have been overlooked: that these inventories must ultimately be used for planning forestry and forest industries establishment and expansion; that planning implies looking into the future; that both present techniques and future advances in forestry and forest industries must therefore be considered as far as possible; and that both present and future markets must therefore be taken into account in forest evaluation. The result often is that the use of scarce resources of capital and trained manpower when enumerating the forests not only does not yield information which can be used by forest development planners and industrialists at the time that the inventories are made and on future occasions, but also these scarce resources have to be employed on subsequent occasions over the same areas in order to obtain additional information.
Despite more than 40 years of collecting forest resource data in a certain Latin American country, little information is available concerning those factors that are relevant to forest industries planning. In a west African country with an even longer history of forest evaluation activity, the data amassed lie idly on the shelves of various offices and have either not been analysed or are not analysable. In both instances the material collected has not been fully used. Many other examples can be found throughout the developing world. It therefore seems useful to state what information should be collected in forest resource surveys, and in what ways the data collected should be presented.
The industrialist, the planner and the forest manager need to know:
1. total area of the forests;2. types of forest that are found, the area by types, and their location;
3. total number of trees, the number of trees per species, and the distribution of these trees;
4. size classes of these trees and the number of trees per size class;
5. quantity of wood in the forest, expressed in terms of volume or weight or other useful measure, and the distribution of the volume, etc.;
6. estimates of growth and drain;
7. physical characteristics of the area (site quality, climate, topography, etc.).
In addition, because the assessment of the forest may be used for certain nonwood products and services, it is sometimes necessary to provide information as to whether the area is suitable for recreation, protection, or wildlife conservation. Where possible, the cost of logging and transport to mill site and an assessment of existing and prospective road communications should also be obtained during forest inventory operations.
Generally, there are few problems connected with the estimation of the total forest area or the area of forest types. It is with the collection of the other data that the most common mistakes are made. In many cases measurements are made only for certain species and sizes because the evaluation of the forest is carried out to ascertain whether there is sufficient raw material for some particular end product or range of end products, and because the choice of species and the size of the trees to be valued are usually conditioned by the prevailing state of wood technology and merchantability. The result is that only a limited picture of the forest resource base is obtained. Another factor which often contributes to this narrow approach to forest evaluation is, of course, the fact that many developing countries do not possess personnel with the requisite knowledge to undertake more comprehensive surveys.
As was emphasized earlier, because of the rapid advances being made in forest technology certain species and sizes once considered unsuitable for particular processes are now being more widely used. Earlier examples referred to the use of small-dimensioned logs for plywood production, and the fuller utilization of mixed tropical hardwoods for the production of pulp. There have been changes in the uses to which tropical woods are being put even in the less sophisticated field of sawtimber, and many species formerly thought to be unmerchantable are now gaining acceptance in the markets. This has come about partly as a result of the relative diminution in the availability of some of the more favoured woods, partly because of better marketing methods by interested producers, and partly because of the slow but purposeful expansion of seasoning and preservative treatment in the developing countries. There is also a growing tendency to use wood in the reconstituted forms of particle board and fibreboard, and this too has led to a widening of the range of utilizable species and sizes. Resource evaluations made before these fundamental processing and use changes were evolved and became generally accepted were limited to a few species and sizes and are now almost valueless as a source of information for planning purposes. The conclusion is therefore inescapable that in evaluating forests the species and sizes considered not be limited by present knowledge of markets and technology but, wherever possible, all species of minimal sizes should be included.33
(33 It is not being suggested here that there should be I 100 percent enumerations, that is, that all the trees in all the forest should be measured. A scientifically designed sampling procedure is far less costly than 100 percent surveys, and produces the required results within acceptable limits of error. However, within the sample, it is often unwise to limit attention only to a few particular sizes and species of current value.)
It might be argued that, desirable though this approach, is, the costs of measuring all species and all sizes in the profuse and heterogeneous tropical forests would be extremely high. The ideal solution to this problem would be, of course, to carry out a cost/benefit analysis, in which the extra costs of the more thorough survey are weighed against the increased benefits that are likely to arise and the costs which might have to be met in resurveying tile area at some future date. Unfortunately, it is frequently extremely difficult, if not impossible, to assess the benefits of such an operation, and it is therefore necessary to rely on a priori considerations. Certain factors suggest that the overall costs of a total survey would not be very much greater than those of the partial surveys so much in vogue and, as has been indicated, the benefits to he gained are often substantial.
First, it appears that an increase in the number of sizes and species measured does not result in a corresponding increase in costs. Secondly, although the number of species found in a comparatively large area, of tropical forest may be considerable, all the species are not concentrated in any one area, and the number of representatives per species is often quite low. Thus, by recording and measuring the various trees by vegetation types or in small blocks, the amount of -work expended in booking the measurements would not be as great as might otherwise be expected.
It might also be contended that, even if all the desirable information is collected, much of it would have little relevance to situations which obtain at the time of its analysis, and that the methods now employed in recording enumeration data do not always permit subsequent analysis. To meet this argument FAO has evolved what has been termed the flexibility of analysis approach. In this approach, the inventory is so planned that the basic data collected are recorded in such a way that they are subsequently retrievable, permitting additional and future analyses and providing information not required on the occasion of the first analysis. A manual which describes this procedure has been prepared.34
(34 FAO, Manual for forest Inventory operations executed by FAO, Rome, 1968.)
The forest is a dynamic organism subject to growth, decay and death. It is not enough, therefore, merely to know what exists in the forest at the time the survey is made. It is also essential that estimates be obtained of the growth and mortality rates of the different species, and the proportion of unsoundness due to decay, so that the status of the forest may be predicted for some, limited time in the future. Over long periods there may, of course, be no substitute for a reinventory Growth prediction is a, complementary exercise which is often ignored in forest inventories in developing countries, with the result that the information acquired. soon becomes out-of-date. It must therefore be stressed that in the overall planning of evaluation surveys provision must be made for estimates of growth and natural drain.
These considerations :refer to the evaluation of natural forests for they, as has been seen, are a most complex organism. However, plantations must also be evaluated. It might be thought that information would be continually available about these forests because they have been established by man and because of the relative simplicity of their structure. Unfortunately, this is not always so. :In quite a number of countries plantations have been established but subsequently, to all intents and purposes, have been left to fend for themselves Indeed even an adequate knowledge of their location and extent is sometimes lacking. The silvicultural and management implications of this, though somewhat harrowing, need not be considered here. What is important in the present context is that, here again, very little relevant information is readily available.
It should be evident that, apart from the need for data on the current status of the areas under plantations, facts are also required on growth and productivity. Evaluation systems should therefore be continuous. By this is meant that the necessary information on volume and growth should be obtained, in most cases, from the periodic measurement of either permanent or temporary sample plots. In this type of inventory as in the evaluation of the natural tropical forests it is helpful to record the data in such a way that they are amenable to modern processing methods, either at the time of measurement or at some future date.
There are two broad groups of personnel. who are likely to be interested in the data collected: those who must use the figures for the management of the forests, and those who require the information for development planning and for investment decision making. The way in which the information is usually communicated to the first group is generally quite suitable, and the main concern here is therefore with the second one. It is not being suggested that an industrialist or a financier would accept the information supplied without subsequent investigation. However, if the original presentation is not phrased in terms that are intelligible to him, the danger is increased that he might give an unfavourable answer to investment proposals without further study.
The results of evaluation surveys should therefore be interpreted and reported upon by professional foresters who possess a knowledge of the wood requirements of particular forest industrial processes, and extraction economics. Their reports should clearly show how much wood, and of what species, is available for each end product, the probable duration of the supply of wood raw material for each conversion process, the location of this wood, the qualities of the terrain, and the problems that might be incurred in transporting the raw material to processing and marketing centres. Further, these reports should be conveyed to all interested persons, and should not be kept in the files of forest services. For it must be remembered that resource evaluation is a stage in the development process, and that the mere collection of information does not serve any useful purpose.
Developing countries possess valuable forest resources and the demand for forest products is rising rapidly. They also have certain economic advantages over developed countries in the utilization of their forests both for domestic use and for exports. However, despite these attributes, the forestry and forest industries sector of most developing countries has failed to make the important contribution to economic development of which it is inherently capable.
Although this failure may be said to arise directly from the inadequacy of investment in forestry and forest industries, it appears that this dearth of investment is largely the result of certain serious institutional weaknesses. The inadequacy of the training given to forestry personnel to equip them for their new tasks, the obsolescence of the forest administrative machinery, the inappropriate structures of many forest organizations, and the frequent irrelevance of the legal provisions under which the sector operates often reduce the effectiveness of forest services and, consequently, restrict the growth and development of the sector, to its disadvantage. Moreover, the potential contribution of forestry to economic development is, in many countries, not clearly understood and expressed by professional foresters. As a result, governments often do not create the environmental conditions that are necessary if their countries are to profit from their forest resources. Development oriented institutions are not established, adequate funds are not voted for the forest services, and investment is not encouraged. In consequence a vicious circle is created, and the flow of capital to the sector is often inadequate for the forestry and forest industries sector to demonstrate its development potential.
Even though, because of their tariff walls and trade practices, the more industrialized countries must share some of the responsibility in this matter it is suggested that the possession of a skilled and properly motivated forest service, able to bring to bear both imagination and expertise to its manifold tasks, is the prime essential for forestry development in the developing countries.
