FAO STAFF
In europe, a region with a long tradition in forestry, where more than 60 percent of the forests are under management, if one wishes to increase or diversify the output of the existing natural forests in order to meet the long-term needs revealed by certain modern methods - notably through projections after the establishment of correlations with certain economic development indicators - the first question to be asked is whether the management and working plans of the said forests are in conformity with the aims pursued and whether they take sufficiently into account the new technical, economic and institutional conditions.
In a fairly recent American publication (1), the preface starts as follows: "American forest management is on the march and has become an accepted fact. While dynamic and ever-changing in pattern and application, it rests on a technical foundation of methods and principles accumulated from many years of experience in this and other countries, especially in Europe. The purpose of this book is to bring the past and present together in presenting this foundation directed toward useful application to the many and varied problems of North American forestry." It would seem that the time has come in Europe also to compare the past with the present and to draw from this comparison useful indications for the future.
This note, which does not in any way constitute a study, but rather a first attempt at covering such a vast subject, is intended merely to stimulate a discussion on this matter. However, before examining the present situation and the trends in European forest management, it is not without interest to recall when and why the European Forestry Commission has already been called on to concern itself with management and what conclusions it reached during its debates on this matter.
On the resumption of contacts at the end of the last world war, European foresters, faced with the damages caused by the war and with the demands of reconstruction work, examined the problem of forest management from both the institutional and the economic and technical aspects.
The institutional aspects were the subject of lengthy discussions, first at the International Timber Conference at Marianske Lazne in 1947, then at the World Forestry Congress at Helsinki in 1949. The problem at that time was to ascertain to what extent forest owners of all kinds - the state, communes, public bodies or private individuals - could be asked to manage and exploit their forests in accordance with a plan approved by the pertinent authorities, in order to produce the quality and quantity of wood necessary to the national economy. These discussions were to lead to the declaration of the principles of forest policy approved by the FAO Conference in 1951 (2).
The European Forestry Commission, for its part, concerned itself during its first sessions primarily with the economic and technical aspects of forest management. At its second session it examined the reports submitted by a number of governments on the meaning of the word "management" and on the extent to which forest management plans were applied in the countries of Europe. Later the commission renewed its discussions on forest management during its fourth and fifth sessions, in connection with the debates on the FAO/ECE study, European timber trends and prospects.
From the first enquiry undertaken by the commission in 1949, it was clear that the word "management" was generally understood to mean an exploitation plan applicable to a forest for a specified period, varying in length but relatively short. The characteristic feature of a managed forest was that the owner had formally imposed a system of regulated exploitation, specifying where, when, how and in what quantity the annual or periodic harvesting should be made. To the exploitation plan some countries added a plan for improvement work and sometimes even a plan for reforestation or for the construction of roads or buildings, which therefore constituted for these countries an integral part of management. Finally, it seemed that the idea of management implied sustained yields as the immediate or ultimate objective.
In most of the replies, however, it appeared that some difficulty had been experienced in distinguishing between the short-term program to be applied to a forest, which usually takes the form of regulation of fellings, and the over-all or long-term program, aimed at the establishment of a specific type of forest stand assured of constant regeneration and producing regularly the highest possible income in material or in cash. In the secretariat note, which analyzed the national reports, it was pointed out that for a productive forest stand of whatever kind, the forester, before he can even formulate an exploitation plan, has to reply to a certain number of questions and take a certain number of fundamental decisions which will form the basis of his management plan. These questions and decisions concern:
1. The vocation of the land: it must be decided whether the land in question is to remain permanently under forest or whether it will sooner or later be brought under cultivation or be used for grazing. This decision rarely appears to be very important in Europe, where a certain equilibrium has been established between the various types of land use; but it is in this aspect that forest management is directly connected with the problems of land use and land planning.2. The roles which the forest will have to play, which can be either exclusive or combined with each other. This is the question of productive, protective or recreational forests.
3. It is necessary to define the units to which a common forest policy shall apply. In resolving this problem one must take into account silvicultural considerations (type of forest), economic considerations (timber requirements, profitability of silvicultural operations and of logging and processing operations) and social considerations (employment). Once the units have been selected it is necessary to decide on the silvicultural system to be applied to them and on the methods of management, and the forester must then specify what may be called the essential features of the forest working plan: length of the rotation, felling size, and even the felling series, cutting sections, etc. The choice of the units and of the system to be applied to them cannot, moreover, be completely isolated decisions, since the ecological environment as well as the economic possibilities of each unit condition the choice of the system and the management methods to be applied to it.
These therefore constitute essentially permanent elements which must be settled before a working plan can be drawn up. While the working plan is, by its very nature, revisable at the moment of its expiry, a revision of the broad principles of the policy applied to a forest will only be undertaken if circumstances make it absolutely indispensable, since otherwise it would be impossible to ensure any continuity in forest management. The working plan can be revised without entailing any modification in the decisions mentioned above.
This plan, as well as the program of work for limited zones which can be drawn up for the forest as a whole or for each of its constituent units, are only means for implementing a given policy. It is in this latter stage that the concept of sustained and progressive yield can be introduced. A forester who wishes to work his forest on sound silvicultural lines must first form a clear idea of the aim toward which he is working and of what the forest should be like when sustained yield, and even maximum sustained yield, is achieved; he must decide, at least implicity, whether he will try to obtain a maximum yield in wood or in money, in which latter case he may consider either the absolute income or the interest rate to be realized. However, the forester should not confine his interest to the constitution of a normal forest capable of being worked on a sustained yield basis. He should interest himself in a number of other factors, varying in each case and concerning particularly the protection of the forest (system of firebreaks, lookout towers and active defense), improvement of productivity (network of drainage ditches) and accessibility (network of roads and tracks to ensure the best possible conditions for logging operations).
On the basis of the reports submitted, of the secretariat note and of the discussions which took place during the session, the commission considered that the objective of management was a systematic organization of forest production on the soils best suited to this purpose so that, in the interests of all mankind, the products of the soil could, to the fullest extent at present possible, meet the needs of the present generation and, to an even greater extent, the needs of all future generations. A managed forest was therefore a forest regulated by a plan based on a set of silvicultural, economic and social principles and aiming at sustained or progressive yield, but always securing continuity while ensuring the conservation of the forest. However, a forest should also be considered as managed even when production was not its normal objective, if it fulfilled a specific function of public interest which had given rise to specific regulations (3).
This definition had the advantage of avoiding, to a certain extent, the contradiction which is becoming increasingly apparent between the necessity for a long-term program (management properly so-called, generally covering a period of 80 to 150 years or more) aimed ultimately at the attainment of a "normal stand" on a management unit, and the rapid changes in silvicultural, logging and processing techniques, as well as in economic and social conditions. The question remains, however, that, on the one hand, management of a forest implies the application to this forest of a very long-term policy, the result of which would be the attainment of a clearly defined "normal stand"; and, on the other hand, the speed of the present technical, economic and social evolution makes it unwise to assume that such long-term projects can have any real value.
According to the most recent FAO inventory (4), the situation in Europe as regards forest working plans has improved: the forest area under management has risen from 41 million hectares (42 percent) in 1953 to 66 million hectares (50 percent) in 1958. This latter figure is undoubtedly lower than the true figure, since the reports from numerous countries, particularly those of eastern Europe, show that during the last five years a considerable effort has been made to extend management plans to all public forests. It is also reported, in other countries, that working plans are undergoing revision in connection with inventory work undertaken most often by aerial means.
However, seems that forest management plans have undergone some alterations, if not in concept, at least in method. It is true that, whatever definition may be adopted, forest management continues to be based, first, on a knowledge of the laws governing the formation of the growing stock, according to the silvicultural system adopted and the tending effected (cleaning, thinning) and on a knowledge of the relationship between growing stock and income; and, secondly, on the existence of correlations between various factors of which some are fixed or given and others remain to be determined. The factors concerned are mainly: the value of the land, the cost of natural or artificial restoration of the stand, the length of the rotation, the interest rates in the capital market, etc. These correlations make it possible to determine the dimensions of the forestry enterprise in accordance with the objectives given, the prices being most often fixed by the situation of the market and the sums put forward capitalizing at compound interest.
All this remains valid but it seems, nevertheless, that the objectives which were assigned to forest management plans in accordance with a given policy, as well as the technical, social, economic and institutional framework within which these plans must be conceived, have undergone profound changes. In face of the growing and varying needs of an expanding economy, increasing attention is being given to the framing of working plans which, while ensuring the necessary continuity in forest management, would nevertheless make it possible to adapt forest production to the needs of the economy and would take into account the new conditions created by the technical, economic and social progress made in recent years. This tendency seems completely justified. It indicates a realization of the discrepancy between management as it has so far been conceived, and such as it is difficult to conceive otherwise, and the rapid evolution in economic and social conditions.
The objectives
As regards the objectives, if one leaves aside those of a physical or social nature which give rise to particular types of management whose characteristics are essentially to ensure the permanency of the forest for conservation or recreational purposes, these continue to be, at the national level, the satisfaction of demand. But here it can be said that technical progress, which has made it possible to utilize, in one form or another, small-sized timber and wood of various qualities (fibreboards, chipboards), together with the rapidly increasing growth in demand for industrial wood (pulp) at the expense of timber, call increasingly for quantity at the expense of quality, without excluding, of course, in particular cases, the production of wood for its physical and aesthetic qualities. Economic or maximum use rotation has now become identified with the rotation of the maximum volume production. The contractor, on the contrary, will be interested in maximizing either the difference between the income estimated for a given year and the costs estimated for this same year, or the rate of return on the capital invested. In fact, under a system of free competition, that is to say when the capital investment rate is equal to the market interest rate, this comes to practically the same thing. The greater the fertility of the soil and the more frequent the thinnings, the sooner will a rotation yielding the highest rate of interest be attained. But for natural forests these conditions - a rate of return on forest operations comparable to the interest rates on investments in the capital market, high fertility of the soil and the possibility of very frequent thinnings - can rarely be attained. There may therefore be the danger of a conflict - on which the influence of the example given by the cultivation of quick-growing trees on good soils cannot be excluded - between public interest and private interest (5). Solutions must be sought either in bonuses for forest production, or in the extension of plantations to compensate for the theoretically possible decrease in forest production.
On the other hand, it is clear that the traditional type of management plan was devised in order to satisfy the needs of man at a time when these needs, whether regular or varying according to the seasons, were in general constant. The managed forest in the true sense of the word - the one most adapted to the requirements of consumption - was the one which gave an annual and constant income (6). Today, in face of increasing needs, efforts should be made to increase production, but forestry research has shown that, in a natural forest and for a given species and soil, no matter what amount of tending is effected in order to harvest the products which would disappear through self-pruning, and short of a complete transformation of the environment leading to tree cultivation, there is an absolute maximum of production per hectare. This maximum should guide us in the intellectual and financial investments to be made in forest management, and already some countries which are conscious of having exceeded this limit talk of decreasing the intensity of forest management (7). Beyond this limit, additional supplies would have to be sought either from the development of tree cropping based on the choice of selected types, soil working, fertilization and irrigation, or from importation.
Since silvicultural measures and tree cultivation have been mentioned in the preceding paragraph, it might perhaps be useful to outline the trends in silviculture, by reason of the influence which they have on management. Nowadays there is, in general, a marked tendency toward a more intensive type of silviculture, shown by increased interference by man with the environment and hence by the choice and selection of local or exotic plants and their introduction into an environment modified by man. In practice this intensification of silviculture takes two forms: increased intervention in an existing natural forest in order to increase its productivity, through working the soil, fertilization, health control, etc.; and planting trees, most often of a single type suitably conditioned or even specially created quick-growing clones or ecotypes, with preparation and protection of the environment. This type of plantation resembles agricultural cultivation as compared with the traditional methods of afforestation, which were limited to the planting of any type of plant without previous preparation of the environment.
However, this tendency is obvious primarily in certain eastern and southern European countries, while other countries, notably in central and western Europe, still favor natural silviculture based on ecology and respect for the environment. Between these two forms of silviculture, of course, there exist all types of transitional forms.
In any case, the intensive silviculture mentioned above necessitates perfected techniques and considerable financial resources, owing to the great number of operations required; the further one goes from the natural conditions, in fact, the more the reactions of the environment make themselves felt and the keener must be the supervision. The various measures (irrigation, soil working, fertilization, health control) constitute a whole, and a weakness in one link of the chain can cause a failure in the entire system.
As regards management, the concept long accepted in Europe is no longer valid when one passes to tree cultivation with extensive changes in the environment. Traditional management plans are applicable to natural or fairly natural forests where production is ensured essentially by the play of natural forces without any extensive intervention by man other than harvesting.
Technical, economic and institutional framework
The technical, economic and institutional framework within which working plans should be conceived and implemented has evolved considerably. As regards technical conditions, the progress made in inventory work - notably by the use of aerial photography and through the systematic sorting and statistical analysis of data - makes it possible to carry out rapidly and more cheaply a task hitherto lengthy and costly (8). Periodic revision of the growing stock, its distribution, structure and growth, is therefore easier. However, the facilities provided by inventories should be used only when fully justified. A detailed inventory should only be undertaken, it seems, when the productivity of the forest justifies such an operation and when even a slight error in the increment percent adopted can lead either to a considerable loss in profit, without benefit to the forest, or, on the contrary, to certain damage to the growing stock which it would be difficult to redress. In the opposite case, that is to say, in degraded forests or those of low productivity, it is advisable to continue to use extensive working plans based on simple reconnaissance, with approximate estimations of the standing stock and of increment, since in any case the percent adopted, which should always be lower than the real percent, will make possible an improvement in the growing stock and an increase in future income.
Economic conditions have changed considerably, from the point of view both of demand and of supply. In the past, demand came above all from local populations and industries. With the development of a market economy and the spread of commercialization, trade in forest products is no longer conducted at the local level, but at the regional, national and even international level. Management planning must take this fact into account if it is to remain valid and not lead to complete divorce between forestry on the one hand and the economy on the other.
As regards supply, it is the results of the changes in rural life and of technical developments which make themselves felt. In an economy still largely of the subsistence type, with a high proportion of rural population, the forest was subjected to constant pressure on the part of the neighboring populations, not only for timber and firewood but also for the harvesting of certain secondary products and for grazing land. Moreover, techniques and equipment for the control of pests, diseases and fire were still only rudimentary. The pressure from neighboring populations and the risks to which the forest was exposed, therefore, justified a defensive and conservative attitude on the part of foresters. Hence their tendency to fix an allowable cut greatly inferior to the increment in order to build up reserves; and the custom, in certain countries, of setting aside "reserve quarters" in order to meet certain urgent needs. Today the situation has changed. The needs of the rural populations have decreased considerably and the necessary means are available for restoring a forest in the case of unforeseen destruction. As a recent example of the restoration of a forest, the case of the Landes forest of 1 million hectares may be cited; almost 50 percent was destroyed by fire in 1949 but it has been restored in less than 10 years. It is therefore becoming increasingly possible to envisage the fixation of an allowable cut almost equal to increment, at least in cases where the growing stock corresponding to the objectives set has been attained. In certain highly productive forests it might even be possible to use an increment rate for each plot and not an average rate, and recent studies have shown that in this way an appreciable increase in productivity could be obtained (9). This possibility of increasing productivity should certainly not be neglected. But what then becomes of the notions of "normal stand" and sustained, or progressive, yield as applied to the whole of a forest and not to one of its subdivisions ? Whatever the case may be, certain countries still quote yields greatly inferior to increment - corresponding to about 80 percent of the increment, which is, itself, calculated with considerable prudence (10).
Finally, in order to complete this picture of the framework within which present forest management is conceived and of the modifications which it has undergone, some allusion must be made to institutional conditions. Working plans aimed at sound exploitation of the forest and continuity of management are pointless unless they are if not obligatory at least contractual.
This implies in a sense a planning of logging operations which had particular significance at a time when the idea of concerted or planned economy was not yet widespread. Today, recent conferences, in particular the United Nations Conference on the Application of Science and Technology to the Developing Countries, have shown that whatever their political regime, countries now accept the idea of over-all planning of their economy, whether obligatory or contractual or merely indicative. Given this new attitude, management should now perhaps be less strict, since it now has to be inserted into a framework already planned, whereas before it constituted an isolated island in the midst of an unplanned space. Private forest owners themselves are increasingly ready to accept general directives regarding the type of production to which they should tend, on the condition that they benefit from a certain degree of financial and technical assistance.
In conclusion, the idea of forest working plans, which were intended to ensure continuity in forest management, originated from the necessity of satisfying the usually constant needs of local populations and industries. In view of the upheavals in economy, of technical developments and of the changes in institutional structures, forest management plans should now take on a more dynamic and flexible form and be integrated with overall planning, while still respecting the demands of the site. The management, or more broadly speaking if the infrastructure has still to be created, the development of a forest, is therefore a long-term project which must be included both in national plans as regards its long-term objectives and in regional plans as regards its implementation and sometimes also its short-term objectives. The methods and equipment now available should make possible this dynamism and this integration, both in principle and in practice, at least for the most important forest stands. It is, moreover, this task of revision and adaptation which has already been undertaken in numerous countries. However, such a task depends, more than in other sectors, on the definition within each country of forest regions coinciding as far as possible with the regions covered by development programs (11). Here again is the problem of regional planning which has been the subject of specific studies in FAO ever since the drawing up of the Mediterranean Development. Project
All this amounts to saying that, under the present conditions of rapid social and economic evolution, the former conception of management as applied to small-sized forests, such as those which have come into being in Europe as a result of the partitioning of estates, is no longer very realistic. Undoubtedly management must remain a long-term policy applicable to a forest, aimed at obtaining from that forest a sustained or progressive yield and therefore at constituting within that forest a stand capable of fulfilling this condition. But since management must now meet not the needs of a locality but of a more or less wide region, it would seem that the whole forested area of this region should be put under a management plan properly so-called.
It will thus be easier to absorb the sudden shocks that the evolution in techniques and economies will impose on forest production. Undoubtedly the units will always remain dependent on ecological conditions, but the very variety of such conditions over the entire extent of a large forest will make it possible to adapt production more easily to needs, by modifications in logging procedures which will leave intact the bases of the management plan. The notion of sustained (or progressive) yield for large managed forests of this type should not be abandoned (it will no doubt be easier to achieve than with small units), but perhaps those of exploitable age or dimensions should - these latter becoming attached to units as small as desired, even to mere plots. Modern inventory methods, more easily adaptable, moreover, to large forest areas than to small ones, will make possible an easy planning of these new groups of forests. In brief, for the idea of a forest unit as it is still understood at present, it might be of interest for Europe to substitute the idea of a forest region, and it is to this forest region that the modern concept of management should perhaps be applied.
The above review has been limited to an outline of certain ideas about forest management, without tackling the problem of forest exploitation which should be associated with it. Forest management considered as a type of land use employs a fairly low percentage of manpower per hectare, but it is still necessary that this minimum amount of labor exist. Until now it seemed assured in almost all European countries; but with the development of industry and the growth of towns this will no longer be the case in certain regions in a few years' time, and it may be questioned whether, given this trend, certain regions will still have available the man power and communications necessary to make forest exploitation economically feasible. This problem has already been the subject of debates by the commission and its working parties, in particular, the Working Party on Afforestation and Reforestation. It replaces the problem of forest management in land planning and land use.
Are changes in management methods now necessary and, if so, to what extent are these changes already in progress?
(1) DAVIS, KENNETH P. 1954. American forest management New York, McGraw-Hill.
(2) Unasylva, 6 (1): 30-31. 1952.
(3) FAO. EUROPEAN FORESTRY COMMISSION. 1949. Final report of the second session. Rome. (Doc. FAO/EEC/15).
(4) FAO. 1960. World forest inventory, 1958. Rome.
(5) PATRONE, GENEROSO 1962. Sulle: dimensioni della impresa di produzione forestale. Firenze, Accademia Italiana di Scienze Forestali.
(6) HUFFEL, G. 1919. Economie forestière. Paris, Laveur.
(7) GLÄSER, H. 1960. Produktionssteigerung in der Forstwirtschaft durch Extensivierung. Holz-Zbl., 86 (97): 1347 - 1349.
(8) UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON THE APPLICATION OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FOR THE BENEFIT OF LESS DEVELOPED AREAS. 1963. Survey and management of forest resources. Silviculture. Forest extraction and forest industries. New York. (Doc. E/CONF. 39/Gr. 70 [C]).
(9) STEFANELLI, ACHILLE. 1963. Considerazioni sul-l'assestamento delle abetine disetanee della Carnia. Monti e Boschi, 14 (3).
(10) MOISSEENKO, S. T. 1963. Appraisal of forest resources of the Byelorussian S.S.R and their maintenance at constant levels. New York. United Nations Conference on the Application of Science and Technology for the Benefit of Less Developed Areas. (Doe. E/CONF. 39/C/358).
(11) FROMER, R. 1961. Some problems of regional planning in forestry. Unasylva, 15 (2): 81-87.
(Article translated from French original)
