This issue of Unasylva is devoted to presenting aspects of FAO's activities in relation to forestry education and training. It is a line of action to which the various governing bodies of the Organization have consistently accorded high priority during the 1960s - a period which also saw the elevation of the FAO Panel on Education in Forestry into an Advisory Committee on Forestry Education.
Simultaneously there was rapid expansion in the financing of national projects on education and training when the United Nations Special Fund for Economic Development started to operate, and bilateral aid programmes were also enlarged and coordinated more closely with the field programmes of FAO. At the same time many developing countries substantially increased their own efforts in the general field of education as a basic means of hastening their social and economic development.
Seven national forestry education projects were financed by the United Nations Development Programme (Special Fund) and operated by FAO during the decade, involving an investment of about $10 million; these have now been completed so far as FAO is concerned. There are another 23 UNDP (Special Fund) projects still in operation, representing a commitment of about $38.5 million. The results of these projects can already be clearly seen in many countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America which are steadily strengthening their professional and technical cadres with UNDP help.
With the growth of its field programme and its work on the Indicative World Plan for Agricultural Development in connexion with manpower needs and employment possibilities, FAO has gradually expanded its planning activities which include the structure and methods of forestry education systems, as well as their quantitative and geographical aspects. The aim has been to integrate human resources planning with economic planning by answering such basic questions as how many foresters are really needed in the developing countries, where they should be trained, and how. Some aspects of this are illustrated in the present issue of Unasylva.
An attempt has been made to look into the future and promote the establishment of new forestry schools or the strengthening of existing ones. But it is obvious that FAO has so far not tried to any significant extent to influence the content and methods of forestry education which would enable the forestry profession to play its expected new role in the face of widespread change in social conditions and advancement in scientific knowledge and technology. These changes require updating the competence of forestry personnel toward new objectives, and call for a type of education more amenable to change, more critical and far-reaching. The progress of science requires boldness and balance in incorporating into curricula the new conquests of research. It implies a rapid obsolescence of acquired knowledge with a consequent need for the continuing education of the practitioner. This has special application to the developing countries but, as in other fields of learning, the issues are world wide as regards the quality of manpower resources needed for forestry development and the new aspirations of the forestry student. In fact the whole scope and mode of forestry education is today under critical review in many places and accepted traditions are open to reexamination.
This contemporary reappraisal of the content of forestry education is not likely to produce a universal answer to the question of adjusting forestry curricula to the stock of knowledge and the turn of mind that the forester will need in the 1970s. However, certain general requirements seem clear; for example that forestry education at the undergraduate level should be interdisciplinary and geared to produce a development-oriented resource manager, that the forestry undergraduate should be taught to use modern tools of scientific management and administration, and that emphasis in the curriculum should be on those areas of knowledge which are especially relevant to the country or region where the student will practise his profession.
To help meet the situation, a feature of FAO's programme for 1971 will be a World Consultation on Education for Forestry and Forest Industries at which it is planned to discuss with reason rather than fervour the content of forestry education. The first of its kind to be held, this consultation should afford an opportunity for building on past achievements and provide a new focus and purpose for FAO'S work in keeping with the profound changes taking place in education the world over.
The Department of Forestry, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
The Santarem Training Centre, part of Brazil's programme for developing the Amazon basin.
