Because of the beneficial influence of forests on the total environment, a World Forest Appraisal programme is proposed. Through this programme, the world's forest cover would be continuously monitored. This would provide an indication of global environmental stability. In particular, the quantity and quality of forest areas will be assessed and classified into relevant ecological groups, and changes in the forest biomass, considered as having a significant effect on the environment, will be recorded.
Data will be collected by remote-sensing techniques, through national reports, and by scanning existing inventories. The information would then be collated, computerized and analysed. An effective model would be constructed, from which caution and danger areas would be identified, and an alarm system organized for warning governments. Where, for example, the world's thermic balance is altered by the destruction of forest areas, the programme would be in a position to recognize this phenomenon and to advise on the extensive afforestation or reforestation schemes.
The programme would also coordinate information on forest destruction through fire, and research on the service technology of forest fire prevention and control. An important feature of the programme's activities would be the detection and location of forest fires and assessment of larger disease and insect attacks.
It is important that these investigations be carried out at the international level because:
most of the data which the programme would collect and analyze could affect regions or the world as a whole rather than individual nations;
the relatively poor communication infrastructure which exists in developing countries precludes them from anticipating and recording ecological and environmental changes in the more remote areas; and
an international agency would most likely be in the best position to mobilise the resources necessary to detect and give warning about any predicted or occurred changes in the world's forest biomass that have to be prevented or corrected.
The capital costs and annual operating costs would be best established through a preliminary feasibility study which could be part of the programme. However, assuming that the collection of data is part of a broader integrated survey, capital costs are estimated at US$ 200,000, annual operating costs being of the order of US$ 300,000, including the forest fire unit. It is envisaged that funds would be contributed by member countries of the United Nations to that Organization, and that these funds would be disbursed to a suitable International Agency which would execute the programme.
Another programme which is proposed is designed to provide institutional innovation in the field of environmental forestry. Such a programme would include (i) comparative studies on the influence of land tenure systems on the protective and recreational role of forests, (ii) the development and codification of an international text related to world forest protection, (iii) research on the development of public administration for environmental forestry, and (iv) the revision of current education and training programmes to accommodate new techniques for forest resource management.
Institutional factors are among the main obstacles to the proper utilization of the world's forest resources, and to a true appreciation of the importance of the influence of forests on the human environment. Most of the forest laws which are extant were conceived and enacted at a time when the full implications of the global role of forests and forestry were little understood. In addition, land-tenure systems have been evolved, which either magnified individual rights or emphasized the nation or the group within the nation. The effects of various land-tenure systems and land-use practices are often international. There therefore needs to be an international study of these systems, so that their local and global ecological effects may be impartially assessed.
Education and research methods in environmental forestry should also be revised and developed. Despite the knowledge which is now available, there is need for a new conceptual approach to the possibility of reconciling society's often conflicting demands on the forest resource. In order that these concepts may be tested and new techniques devised and implemented, more effort should be devoted to research and education.
The third proposal for action at the international level concerns coordinated international research on the influence of forests on the environment. The object of this exercise would be to launch an International Research Programme which would deepen and expand our knowledge of forest ecological influences. The Programme would also define and standardize the criteria and methodology for the evaluation of forest influences in economic terms.
There is much on-going research on the forest ecological influences. However, not only a great deal of it is uncoordinated, but there are still many areas in which our knowledge is superficial. Moreover, surprisingly different results of the interplay of similar phenomena under apparently similar conditions have sometimes been obtained. Some of these disparate results, and the management conflicts which arise from them, are occasioned by differences in criteria and in methodology.
A research programme of this kind could be set up within the framework of the Man and Biosphere Programme coordinated by Unesco. For its execution it would be mainly a joint undertaking by FAO and IUFRO (the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations), especially the newly constituted IUFRO Subject Groups concerned with Ecosystems and with Environmental Influences. An inter-governmental meeting of experts would be arranged to which also representatives of WMO, and the Use and Management Section of the International Biological Programme would be invited, for the preparation of the programme. This programme, when finalized, would be submitted for approval to the international agencies concerned and in particular, to the FAO Standing Committee on Forestry and to the IUFRO Executive Board, responsible for its implementation.
The launching of the international programme, including the preparation of the intergovernmental meeting of experts, would require US$ 140,000, while the coordination of the national research programmes would require US$ 40,000, including a meeting every two years of a coordinating council.
The final proposal is to promote, through an existing international organization, international exchange of information on forest industries pollution control. Technical and economic data on the level of pollution caused by forest industries would be collected by this organization and made available as appropriate.
This would be of importance to developing countries. As has been pointed out, many of these countries are anxious to establish sophisticated forest industries, and it would assist them if an international organization was in a position to supply them with such data.
