Cambodia
Federal Republic of Germany
France
Ghana
India
Libya
Norway
Pakistan
Turkey
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
United Arab Republic (Egypt)
United Kingdom
United States of America
Viet-Nam
· A number of agencies and organizations are operating technical aid programs in Cambodia.
The United States Operations Mission (USOM) is mainly concerned with administering and giving funds and equipment to carry out approved projects. The major project is an aerial forest and land use survey involving full photographic coverage on the scale 1: 40,000. For ground sampling and survey, one mile (1.6 kilometers) strips 10 miles (16 kilometers) apart on scale 1: 10,000 completely cover the country. An FAO inventory specialist has been conducting complementary work mostly east of the Mekong.
A second project is the running of a school for rangers at Kompong-Cham. The school building has been completely renovated and training has started. The former ranger training institution at Phnom-Penh has been modified and raised to the status of a college for training of officer grades. The glass consists of 10 to 12 men in each group on a 3-year course.
Scholarships and fellowships are given for further training in the United States and other countries, while study tours for senior officers are arranged to visit forests, industries, and research institutes in the neighboring countries of Japan, Philippines, Malaya, and Indonesia.
Fire protection is another project. One square kilometer of dry forest (Dipterocarps) in each division has been demarcated, fire lines and firebreaks cleared, and divided into subblocks for complete fire protection with the object of demonstrating to the public and the Government the benefits and techniques of fire protection. The complete cost - including labor, regular fire watchers, minor equipment, propaganda posters - is borne by USOM. Pumps, transport and equipment for mobile squads are available.
Afforestation with Pinus merkusii of grasslands on hillsides and plateaus denuded as a result of recurrent shifting cultivation in the past, is an important project started this year. Mechanical planters, holeborers, pumps, etc., are on order.
An access road program is designed to open up rich evergreen rain forests and pine forests to exploitation. Numerous stretches of forest road have been constructed and are being extended. A 220-kilometer highway linking Phnom-Penh (the capital) with Kompongsong on the Gulf of Thailand in the southwesterly direction has been just completed.
FAO's Regional Forestry Officer reports that the Colombo Plan is furnishing equipment for a forest products laboratory consisting of such machines as timber-testing machine, seasoning and impregnation, peeling and plywood-testing machines, supplied from Princes Risborough, England. The construction and provision of adequate buildings is being negotiated.
French bilateral aid is rendered for the exploitation, management, and treatment of the rich evergreen rain forests on the west coast, opened as a result of the building of the port of Kampongsong (also by French aid) and the construction of the American highway. Heavy equipment, caterpillar tractors, yarders, etc., are available. French foresters also assist in the teaching of forestry at the Forestry College and School.
Aid is also being received from China in constructing a pulp and paper mill and plywood plant. Pine mill is said to be based on bamboo and rice straw, with an annual capacity of 12,000 tons. Plywood raw material will be Dipterocarps, mainly yang. Various forest roads are also being constructed or repaired through financing by China.
The Japanese are assisting to exploit the evergreen rain forests north of the port of Kampongsong, for exports to feed the plywood mills in Japan.
· It is a very considerable time singe a monograph has appeared on the European oaks, Quercus robur and Quercus sessiliflora, whose economic importance has tended to decline. Although still among the most valuable forest species of Europe, the disadvantages of slow growth and long rotation weigh against them, however desirable they may be silviculturally.
A new comprehensive volume on the oaks (Die Eichen - Forstliche Monographie der Traubeneiche und der Stieleiche, by J. Krahl-Urban, Paul Parey, Hamburg/Berlin, 1959) deserves the attentions of European foresters. It presents the silvicultural, technological and economic aspects of oak growing under European conditions, based on the author's own wide experience and all the relevant literature.
The geographically arranged bibliographical list comprises close to 500 titles in the German language (from Germany, Austria, Switzerland and some translations), plus about 300 titles from 15 other European countries.
· La Fumure en Sylviculture (FERTILIZERS IN SILVICULTURE) is a 71 - page document put out by the Société Commerciale des Potasses d'Alsace. It summarizes the existing literature at present available from all sources on the use of fertilizers in silviculture and the results obtained, distinguishing between the use of fertilizers in the nursery, in plantations, and in natural regeneration, according to the site conditions and the various forest species involved.
No firm conclusions can as yet be drawn but the large number of experiments already carried out seem to show that mineral fertilizers can profitably be used in the forest and to indicate the desirable dosages according to the soil and tree species. For instance, Japanese larch has a low requirement for potash but Douglas fir has a high requirement and reacts strongly to treatment.
Experimentation with the use of fertilizers is increasing along with the trend towards intensive silviculture, and it is expected that the subject will receive thorough discussion at the Fifth World Forestry Congress.
· A report to FAO says that the high exports of mahogany and other valuable timbers in recent years have to a considerable degree come from the clearance of all marketable trees on unreserved forest land which was being cleared for agricultural purposes. This kind of exploitation is nearing its end and was wasteful as only a small proportion of the land cleared was exploited by timber operations before being farmed.
The sustained yield from the reserved land is estimated on the present stocking to be only a quarter to one third of the cut in recent years and it is necessary to increase this yield by proper silvicultural treatment, which is a long term process. The species preferred by the export trade form only a small part of the exploitable timber, but species previously neglected are increasingly used by the sawmills. They contributed nearly 31 percent of the sawmill output in 1967. Utilization of timber has also become more diversified. A new plymill is expected to have begun production by the latter half of 1960. The furniture industry is expanding and the manufacture of wooden lorry bodies and tool handles making progress. A match factory was completed in 1957.
Better use of timber resources is one of the main objectives of the Ghana Timber Utilization Branch, which is being developed. The Branch also studies the treatment of timber to increase life and improve quality, technical improvements in sawmilling and transport, and the development of industries using waste products. Progress is being made in installing and using new equipment, and the work of the Branch will be all the more necessary if, as is anticipated, the forests outside the reserves are destroyed during the next decade or two. In 1957, a Ghana Timber Marketing Association was formed to export and market logs of the small producers with a substantial Government guarantee, but it ran into difficulties. The problem of securing a uniformly high standard of efficiency in felling, transporting and treating timber is not yet solved. The Timber Utilization Branch can be expected to raise the standard by degrees as more contractors and sawmill owners profit by its advice and demonstration methods.
The need for poles to construct local houses and the supply of fuel to the growing towns is receiving close attention but the establishment of plantations is not always a simple task. The increasing importance of tobacco cultivation has made the supply of fuel for tobacco a matter of importance and urgency in certain regions. The cost of fuel can be a major question in the economics of tobacco growing.
· Under the First Five Year Plan, soil conservation work was accorded the priority due to it in the scheme of national development. With the setting up of the Central Soil Conservation Board by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture towards the end of 1953, the stage was set for carrying out soil conservation work on systematic lines. The Board assisted the state governments and river valley authorities in preparing plans, provided for the training of technical personnel, acted as a clearing-house for information and recommended financial assistance for state schemes. It also made itself responsible for research, demonstration and extension work in soil conservation. The state governments also set up their own soil conservation boards.
An official report to FAO makes special mention of the desert afforestation and soil conservation research station at Jodhpur which was reorganized in 1956 so as to take up experimental works on shelterbelt, afforestation of sand-dunes, and pasture development. With the experience gained at the station on problems of desert development, a scheme for reclamation and control of the Rajasthan desert was drawn up early in 1957 in consultation with two experts from the United Kingdom and an FAO expert. Demonstration areas within the community development blocks have been started so as to popularize the correct techniques of improving pastures by regulation of grazing and adoption of proper management methods.
The First Five Year Plan had emphasized the desirability of conducting a soil and land utilization survey of the country for executing a long-term program of soil conservation, as also for the wider objective of improving and increasing crop yields. Early in 1957 a scheme for land use survey and planning with the necessary administrative set up was sanctioned. This has since been integrated into an All-India Soil and Land Use Survey Scheme to carry out soil surveys for four major groups of soils, namely black, red, alluvial and laterite soil groups. It also aims to conduct soil conservation surveys for planning and land use in the catchment areas of the six river valley projects, namely Kosi, Damodar, Chambal, Bhakra, Machukund and Hirakud.
· Improvement of forests and other natural vegetation is not easy in a country with climatic and soil conditions such as Libya's. FAO forestry advisers have been assigned to Libya to advise on the administration of forest services and of forest policy. Their reports and recommendations are a guide to forest policy in Libya for the present and for some years to come. The experts have prepared draft forest laws for Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, the first of which has now been enacted. They have also drafted a Federal Forest Law and a Soil and Water Conservation Law which are now under consideration by the Government. The experts have prepared a plan of management for the esparto-grass areas, and a start has been made with putting it into operation. Esparto grass is one of the main export commodities of Libya. Improved techniques for sand dune fixation, experimental plantings in arid areas and planting trials have been successfully introduced by the experts who have also spent some time on ecological studies. They have paid much attention to training of forestry personnel: eight FAO fellowships and one British Council scholarship have been awarded to Libyans since 1963.
· The State maintains three forester training schools situated at Kongsberg (Buskerud county), Evenstad (Hedmark) and Steinkjer (Nord-Trøndelag) where the length of the course is one and-a-half years. The County of Oppland also has a training school at Brandbu which in addition to the normal term of one-and-a-half years provides for an advanced course of six months' duration.
Each course usually includes about 30 men. Those who pass the final examinations - forest technicians - take up posts mainly in private forestry, with forest owners associations, or are employed in forest survey work etc. Some of the pupils are forest owners themselves or are likely to inherit forest property.
The requirements for admission to the four forester training schools mentioned above, are a satisfactory educational standard together with one year's experience as a forest worker.
In addition to these courses, there is a state school at Osen (Hedmark) with a 10 months' course, the purpose of which is to give the pupils practical experience of forestry. This course makes them eligible for the forester training schools.
Short courses of four to six weeks are held at the Vocational School for Forest Workers at Sønsterud (Hedmark). Here pupils are taught the proper use of tools, modern felling methods, etc. The vocational training school is administered by the Ministry of Church and Education, whereas all other schools of forestry are under the administration of the Ministry of Agriculture.
Instruction in forestry is also given in all agricultural schools.
The degree in forestry is obtained at the forestry section of the Agricultural College of Norway and this course lasts three years. An entrant to the college must have reached the university entrance standard of education, and in addition must have passed the examinations of a forester training school and have had two years' practical experience of forestry. Students are admitted only every second year (1957-1959...) and there are about 30 to 40 in each course
· A documentary treatment of Agriculture in Pakistan has boon published by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. One of its 20 chapters deals interestingly with the forests of East and West Pakistan.
The largest stretch of forest in East Pakistan, the book says, lies in the Sundarbans in the delta of the Ganges and extends to over 2,000 square miles (618,000 hectares). The forest is of the tidal typo and the trees grow very slowly. The principal tree, sundri (Hertiera minor), grows to only about 40 to 70 foot (12 to 21 motors) in height and 2 ½ to 4 foot (0.71 to 1.2 meters) breast height girth in about a century and a half. This timber can be used in boat building. When tread with creosote small logs make excellent transmission poles.
The next tree of importance is gewa (Excaecaria agallocha). This yields soft timber which is used both as match wood and for pulping. A paper mill purchases 40,000 tons annually, and a newsprint mill sot up at Khulna is using this wood as raw material.
Another small tree, goran (Ceriops roxburghiana) flourishes as an under-growth. It yields a very high percentage of tannin from its bark and also produces firewood of very high calorific value. This tree grows so prolifically that the total annual tannin yield could not only moot all Pakistan's requirement but would also give a substantial surplus for export. An industry has not, however, yet boon planned. Manufacturing of fibreboard and wood particle board is under consideration.
Forest work in the Sundarbans is hazardous because the forest is infested with tigers and the rivers and creeks with crocodiles. The forest floor is submerged twice a day, and during high tide work has to be stopped.
· The Export-Import Bank of Washington, U.S.A., has allocated $4 million credit to assist the Turkish Forest Service to increase production of logs and other typos of industrial wood under a five-year development program. This expansion is to take place chiefly in the six national forests of Bolu, Istanbul, Kastamonu, Trebzon, Belihesir and Nersin, where the largest areas of usable timber are located. It is expected that as the yeld of Turkish high forests is expanded, increasingly large savings of foreign exchange may be realized by Turkey through a progressive reduction of imports of lumber and wood products and their ultimate replacement by sizeable, exchange-earning exports.
The credit will finance the services of a number of United States technical advisors as well as purchase of United States equipment to carry out programs in forest management, building of forest access roads, logging and sawmilling, reforestation, fire protection, and research.
An FAO technical assistance team has boon working in all these field for several years and the country study for Turkey produced as part of FAO's Mediterranean Development Project envisage an integrated program of simultaneous action for cultivated dry lands, grazing lands, forests and irrigated areas.
· A second volume of Logging Mechanization in the U.S.S.R., by A. Koroleff, formerly Director, Woodland Research Division, Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada, brings up-to-date the author's review of research, development and practice of mechanized timber harvesting in the U.S.S.R.
The first volume, published in 1952 and reviewed in Unasylva (Volume 8, Number 2) was based on a literature review for the period 1947. 1952 of technical articles appearing mainly in the monthly magazine, Lesnaya Promishlennost (FOREST INDUSTRY). The present work, covering the period 1952-1958, in addition to drawing on this and other U.S.S.R. publications, incorporates information obtained by the author while attending the second session and study tour of the Joint FAO/ECE Committee on Forest Working Techniques and Training of Forest Workers hold in the U.S.S.R. in September 1957.
The author believes that logging in most countries has not received its proper share of the benefits of science and engineering and, generally speaking is lacking in efficiency. He argues that only in the U.S.S.R. is concentrated research being conducted on logging mechanization and that only in this country is the ideal system of full-tree logging (i.e. foiling, skidding and hauling) being carried out on a commercial, even though small, scale.
According to the first volume, a fundamental principle of logging in the U.S.S.R. was that forest work should be self-sufficient in power. This was to be accomplished through generation of producer gas from wood for trucks, tractors and logging railways and portable or stationery (mainly producer gas but also steam) electrical stations. However, restrictions on the use of liquid fuel in logging were subsequently relaxed or lifted, and its use has increased. This has affected mainly power saws (used in the forests), trucks and tractors. Electricity is still regarded as most efficient continues in many categories of logging.
The second volume emphasizes another important change in U.S.S.R. logging, that is, to remove much of the work to points outside the forest. By changing to full-tree skidding and hauling, the work is concentrated at the more efficient permanent lower landings, where earlier the wood was bucked at expensive temporary upper landings prior to hauling.
The author describes in considerable detail various logging methods, labor efficiency and productivity of the equipment, as well as details of equipment used for cutting, skidding (tractor and gable), hauling including truck, railway and water transport. The subject matter is covered in an easily readable form, and in certain categories in considerable detail. Similar information is contained in several films that have been produced by the U.S.S.R. authorities, and in publications of the Joint FAO/ECE Committee on Forest Working Techniques and Training of Forest Workers.
· A degree published in April 1959 embodies the establishment of the General Authority for Desert Development, with headquarters in Cairo. The new authority is entrusted with determining the desert lands which can be reclaimed and also drawing up an over-all policy for reclaiming, cultivating, utilizing and disposing of such lands.
It is understood that it will be responsible for carrying out drainage and irrigation projects, utilizing subsoil water, developing animal wealth, improving means of transport, encouraging existing industries and creating new ones. The authority will have an independent budget and will be operated on a commercial basis. Also in April, the Central Minister of Industry signed a contract for the formation of a company which will establish a veneer factory at Mansura.
· The Forest of Dean is one of the ancient royal forests, now much reduced in area and covering about 40 square miles (10,360 hectares). A committee was set up some time ago to review the situation in the forest and "having regard to all existing rights and interests, to recommend such measures as they consider desirable and necessary to secure that the administration of the forest, more particularly as regards the grazing of animals, may be adjusted to modem requirements", and it has now reported to Parliament.
The committee found that the problems associated with the grazing of animals in the forest were more complicated than was originally expected. Sheep (estimated at 6,000 ewes and 4,000 lambs during the summer) are a feature of the forest, roaming unattended over large areas, in the towns and villages, and on the roads. The committee received evidence as to the extensive damage done to gardens and crops by straying sheep and the difficulty of identifying the owner of the animals responsible. Even when the owners have been identified, the compensation recovered was usually quite inadequate. To meet the situation in the case of housing schemes, greatly increased expenditure was necessary on both external and internal fencing. There were numerous complaints over the prevalence of traffic accidents caused by sheep straying on to the roads, especially at night. The committee was told that " the practice of allowing animals to stray on the 'common land' is completely outdated and conflicts with the conditions obtaining in the area today".
In its report the committee records the view that these various complaints are well founded in fact. Moreover, the roaming sheep involve the Forestry Commission in heavy expenditure in maintaining fences to keep the animals out of the enclosed woodlands. No person, whether owning or occupying land inside or outside the perambulation of the forest, had a legally enforceable claim to run sheep on the forest and this was done not by legal right but by sufferance of the Crown. Nevertheless, it would not be equitable to ignore the fact that sheep had been grazed on the forest for many years. The committee, therefore, made a number of recommendations which satisfy its main thesis that the sheep should be removed from the open forest and roads and from the towns and villages. Sheep should either be confined to special fenced enclosures or eliminated altogether subject to certain payments. A special commissioner should be appointed to compile an appropriate register of sheep owners, and quotas should be allotted to each registered grazier which should be enforced after two years (the committee envisage a quota as not exceeding 20 ewes or the equivalent in other stock, one cow or bullock being regarded as equivalent to four ewes). The indiscriminate running of pigs in the open forest should be brought under control by the registration of owners under similar conditions to those proposed for sheep owners, including allotting distinctive marks.
· Earlier this year was opened the Greeley Memorial Laboratory, School of Forestry, Yale University, which honors a man who was Chief of the United States Forest Service from 1920 to 1928 and later took a leading part in promoting the national "tree farm" program for managed private forest land. The facilities of the laboratory will be used in connection with the School of Forestry's five-year project to increase the basic knowledge about forests. For this purpose, the National Science Foundation has given Yale University a $53,000 grant to conduct genetics research. Current tree improvement programs are financed to a great extent by wood-using industries, and have as their goal the selection of superior commercially important trees for the establishment of seed orchards. The Yale Project envisages the production of basic data on forest tree genetics.
· In the neighborhood of Saigon, there are over 200 small sawmills, furniture and shoe factories - either separately or in combination. The sawmills are mostly of the French horizontal electric saw type. The operators are very clever mechanics and skillful craftsmen.
Ornamental cabinet wood consists of Pahudia cochinchinensis, Dalbergia bariensis, Pterocarpus and Diosyros spp., Cassia siamea. Among the most popular general utility timbers are Hopea odorata, Pentacme siamensis Shorea obtusa, Dipterocarpus alatus. For making women's shoes and sabots, Tetrameles nudiflora and Sindora cochinchinensis, and Sandoricum indicum are most popular.
For lacquer-ware, the oleo-resin is obtained from Melanorrhoea laccifera (in Burma the tree is M. usitata), and Viet-Nam produces one of the best and most beautiful lacquer-wares in the world, the FAO Regional Forestry Officer says. Formerly, bamboo-work was used as the framework, but nowadays fibreboard and plywood are invariably used, being cheap and readily available.
