Seventh Pacific science congress
Third world forestry congress
Fourth session of the ECE timber committee
Preparatory conference on world pulp problems
The Seventh Pacific Science Congress was held at Auckland and Christchurch, New Zealand, from 2 to 23 February 1949, under the auspices of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
FAO was represented at the Congress by Marcel Leloup, Director, Forestry and Forest Products Division, R. W. Phillips, Acting Director of the Agriculture Division and J. L. Kask of the Fisheries Division, all of whom gave addresses.
Especially noteworthy for its fine organization, the Congress comprised sections dealing with Geology and geo physics; Oceanography; Zoology; Botany; Soil resources, forestry and agriculture; Anthropolgy; Public health and nutrition; Social sciences; and the Organization of research. Excursions during and after the Congress enabled delegates to visit the areas of most interest in their particular fields, both in North Island and South Island.
The Director of FAO's Forestry and Forest Products Division profited by the opportunity offered by the Congress to make contact with forest authorities in the Pacific region and to examine with them plans for the future work of the Division in that region. He toured extensively in New Zealand and Australia, and also in Indo-China and Malaya on his way to India for the Mysore Conference.
The following are extracts from a report on the Forestry Section of the Seventh Pacific Science Congress, prepared by the Organizing Secretary of the Section, C. M. Smith and forwarded to UNASYLVA by A. R. Entrican, Director of Forestry, New Zealand State Forest Service:
The Congress after a lapse of twelve years was held in New Zealand in February 1949. For the first time, a recognised Forestry Section of Congress was formally organized as part of the Congress Division of Soil Resources, associated sections being those of Agriculture and Soil Science. The association was a happy one and merits continuance as a permanent feature of Congresses. The traditional affiliations of forestry at such meetings seem to be with Botany and to a lesser extent with Zoology: but while these senior divisions of it Science Congress still have much to teach the forester, there can be no doubt that he now has a more extensive community of interest with his fellow users of the soil and its produce.
Forestry delegates found that Pacific forestry tended to be divided somewhat sharply into North Pacific forestry and South Pacific forestry, the two groups finding a community of interests in those forest species which the southern group had for a century past been introducing and acclimatizing from the North Pacific forests. Twenty years ago a visiting forester could do no more than compare Pinus radiata trees with the same species as he knew it in natural relief stands, or in other regions where it was growing as an exotic. Rates of height growth were a yardstick for comparison; occasionally comparative volume-for-age results were a better one; general thrift or its absence, and occasional parasite incidence served for ancillary comparisons. So long as a planted crop is in its initial rotation stage, even so long as it is in the stage of a second or even a third rotation on a regime of clear-felling followed by artificial regeneration, these yardsticks are adequate. But the visitors on this occasion saw thousands of acres that had been burned and that had regenerated completely without further aid, more thousands that had been clear-felled without thinning and had regenerated to differing stocking densities, more that had been Borrgreve-thinned from the early age of 11 years and were now awaiting a final felling in 5, 10 or 15 years' time. The yardstick bad changed from the dimensions of the individual tree or group of trees, to the facies of the stand or even of the forest area. Whole countrysides were seen where the dominant vegetation was Pinus radiata, not merely struggling for dominance as a tree in planted rows competing with circurnjacent vegetation, but having achieved dominance over that vegetation, reproducing itself after cutting or burning, and invading in places open enclaves of non-forest land. Local foresters could not complain of any lack of interest on the part of their visitors.
Two trees showing record dimensions for Pinus radiata so far as is known were still available for recognition by their human fellow countrymen - the 182 ft. high specimen near Nelson and the 18 ft. 6 in. g.b.h. specimen in Marlborough. Both were accorded the meed of admiration, photography, and mensuration due to record-breaking veterans: but it was abundantly apparent that neither veteran would be viewed by many more Congresses. Both were long past their prime, and since neither could be over 70 years of age, they were good evidence of the brevity of the life span of the species in southern sites. This characteristic brings many problems in its train for forest management. The short rotation that seemed so desirable to the silviculturist and the forest financier can very easily leave the forest manager with a glut of unsold stumpage which cannot be held long in the timber reserve of accepted policy. An accelerated and expanded policy of produce disposal is the only way to avoid waste with such a crop of short durability. Although there was no time for Congress delegates to work out the implications in all their details, enough was evident from the passing inspection to give sharper local point to the plea of Marcel Leloup, FAO's Forestry Director, for a closer rapprochement between forest administrators and forest exploiters. With a large volume crop obtainable in a very short rotation period, there is less room for "caginess" on the one part or vandalism on the other. Damage done by overcutting can be more speedily repaired than in the more usual longer rotation crop; but more important still is the fact that the shorter time-interval between establishment and exploitation enables each to appreciate the other's problems more readily.
The exotic forests of the country therefore provided food for thought and discussion over a very wide range of forestry subjects, although naturally there was neither time nor opportunity for anything like full discussion of them all. Detailed treatment in session was given to one phase only. G. B. Rawlings presented an entomological paper dealing with recently observed developments in the Sirex noctilio population of Pinus radiata forests in New Zealand. His finding, in effect, was that the single controlling species (Rhyssa persuasoria) imported was in itself, though now abundant, incapable of controlling Sirex under New Zealand conditions and should be reinforced by a co-parasite (Ibalia sp.) which had purposely been passed over in favor of Rhyssa when importations were being made. The necessity for preparing the way for biological control by meticulously hygienic forest management was abundantly stressed.
These were the purely local aspects of the Congress, inevitably bulking large by their novelty to visitors and almost obtruding into the formal routine program, where an effort was made to keep a Pacific bias on discussions in preference to the local bias imparted by the venue of the meeting. Formal forestry meetings were opened by a short address by the Chairman, Dr. H. H. Chapman of the United States of America, in which he narrated his still fresh first impressions of a New Zealand kauri, Agathis australis, forest. A quick resumé of field symptoms indicating its probable amenability to silviculture and accelerated reproduction led him on to matters involving the all too frequent conflict between the conservation doctrine of inviolacy in isolation, and the other conservation doctrine of utilization of induced and accelerated reproduction and of improved forest hygiene - a subject which was locally topical and applicable to the forests in question, but equally relevant and topical, as he showed, to large forest tracts on the American continent; and apparently equally topical, as subsequent discussions with other sections of Congress showed, for Pacific Island forests in Polynesia and Micronesia.
The Forestry President's address followed by Leloup's exposition of the lack of increment in the virgin forests of Latin America and other unexploited natural forests apparently failed to impress the advocates of complete closure, while a subsequent pair of modestly phrased papers concerning tropical forestry in the Pacific area (Allsop on "Taungya in the Forests of Burma" and Marshall on the "Forest Land Problem in Fiji") drew adverse comment from exactly the opposite point of view because of their advocacy of longer periods of closure of forest land from shifting cultivation and temporary (often trespass) grazing. Allsop gave a very lucid, impartial, factual exposition of the growth and use of the taungya system of forest formation in Burma, an exposition such as it has seldom been the privilege of temperate country foresters to hear. He summed the story up in his conclusion that "about the nineteen-thirties, the post-1918 enthusiasm for taungya of all sorts gradually ran out. It was seldom successful except for teak." He indicated how, with a restricted area of land available for taungya, the shifting cultivators' agricultural rotation was apt to call on the compartment for a second burn and a second agricultural crop, before the foresters' rotation for the forest crop was nearly completed, the forest crop in that case becoming a total loss and its cost of formation and attention so much nugatory expenditure.
The foresters' conclusions that shifting cultivation was evil in its effects on forest soils and that taungya cultivation had not proved an adequate palliative of the evil did not secure complete agreement from soil scientists, at least one of whom appeared to argue for the continuance of a necessary evil with the deliberate sacrifice of forest expenditure to maintain it. No one ventured even to suggest any possible remedy for the position in Fiji, which is experiencing the impact of two differing races on a somewhat rigid system of forest land tenure that does not allow for forest reservations, and where persistent trespass is complicated by necessary consideration for religious scruples against cattle destruction.
These discussions together with five other descriptive papers, which were read in part only, represented all the attention that the Congress was able to give to tropical, forestry in the Pacific area. It was felt by all that this was inadequate for a very important subject; but, as is the experience of most congresses, tropical forestry presents such a different set of problems from temperate forestry flint it is impracticable to do justice to both at one Congress. The emphasis and interest must fall on the type of forest and the stage of forest development found in the locality where Congress is held. Even of generalized basic principles of policy, very few are common to tropical and to temperate forests. The papers relating to the Philippine Islands (three), New Hebrides (one), and Papua (one) were therefore read only in part or merely tabled at the Congress.
Heather's Papuan contribution in the shape of what was virtually a monograph of Eucalyptus deglupta was of general scientific moment in circles beyond the forester's orbit and, dealing as it did with the only significant species of the genus that grows naturally beyond the limits of Australia, was an excellent and relevant complement to the general paper on "The Genus Eucalyptus-Its Past and Its Future in Pacific Forests" presented by N. W. Jolly. It is not unfair to other contributors to record that, in the opinion of most forestry delegates, Jolly's paper was facile princeps of all the forestry papers presented to the Congress. Its expansion into a volume on eucalypts and their silviculture would be an objective worthy of any endowment for scientific purposes that might become available for Pacific forestry, and the result would probably be the greatest contribution that Australia could make to world forestry for many years to come.
In another paper presented to the Congress - Smith's "Acclimatization versus Domestication of Forest Species" - the point was made that "the genus Eucalyptus conforms remarkably to all prerequirements for silvicultural attention... but is still a silvicultural enigma." This paper arrived at the conclusion that the genera Eucalyptus and Nothofagus "might readily in future forestry of the southern Pacific play the role that Pinus and Picea play in northern Europe." The amplification of Jolly's eucalypt paper into an authoritative monograph of the requirements of the different species of the genus in nature and under cultivation, so far as these are known to date, would mark the beginning of such an advance in Pacific forestry.
Other papers presented at the Congress by Poole and Holloway respectively gave results of local work to date on the other important genus Nothofagus, which occupies significant areas of natural forest in Australia, Chile, and New Zealand. So far it has nowhere proved amenable to cultivation beyond its natural boundaries, but in each country where it occurs these boundaries are so wide and include land so apparently hostile to uses other than forestry use that it seems to be of the highest importance to unravel the cultural secrets of the various species. Poole's paper dealt largely with current research on the floristics of the local species, an aspect which is still, after a century of botanical work, very imperfectly known, but which plainly must be fully investigated before the ecology begun, as described in Holloway's paper, can be pursued to a full exposition for all species of the genus.
Holloway's paper entitled "Ecological Investigations in the Nothofagus Forests in New Zealand" made a fitting finale to the Forestry Section of Congress. By the time it was presented, most visiting delegates had had opportunities to gain some idea of the extensiveness of the tracts of Nothofagus forests in the central core of both islands; some had seen the precarious hold that many of these forests had on unstable skeletal soils at the headwaters of large river systems; some bad viewed the timbers of the better beech species in timber yards and joinery factories; some saw immediately after the paper the abundant and dominating beech regeneration that could be secured after moderately careful exploitation of the stands in the best beech environments. Holloway's detail picture of Nothofagus in a small portion of New Zealand was a worth-while companion to Jolly's picture of Eucalyptus on a much larger canvas. They were both arresting signposts to, probable South Pacific forestry of the future.
These were the technical aspects of forestry dealt with by the Congress. There., was, however, an administrative aspect where results were less conclusive. From the time of the last Congress almost twelve years earlier, there had been a Standing Committee on Pacific Forestry. None of its surviving members was able to attend the Congress but a short report was forwarded by the Secretary of Committee. The report stated that all collected data for previous Committees had become war casualties in the Philippines and in China. Questionnaires of the usual pattern had been sent out recently to all affected countries, but no assembly of resultant data had yet been achieved, nor had all countries found it possible to reply in the time available. Leloup, Director of the Forestry Division of FAO, expressed the fear that it might readily prove that the questionnaires of the Standing Committee and the assembly of resulting data would be a duplication of similar information likely to be sought by FAO for the Pacific area. He indicated, however, that any proposals to prevent overlapping and duplication of work would secure his careful and favorable consideration.
The Third World Forestry Congress, sponsored by FAO and organized by the Government of Finland, was opened on 10 July by President Paasikivi and Prime Minister Fagerholm. Over 300 delegates attended from 28 countries, including Sweden's Minister of Agriculture and the Soviet Union's Deputy Minister for Wood and Paper Industries. Germany and Japan had representatives present and there were 200 specialists in various fields from Finland itself.
At the opening plenary session, the Congress elected Professor Eino Saari as Chairman and some 30 other officers, prior to breaking up into live sections to start the substantive work of the meeting.
The Congress, the first full gathering of foresters of the world since the end of the war, will be treated more fully in a later issue of UNASYLVA.
The ECE Timber Committee of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe held its Fourth Session at Geneva from 7 to 10 March 1949. FAO actively co-operates in the Committee's work, and the secretariat is provided by a joint ECE/FAO staff.
Having reviewed the 1948 situation, experts from 20 countries concluded that member governments had substantially complied with the Committee's recommendations. It had been possible in 1948 practically to cover effective demand for softwood lumber, to absorb all available export supplies from European sources except for very small quantities of lower grade timber and unsuitable specifications, and greatly to reduce imports of timber from dollar sources.
Europe's production of sawn softwood attained 6.5 million standards in 1948, a 5 percent increase over the previous year. Europe's major softwood exporting countries raised shipments to 2 million standards, timber going to European destinations amounting to 1.80 million standards compared with 1.66 million standards in 1947. Exports to other continents showed an increase of 120,000 standards. European exporters participating in the Timber Committee bad undertaken to place a maximum of 1.37 million standards on the market. Their actual exports in 1948 were 1.40 million standards, showing that the pledges bad been kept and were even slightly exceeded, despite the fact that the equipment loans, which were the condition for these engagements, had not yet been signed.
Over 80 percent of Europe's import requirements in 1948 were covered from European sources. The proportion of North American imports dropped from 3.5 percent to below 20 percent.
Softwood stocks in Europe were almost 10 percent lower at the end of 1948 than twelve months earlier.
Forward estimates of import requirements for 1949 and 1950 revealed a rising trend in effective demand, which would require an expansion of softwood production and further increases in exports. This rendered particularly important the early conclusion of the timber loans and the procurement of timber equipment from European sources.
The Committee described the forward estimates of requirements as somewhat misleading and considered that stated import programs might not he fully implemented. It also believed that a slight increase of exports over announced figures was likely to take place. It observed that Canada and the United States were in a position to meet practically the whole of any possible European deficit, although this would involve increased dollar expenditure for Europe. It also noted a gradual resumption of timber exports from the Soviet Union.
No importing country anticipated any major difficulty in finding the timber it would be able to buy, and European exporting countries expected to sell all export production. Accordingly the Committee decided that, at this stage, buying limits for imports, as in 1948, were not needed for 1949. It agreed, however, to reconsider the need for such a measure at its next session.
As regards pitprop supplies, the Committee declared that there seemed no doubt that supplies in 1949 would be fully sufficient to cover requirements.
A progress report on Mr. Campredon's study on "More Rational Wood Utilization" was received. The primary purpose of this study was the achievement of technical improvements in wood utilization. It did not seek economies through a reduction in quality or standards, nor through the substitution of wood by other materials. The report stressed that measures for rational timber utilization should always be taken with due regard to the general economic conditions and prevailing customs in each country.
The Preparatory Conference on World Pulp Problems, held in Montreal from 2.5 April through 4 May 1949, was sponsored by FAO and the Canadian Government, and organized with the assistance of the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association. The Conference was the first of its kind to bring together in one meeting important industry and government representatives from the bulk of producing and consuming countries, and it will be reported on in greater detail in the next issue of UNASYLVA.
The salient fact to emerge from the Conference was that the estimates showed approximate balance between world production and requirements for 1948-55. If these figures are confirmed by later developments, there should be no major wood pulp deficit during the period under review. The estimates suggest that by 1955 world production will have climbed from 28 million metric tons to approximately 36 million.
This approximate balance between supply and demand, it was stressed, had only to do with effective demand as measured by ability to pay. It is obvious that in many parts of the world people are suffering from shortages of paper and other pulp products.
Last year's pulp production in Europe was not quite two-thirds of prewar, but by 1955 Europe expects to regain 90 percent of its prewar output. This would require approximately 48 million m³ of pulpwood, which exceeds European pulpwood supplies by 3.4 million m³. The hope of regaining a large part of prewar output exists in spite of the fact that for the continent of Europe, taken as a whole, forests are at present being overcut to the extent of 20 percent of annual growth. In prewar years, European pulp industries relied on an annual import of 3 million m³ of pulpwood, which came almost entirely from the present area of the Soviet Union. The Conference felt that the resumption of pulpwood exports from that area on the prewar scale is unlikely. In that case, Germany, France, and, to a smaller degree, the United Kingdom and Switzerland might be compelled to reduce their production below 1955 estimates. It is possible that an increase in raw material supplies in European mills can be achieved to some extent by greater utilization of sawmill waste, greater use of hardwoods and alternative raw materials, and the introduction of high-yield pulping methods. It is for this reason that the Conference recommended that new emphasis be given to these possibilities for increased raw material supplies.
An address by FAO Director General Norris E. Dodd and a message from Torres Bodet, Director-General of UNESCO, were features of the Conference. Mr. Dodd outlined the main elements of the world situation, which finds pulp consumption largely concentrated in the technically advanced countries, and Mr. Bodet drew attention to the serious social and political repercussions of inadequate supplies of newsprint and printing papers which exist in many lands and form effective barriers to the development of education, restrict freedom of the press, and hamper healthy political growth.
The Conference recommended that FAO keep the world pulp situation under continuous review and consider the time and place of any further international wood pulp conferences. It also recommended the collection of more complete pulp and paper statistics and urged that arrangements be made for the necessary exchange of information designed to give FAO the benefit of available material with the least delay and the least additional work to governments and industrial associations. Another recommendation was that FAO undertake special efforts toward the standardization of national Wood pulp and pulpwood statistics so as to improve their international comparability.
The Conference reported that in 1948 world production of wood pulp reached an all-time high of about 28 million metric tons. A number of new mills were under construction or in an advanced stage of planning in North America, Latin America, and Oceania. In Europe and Japan efforts were being made to restore, as far as possible, prewar capacities of the pulp and paper industries. Toward the end of the year, however, the world market for pulp was beginning to show signs of at least temporary saturation.
There was general agreement that there will be a continuing rise in requirements for pulp and its products, but that on the other band pulp producers were sometimes meeting difficulty in selling their products and in consequence questioned whether supplies had caught up with or even surpassed effective demand. The recent change-over from a sellers' to a buyers' market was accompanied by price reductions for all grades of wood pulp. The situation was complicated by currency and exchange problems as well as by lack of purchasing power in many countries.
In one sense, the Conference agreed, world needs for the products of pulp - newsprint, other printing and writing papers, wrappings, packaging material, and textile fibers - were far greater than existing supplies. However, the Conference also noted that physical limitations as well as the economic and financial problems connected with the acquisition of desirable supplies stood in the way of meeting all consumer needs.
Attention was directed to the fact that the war brought about a major change in the distribution of pulp production and consumption as between different regions of the world. North America, which in 1937 produced 44 percent and consumed 51 percent of the world output, now produced 68 percent and consumed 71 percent. Production and consumption in Europe, on the other band, had fallen from 50 percent and 42 percent respectively in 1937 to 27 percent and 25 percent in 1948. The relative and absolute importance of consumption in Asia and the Far East had been reduced, largely because of the changed situation in Japan. In Latin America and Oceania large percentage increases in output had occurred, but the tonnages in both regions were small in terms of world production.
The Conference was unanimous in appreciating the importance of adequate paper supplies for mass education and information and agreed that larger paper supplies for these purposes were eminently desirable. Many delegates expressed the opinion that an assessment of present and prospective consumer needs would constitute a valuable supplement to the Conference report, and suggested the preparation of a study of the facts by FAO, in co-operation with UNESCO, to be presented to the next annual FAO Conference in Washington in November.
The following 20 governments sent delegations to the Montreal Conference:
Austria, Australia, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, Finland, France, Greece, Guatemala, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States of America.
Governments and organizations represented by observers were:
Argentina, Belgium, Bolivia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Germany (Bizone and French Zone), Haiti, Poland, SCAP (Japan), Turkey, Yugoslavia, UNESCO, and International Labour Organisation
