Pulp and paper production capacity expected to grow 3.4 % annually to 1980
Latin American Pulp and Paper Congress
Modular wood-and-steel bridges in Kenya and Costa Rica
Marketing tropical wood from African moist forests
United Nations Water Conference, Buenos Aires, May 1977
Women's work in Thai forests
FAO's remote sensing facilities increasing
Poplars and willows
Figures for the rates of growth of world pulp and paper production capacity were released in May by FAO.
A report to the FAO Advisory Committee for Pulp and Paper estimated that by 1980 total world paper grade wood pulp production capacity would be 149.6 million metric tons, as compared to 126.8 million tons in 1975. This growth, taking place between 1975 and 1980, would be at an annual rate of 3.4 percent.
The estimate for total world paper and paperboard capacity by 1980 was put at 206.1 million tons, compared to 175 million tons in 1975. The report said that the rate of growth of this capacity from 1975 to 1980 would be 3.3 percent per year.
The figures in the FAO Pulp and Paper Capacity Study come from 94 countries, mainly through trade associations and the industry and are compiled by the FAO annually.
The Committee, consisting of members from 24 countries, held its annual three-day meeting at FAO in mid-May.
Dr. K.F.S. King, Assistant Director-General of FAO, in charge of the Forestry Department, told the group that the creation of pulp and paper mills in developing countries, especially those with large resources of mixed tropical hardwood forests, needs to proceed at a much more rapid pace in order to meet the increasing requirements of these countries. He said that the industry must concern itself more with developing countries through the transfer of technical know-how, cooperation and training facilities as well as investments.
During the meeting the Committee noted that pulp mills utilizing mixed tropic al hardwoods are now operating successfully in Japan, the Philippines, Colombia and Mexico for domestic markets. This represents a significant technological and economic change in an industry which has traditionally depended almost exclusively on more homogeneous softwood and hardwood forests located in cold and temperate zones in developed countries.
A Latin American Congress on Pulp and Paper is scheduled to be held in Buenos Aires from 8 to 12 November 1976. Sponsored by the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Association of Technicians of the Pulp and Paper Industry (ATIPCA), it will be the first such congress in that region of the world.
An up-to-date picture of world trends in the economics and technology of the industry, together with suggestions for practical applications of this information to specific problems in Latin America are among the main objectives of the Congress, whose organizers said that they also hope to encourage participants to analyse Latin American successes and failures in the pulp and paper field. Current research efforts and ways in which research is being put to practical use industrially will also be examined.
Another objective of the Congress, according to its organizers, will be to "insist on the need of using standard methods for quality control of production as well as for the import and export of pulp and paper products."
The technical sessions of the Congress have been arranged as follows:
5.1 Production and market; trends and future of the Latin American forestry, pulp and paper industries
5.2 Raw materials2.1 Plantations
2.2 Natural forests
2.3 Non-wood fibre resources2.3.1 Industrial and agricultural residues
2.3.2 Annual fast-growing plants 2.3.3 Paper recycling.5.3 Pulp
3.1 Conventional processes
3.2 Recovery of chemicals.
The theme of the Congress is "Latin America: Future World Supplier of Fibre Resources and Pulp for Paper."
Among the participating organizations are those involved in the Multinational Project for Pulp and Paper that is a part of the Regional Programme for Scientific and Technological Development of the OAS. They will contribute results of research and development experience gained since 1968. These organizations are the Instituto Mexicano de Investigaciones Tecnológicas, the Laboratorio de Productos Forestales, Universidad de Concepción, Chile; Centro de Investigaciones de Celulosa y Papel (CICELPA) of the Instituto Nacional Tecnología Agraria (INTI), Argentina; the Instituto Centroamericano de Investigación de Celulosa y Papel, of the Universidad Industrial de Santander, Colombia.
The Association of Technicians of the Pulp and Paper Industry, one of the organizers, will hold its 12th Annual Technical Meeting simultaneously with the Congress.
Information about the Congress may be obtained from Dr. Edmundo N. Fiaño, Coordinator, Libertad 1235, 1012 Buenos Aires, Argentina, telephone 7524001, telex 121859.
Technical papers, or inquiries a bout papers, should also be directed to Dr. Fiaño.
Simple modular bridges made from locally produced timber and light steel are helping to improve road communications across streams in developing countries.
With money from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and technical assistance from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), a low-cost timber bridge project in Kenya has shown how to reduce costs and imports and cut time factors.
The project is based on a concept developed by James Edward Collins, an Englishman who worked in the Kenya Forest Department. He produced a novel design for areas where bridges were urgently needed but where money and skilled manpower were in short supply.
The basic units of his design are prefabricated modules or frames, about three metres long, which can be linked with light steel to form a structure capable of supporting heavy vehicles on spans up to 30 metres long. Cypress trees provide the wood and mild steel is obtainable from Kenyan mills. All skilled fabrication is carried out before delivery to the site. This explains, for example, how a 15-metre bridge across a small stream came into existence in one day. It cost only one fifth of what would have been needed for a concrete bridge. Some modular bridges have been built specifically for the Forest Department.
Kenya's experience and initiative have already benefited another developing country: the Government of Costa Rica, helped by an expert selected by UNIDO, is adapting the module system to its own requirements.
Possibilities of expanding the marketable base in African tropical forests as far as mechanical wood products are concerned are discussed in a background paper published by FAO and submitted to the fourth session of the African Forestry Commission held at Bangui, Central African Republic, in March 1976.
The study singled out six points for special consideration:
1. In resource and pre-investment surveys, attention should be given to all commercial and lesser used species and to problems related to provenance, market acceptance and promotion, wood values and use of classification, with the over-all object of improving forest utilization.2. The evaluation of use properties points to the need of supporting further research and data collection aimed at clarifying the use potential of lesser used or lesser known wood species as a basic requirement for the promotion of individual or groups of wood species and their products, and of establishing internationally comparable standards for the use properties of lesser used species.
3. There is a need to study and establish classification and marketing systems for utility timbers based on density and end-use performance to sponsor, in particular, the development of local markets, but also to strengthen the application of marketing practices which optimize individual wood values, and to develop and take advantage of specific uses which offer marked economic advantages.
4. Grading and standardization of tropical wood products need special attention, particularly the actual, efficient application and harmonization of existing national and international rules and standards, and the identification of those processed wood products which qualify for international standardization as opposed to those products which also in future will need to be specified at the time of ordering.
5. Wood preservation, whenever appropriate, should be part of the overall concept for industry and marketing planning in tropical forest countries and receive appropriate technical support by timber research and development institutions.
6. Wood seasoning is an efficient tool for marketing development, particularly of processed sawnwood, and in this context it is suggested that a systematic approach in individual case studies be used, demonstrating how to optimize the techno-economic complex. This approach would include contract stipulation, wood product standards, dimensional accuracy and tolerances, moisture content, impermeable and invulnerable packaging, possible shipping in containers, dimensional stability, constant quality, and direct and immediate application by consumer.
In most parts of the world there is an urgent need for increased output of water-related services, ranging from energy and industrial needs to water supplies for domestic and agricultural purposes.
The UN Water Conference, planned for May 1977 in Buenos Aires, is intended to serve as a forum where the nature of water-related problems may be clearly identified and proposals put forth to solve or alleviate them.
Four topics are to be presented to the Conference in the form of documents with supporting annexes:
- Resources and needs: an assessment of the world water situation.
- The promise of technology: scale and ingenuity.
- Enlarging the range of alternatives: policy issues.
- The action plan.
In preparing the material for the Conference documents, use will be made of data and knowledge derived through world-wide activities of organizations with experience in water-related fields, and FAO hopes to call on the assistance of its field personnel to ensure a comprehensive presentation.
What kind of work and working conditions do women have in tropical forestry?
One third of the labour force employed in the FAO Forest and Watershed Management project in Mae Sa, Thailand, is made up of women. Women do the same type of work as men - nursery work, land clearance, planting - but earn 16 bahts per day as compared with the 18 bahts paid to their male colleagues. There is little distinction in Thailand between work assignments for men and women, except that women are not required to perform the heaviest tasks. These were among the main points of a note on women in forestry work from J.K. Jackson in charge of forest and watershed management at this FAO/UNDP project. The following is the crux of Mr. Jackson's report.
Most of the 24 women labourers employed on the Mae Sa project were briefly interviewed in February 1975 in connexion with the United Nations Women's Year. Fifteen of them lived in the nearest village, Pong Yaeng Nok, and walked the 1-2 km to and from their place of work every day. Twelve of them were unmarried girls between the ages of 15 and 18 who had all received four years' elementary schooling. Two were the daughters of forestry labourers, and the other ten of peasant farmers. Of the three remaining villagers, one, aged 17, was married to a forest labourer, and a 26-year-old woman was married to a farmer. Both were childless. The third, a woman of 53, was married to a tea planter and had two children aged 21 and 13.
Six immigrant women labourers interviewed were all married to forest labourers working at the same station. Their ages ranged from 32 to 52 and they all had children.
Where there are young children in the family, either they are looked after by the elder ones, or they go along with their mother and play while she works. Married women cook rice for breakfast and lunch for themselves and their families before they go to work, and prepare an evening meal on their return.
Employment is preferably offered to families in local villages living in their own homes. Labourers brought in from other forestry projects live in special camps.
Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS) imagery for all of Africa north of the equator is now on file at FAO headquarters and the remote sensing collection is growing for other parts of the developing world as well.
FAO's remote sensing facilities include an additive viewer which is of fundamental use in interpretation of imagery and a density slicer, which can be used to bring out very subtle features on film otherwise not easily visible to the eye and to determine for each image the percentages of areas with various light intensities. Another machine makes it possible to transfer data from ERTS or from aerial photographs to maps of different scales. Personnel on FAO projects are being encouraged to familiarize themselves with remote sensing techniques and to use them in their work.
Poplars and willows must be regarded as "multiple-use" genera able to meet quickly many and varied needs, the 15th session of FAO's International Poplar Commission agreed in December 1975.
Sixty participants from 20 countries met at FAO in Rome. They urged that landscape architects and town planners be made familiar with the many types of poplars and willows which can be employed as a versatile tool in land utilization. They stressed that the production potential of poplars and willows in some parts of the world is in no way inferior to the potential of other quick-growing tree species at lower latitudes.
The participants also pointed out that the growing of poplars and willows in "mini-rotations" differs little from the growing of many agricultural crops which are normally substantially subsidized. It was recommended, therefore, that national legislation should be improved to narrow down the existing discrimination. Measures should be taken to compensate poplar and willow growers for heavy losses caused by natural calamities.
SPREAD THE WORD PROTECT ZAMBIA'S FORESTS
A FOREST DEPARTMENT PRODUCTIONWorld Forestry Day (March 21) was marked in Zambia by this poster designed by Chief Conservator of Forests A.E.G Storrs. It was part of the effort to show that intensive agriculture is dependent upon the conservation and wise use of forest resources. Another poster showing a woodsman cutting down a forest is a warning against indiscriminate felling. Zambia has also put out a booklet describing its accomplishments in forestry after the first ten years of independence.
Units of measure should be standardized to the maximum possible extent. All too often, the seminar found, statistical data on poplars and willows suffer very much - from lack of precision and may differ substantially, depending on the source. National poplar commissions should swiftly undertake thorough critical reviews of the statistical methods employed at present in production and consumption of poplar and willow wood.
With the rapidly increasing tempo in the exchange of propagating material of poplars and willows, research workers should be the first to abide by existing quarantine regulations and should help improve them.
Exporting countries, said the Commission, should ensure that wooden packaging material is not a vehicle for the spread of pests and diseases. Importing countries, however, should not systematically refuse the introduction of goods simply because they have been packed in wood.
|
PICTURE CREDITS Pages 6 through 11, Bundesanstalt fur Materialprüfung (BAM), West Berlin; 21 through 24, B.K. Bakshi, Forest Research Institute and Colleges, Dehra Dun, India, 26, Zamboanga Wood Products Co., Mindanao, Philippines; 21, United Nations (K. Muldoon/ARA); 34, Subsecretaría Forestal y de la Fauna, Mexico City. |
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