THANE RINEYTHANE RINEY is Chief of the Forest Conservation and Wildlife Branch of the Forest Resources Division, Forestry Department, FAO.
ONE OF THE FAR REACHING decisions of the FAO Conference was to include wildlife conservation and management among its regular activities. This decision was taken in 1959 at the instance of the Forestry Committee of the Conference.
In many countries wildlife and wild lands fall under the administrative responsibility of the forestry department or service. In most others foresters are closely involved in, even if not functionally responsible for, wildlife management. Within forest departments, then, wildlife cannot be ignored: but it can be regarded either as a problem or an asset, depending on the extent to which it is judged to contribute to or interfere with the major objectives of forest management.
The problem of damage by animals concerns the management of productive forests insofar as animals interfere with the survival or growth of desirable trees, damage crops in surrounding areas, eat or prey on domestic ungulates or man, and contribute to the spread of disease. Forest wildlife may, however, be an important part of the management plan; for instance, the browsing habits of a species may help reduce unwanted competition from noncommercial trees. Beyond that, wildlife may be an important economic resource in its own right. For example, wildlife is a valuable resource on lands where the emphasis is on hunting, capture of live animals or on utilizing wildlife for the production of meat and various by-products. This latter aspect of wildlife management is capable of considerable expansion.
Improvement of forest habitats to increase the productivity of animal populations has been possible in a few areas, and at least one instance is known where the proceeds from a wildlife utilization scheme were used to finance the development of a production forest.
Examples indicative of present wildlife values in tropical lands can be cited for each of the major regions. Many African countries are renowned for their wildlife, even though the value of this resource, whether as a source of protein or cash revenue, has seldom been properly recognized. In Botswana, 60 percent of the animal protein consumed annually is derived from wildlife. The introduction of new legislation and the application of simple management and control procedures, with the help of two officers supplied by FAO, increased the income from game and national parks from U.S.$200000 to over $3 500 000 in a period of three years. In Kenya, tourism brings some 30 million dollars of foreign exchange into the country every year. From east Africa, in 1965, ivory exports alone were worth over a million dollars. In Ghana, wildlife provides 65 percent of the protein consumed in rural areas. A report by the Nigerian Department of Statistics on the value of game meat in southern Nigeria estimated its value in 1966 at not less than 50 million dollars.
Comparable figures from Latin America are not available, but excerpts from reports of FAO field projects indicate that the resource is indeed worth serious consideration. In Peru, for example, exports of live wild animals and hides and skins from Iquitos to the United States have been only slightly short of one million dollars per year. Also in Peru, in the Ucayli areas of the Amazon forest, fish and game make up at least 85 percent of the animal protein consumed by local inhabitants. In 1968, between June and August, 7 169 jaguar skins worth over $852 000 were exported from Latin America into the United States and of these, 4 422, worth over $403 500, were from Brazil alone.
Wildlife from the tropical forests of Asia and the Pacific has long been of demonstrable value. In Singapore, which along with Hong Kong is one of the two main clearing centres for the export of animal products of the region, exports of crocodile, snake and lizard skins, live birds and fish for aquaria were worth $9.4 million in 1966. From New Guinea, between July 1965 and July 1966, one million dollars worth of crocodile skins were exported. From June to August 1968, 3 253 leopard skins, worth $415 340, were imported into the United States from India alone. Deer farming, for the production of antlers for the Chinese market, is well established in the Republic of Viet-Nam and in several other parts of Asia. From parts of the tropics as far apart as Africa and Australia, tinned meat of a variety of wild species is shipped to the luxury markets of Europe and the United States.
We do not imply that these developments are all desirable. Uncontrolled, they are often undesirable, but they can be controlled and properly channelled.
FAO staff working in Latin America and in the Asia Pacific regions estimate that the potential for conservation and management of wildlife and for the development of national parks capable of developing significant tourist income is nearly as great as that of the African region.
In looking for solutions to animal problems in the forests of either temperate or tropical regions, an understanding of both animal and forest ecology is essential if the cheapest and most permanent solutions are to be found. Habitat requirements for animals are the approximate ecological equivalent of site requirements for trees. By selecting, for example, systems of felling, fire control and distribution of roads, one can manage the forest to minimize or eliminate critical habitat requirements for animals; by manipulating the forest environment in a different way the opposite effect can be achieved.
In the last 20 years man's ability to capture and transport large mammals from one place to another has progressed to the extent that ecosystems including a range of African species are developing outside Africa, and several species of deer and other wild ungulates have been successfully transferred from continent to continent. Species not previously known to exist in an area can now be introduced into an entirely new but appropriate environment and in time fill the habitat to add new values to the total forest environment - or to create new problems for forest management.
The success or failure of introductions can be predicted in advance, providing we know the extent to which the new environment supplies the annual requirements for existence of the species, as well as the life history of the species itself - particularly its habitat requirements, characteristic dispersal pattern and potential for reproduction.
It is within the capacity of foresters to simplify or broaden the range of potential forest habitats, or to increase or decrease the number and kinds of animals present, in much the same way as one can develop a balanced aquarium. This statement in no way implies that because introductions are possible, they should always be encouraged; but since such possibilities exist, we should explore the uses and limitations of introductions, as many forest areas will become more involved with them in the future.
This brings up the question of forest-animal relationships and how they work from the point of view of those concerned with animals. Forest management influences habitat, and habitats inevitably differ between forests managed for production or protection purposes and those of indigenous or exotic species. When trees are removed, each forest area recovers in a characteristic succession of stages and the recovery proceeds at rates that differ markedly. Different forest management practices affect animal habitats differently, as through thinning, selective cutting or block felling. All these variables have profound affects on the populations of animals in the forest because, as the forest habitat changes, so the potential for animal production correspondingly changes. If undesirable animal species are present, changes in forest management can, by modifying animal habitat, change the potential for damage by animals to the growing forest.
The introduction of exotic plantations creates a set of variables which generally reduces the diversity of plant communities, and each plantation in each region has its own potential for animal production. Likewise, the introduction of browsing or grazing by domestic livestock within a forest will modify animal habitats in still other ways, thus changing the potential for wildlife.
The suitability of wildlife as an aspect of management or form of land use on forest lands must be viewed ecologically in terms of the extent the present habitat has departed from a climax type of vegetation, in which direction it is heading and why. The greater and more sudden the change in the ecosystem (e.g., clear felling or burning), the stronger the depressive or stimulant effects on wildlife, depending upon the species of animals involved.
Additional vast areas, wildlands and marginal forest lands must be mentioned here, for they include areas over which forest services often exercise responsibility for management. In many cases it is not a question of animal-forest relationship, but of what to do with these lands.
Along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert is a strip of land, over 3 000 miles long and over 200 miles wide, in which grassland or open savanna is being converted to increasing amounts of shrubs and trees through the action of fire and overgrazing by herdsmen, many of whom are nomadic.
It is a tremendous challenge to the foresters in charge of such marginal areas to search for new uses of both plants and animals that will maintain a stability in the areas and prevent the southern spread of the Sahara Desert. This edge of the Sahara is socially, economically and ecologically a complex area, and unfortunately there are few foresters working closely with other specialists to solve its problems.
Deserts are but one form of comparatively unused marginal land; high mountains, swamps and alpine regions bordering various types of forest are other areas offering habitats for special combinations of animals.
A summary of FAO experience over the past decade gives one index to an international trend.
The first big development started by the Forestry Division was the African Special Project, financed under the Technical Assistance Programme and carried out in cooperation with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). The project featured first a regional meeting organized by IUCN at Arusha in Tanzania in 1961, following which FAO established a two-man team, which between 1962 and 1964 completed missions to 19 countries in Africa. The resulting report " Conservation and management of African wildlife" gave a perspective of the status and potential uses and problems of the wildlife resource and national parks of Africa.
In 1964 one of the members of this team was brought to FAO headquarters to assist in developing a programme of activities for the Organization which by this time, as the result of recommendations of the FAO Latin American and North American Forestry Commissions, included in its purview not only national parks but also recreation on forest areas in general.
Both the development of projects and the assignment of priorities for FAO activities have been based on actual problems and needs originating in the developing countries and brought to the attention of the Forestry Department by, for instance, working parties of the several FAO regional forestry commissions which periodically review research, training and development needs on a national and regional basis.
From a beginning with only two men in the field in 1962 and 1963, the work has developed to the extent that FAO had 50 specialists in the field during the 1968-69 period, conducting surveys on some specific research or management problems, helping with legislation and some aspects of commercial development, in administrative organization and assisting in the development of education and public relations.
General wildlife surveys have been undertaken for the purpose of formulating recommendations on uses to which the wildlife resource may be put and suggesting ways of developing tourism or establishing national parks, forest recreation areas, hunting or game-cropping schemes. These surveys sometimes have been linked to a broad-based plan for land use in determining the most appropriate form of exploitation, especially on marginal lands or lands in which present use appears unsatisfactory. Research has been undertaken to study techniques appropriate to particular developing countries, or to deal with special crop or forest damage problems.
Help is often requested by member countries in drafting legislation to protect certain areas and species, to control utilization and for cropping schemes. Other requests ask for assistance in strengthening the administrative structure in various ways. Still others are for assistance in education, involving primary and secondary levels, medium and technical grade training, university training, public relations and extension, directed either at all levels or to certain groups.
In response, FAO may initiate a specific project in the country concerned, arrange seminars or other meetings, or produce special surveys and publications. An example of one such activity is the production of a handbook on wildlife management techniques for field staff operating in developing countries. During the last ten years the more than 150 technical reports produced by FAO staff have been distributed to the countries directly concerned or published in appropriate scientific publications.
One of the features of FAO's approach is close liaison with other United Nations agencies, bilateral programmes and private foundations, with much effort spent in helping countries to find sources of aid other than FAO.
If in future national forest policies begin to place increased emphasis on the nontimber aspects of forest management, this trend will obviously put certain strains on the forestry profession, which is now largely concerned with production forestry. Attention will certainly have to be given to expanding the training of foresters to include management of wildlife and recreation areas. Also important will be the allotment of priorities for research into the various social aspects of a changing forest scene, as well as into the ecological implications of the development of various nontimber uses of the forest. All aspects of forest planning, development and training will inevitably feel the impact of expanding concepts; this may relate also to the conduct of forest inventories and practical management practices as well as to forest policy at the national level.
Such ideas have had considerable impact on thinking in certain comparatively highly developed temperate countries; but, involving as they do some kind of integrated and interdisciplinary planning, managing and use´, they may perhaps be regarded as rather advanced for developing countries. Viewed in a global perspective, however, and particularly in relation to tropical forest lands, the implementation of concepts implying interdisciplinary management of the total forest environment is still young. Forestry itself is still in its infancy in many countries, often simply owing to lack of precedent; this however, far from being a disadvantage, can in fact facilitate the growth and implementation of the concept of integrated development of the several resources of forest lands into national policies and development plans.
If we can be guided by FAO's experience over the past decade, the coming years will see major contributions to our understanding of how best to utilize total tropical forest values for man's use and enjoyment, and to our ability to translate such understanding into practical action.
