Belgium
Brazil
Denmark
Finland
Germany, Federal Republic of
Italy
Malaysia
Romania
Sweden
Turkey
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
United Kingdom
West Irian
· A 220-page study has been published covering carried out at the Chemical Research Institute of Agriculture, Tervuren, by J.R. Istas, agricultural chemist, and E.L. Raekelboom, chemical engineer.
This study of the biometrical, chemical and paper-making qualities of several exotic conifers covers 36 of the conifers most commonly grown in western Europe, giving for each a brief description of the species and an examination of the following:
1. chemical analysis
2. wood density and fiber characteristics
3. characteristics for sulfate conversion
4. characteristics for unbleached pulp and paper
5. other paper-making applications.
The conclusions of this study contribute toward the selection of species for planting on the basis of papermaking qualities. It can be obtained from Ing. Ul. J. Liénard, Avenue du Derby 57, Brussels 5, Belgium, on payment of 300 Belgian francs to postal account No. 597.12 of the Régisseur de la Donation Royale.
· It is reported that an industrial company has bought some 500,000 hectares of forest land between the rivers Jari and Paru in the state of Amapá, north of the River Amazon. The intent is to clear the forest and plant Gmelina arborea which is widespread throughout tropical Asia. The company had first intended to build a sawmill and utilize the available timber for production of sawnwood. This idea was given up, however, as not enough marketable trees were found. The plantations are to supply the raw material for a pulp mill.
· Princess Benedikte of Denmark, who in: the past has often visited FAO in Rome, was married in February to Prince Richard zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg. Having studied forest science at the University of Göttingen in Hann.-Münden and at Munich University, Prince Richard obtained his forestry diploma at Hann.-Münden and took his post- graduate training as Forstrferendar in North Rhine Westphalia. He obtained a degree as Assessor des Forstdienstes after passing the second forestry examination taken by the North Rhine Westphalian State Forestry Service. Thereafter he took over the administration of his own extensive forest estate.
Princess Benedikte of Denmark and her husband, Prince Richard zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg.
· As part of the drive toward more efficient and cheaper forest production techniques, the Nisula method for producing seedlings has been developed by which seedlings are produced mechanically from a conveyor-belt installation. So far the method has been mainly studied in connection with the production of forest tree seedlings, but a much more extensive range of applications can be foreseen within the fields of horticulture and agriculture as well as home gardening.
A plastic sheet 0.02 millimeter in thickness is first fed onto the conveyor belt of the Tume-Nisula transplanting machine. Then, the machine spreads an even layer of ground and fertilized peat on this sheet. The seedlings to be transplanted are now placed along the two edges of the peat strip in such a way that their roots lie on the peat with the aerial parts on the outside. When starting from seeds, these are sown along the edges of the peat strip. In the rolling mechanism located at the farther end of the conveyor belt, the peat-covered strip with the transplants is rolled into rolls measuring about 25 centimeters in diameter. The rolls are out at the middle and turned upright so that the transplants assume their normal growing position, and seedlings with a plate-shaped root ball are obtained. The output of one transplanting machine reaches as much as 130,000 roll seedlings per day when operators are employed to feed the machine.
The Nisula method has been patented in 18 countries and is marketed through the Finnish Culture Foundation's Invention Bureau which will also give further information on the method and the equipment required for its application. Address: Suomen Kulttuurirahaston Keksintötoimisto, Annankatu 16 D, P.O. Box 12203 Helsinki 12, Finland.
· Research in the Federal Republic of Germany is said to have shown that ordinary commercial redwood (Pinus silvestris) is repellent to termites. Tests with many genera and species of termites from various parts of the world showed that they were repelled by untreated redwood, provided that the wood was moist. Under identical conditions other woods such as silver fir, beech, and Norway spruce were attacked at once.
To determine the cause of the termite-repellent effect, pinewood was extracted with various fluids. Water or methanol removed the repellent effect but petroleum ether did not. When small amounts of the aqueous and methanol extracts of redwood were used to treat beech-wood, the termite-repellent effect was reproduced.
It is still not established, however, what the natural chemical compound is in moist redwood that serves as the termite repellent.
· A matter which has several times been raised at the FAO Conference appears at last to have attained success in that the Italian parliament has approved a law forbidding the annual mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of small migrant songbirds.
The migrating waves of mostly insectivorous birds pass from Africa through Italy into central and northern Europe where they are welcome for their help toward pest control in agriculture and forestry; in Italy cooked over charcoal or roasted on a spit, they have been regarded as a great delicacy.
The struggle to get the new law, introduced, which will be operative from the spring of 1969, has taken nearly a century and is a triumph for the head of the Italian section of the International Council for Bird Preservation which operates in 58 countries.
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Shelterbelts and windbreaks at one of the Gallia Aral dry farming experiment stations, where average annual precipitation is 80 to 120 millimeters.
· A joint venture between Malaysian and Japanese industrialists will operate a plant at Port Swettenham in Malaya to utilize old rubber trees for making woodchips. The woodchips will be exported to Japan for conversion into pulp and paper products.
· The eighth session of the LAO (European Forestry Commission) Working Party on Torrent Control, Protection from Avalanches and Watershed Management was held at Brasov in September 1967. Business meetings were combined with a seven-day study tour during which the particular topics dealt with were a review of last year's disastrous floods in Europe; advances in forest hydrology and in engineering and biological measures for soil conservation; the watershed as the planning unit for integrated rural development; cooperation in the International Hydrologic Decade; legislation on montane economy, soil and water conservation, avalanche control, warning systems.
Countries represented were Austria, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey and Yugoslavia.
· Some 350 wooden sculptures from the salvaged 17th century warship Wasa, which sank in Stockholm harbor on its maiden voyage in 1628, have been successfully treated with a special preservation solution. Even the delicate gilding, of 24 carat gold has remained on the woodwork.
Long before the Wasa was recovered, work started on preserving the many wooden objects found on the bottom. The principal was to prevent cracks and cellular collapse of the wood, mainly oak. Exhaustive laboratory tests were conducted before museum experts dared to start preservation on a large scale.
The Wasavarvet museum has been planned to exhibit a full-scale model of the ship's after part with some of the original sculptures grouped around it. The exhibition opened in April 1968. Some 26,000 finds from the Wasa have been salvaged from the harbor. The entire ship is expected to be fully preserved and assembled by 1971.
· A visitor to the area covered by a former UNDP Special Fund project for forestry development, operated by FAO, writes: "I thought that I should tell you that I was impressed beyond words by what the Antalya foresters are doing: 100-hectare shelter outs in all accessible districts, laid out with a silvicultural exactness that any forester would be proud of. All regeneration areas solidly fenced and patrolled. Nothing for the goats to eat inside in any case, singe they are even implementing the recommendation to fire off all scrub, prepare the soil and bund against erosion. Regeneration is prolific, even in some of last year's outs. Most outs are yielding about 15,000 cubic meters, making logging and extraction a concentrated economic operation."
"All of this is possible because of the tremendous response to the World Food Program project. The villagers, who at first only reluctantly agreed to abandon their subsistence farming and become permanent forest employees, are now flocking in. The program is oversubscribed. Average daily earnings have risen from 8 to 40-50 Turkish fire per family. Everyone wants to be a permanent forest workers But of course the cutting is being held back until the markets and industries are arranged. To anyone who saw the operations, management and output some time ago, it hardly seems possible that so much has been achieved so quickly."
· A group fellowship study tour on shelterbelts and windbreaks was organized in the U.S.S.R., as a joint undertaking with FAO, from 15 June to 1$ July 1967.
After the registration at Moscow of 12 participants from 10 Near East and Mediterranean countries, the formal opening of the tour took place in the All Union Research Institute of Reclamation Afforestation, Volgograd. Ten days of lectures and local tours were arranged by this institute. The group then visited the Central Asian Forestry Research Institute, Tashkent; the Hungary Steppe Reclamation Institute; and the Gallia Aral dry farming experiment stations in the Syriderya and Samarkand regions. It afterward proceeded to Kharkov and Kherson, where lectures and field trips were arranged by the Ukraine Research Institute of Forestry and Reclamation Afforestation, and by the Low Dnieper Scientific Research Station on afforestation on sand along the River Dnieper.
The development of timber frame housing is Illustrate by this four-story block of small dwellings designed by the Timber Research and Development Association.
· The Microfilm unit of the Department of Forestry at Oxford University is beginning to film a supplement to the Oxford Card Catalogue of World Forestry Literature, 1951-1964.
The supplement, on 35 mm microfilm, will cover the years 1965 to 1967/68. It will consist of approximately 100,000 cards classified and arranged by the Oxford System of Decimal Classification for Forestry, and should be available in the later part of 1968.
· On the basis of work carried out in London on the structural design of stressed-skin panels, the Finnish Plywood Development Association last year commissioned a program for the IBM 7090 electronic computer which has made it possible to present, in simple tabular form, solutions for nearly 1,000 individual design oases. The design tables are now available from the Association at Finland House, 56 Haymarket, London, S.W.1.
· Four-story brook of small houses has been designed by the Timber Research and Development Association (TRADA), which has been in the forefront of the development of timber frame housing in Britain. A method of construction has been evolved which is suitable for use on a large scale but which can also put the advantages of industrialized house building methods within reach of the small builder. This means the use of standard interchangeable components providing for maximum flexibility in design and construction methods, and a wide choice of cladding materials.
· Another example of TRADA design, involving the imaginative use of timber and other products, is the construction of a portable cycle racing-track on behalf of a consortium of British manufacturers. The track - which was the first of its kind in the world - was built, using the most advanced timber engineering techniques, to be used for the International Six Day Cycle Race at London last year.
· The founder of the World Association for Celebrating the Year 2000 has invited cities towns throughout the world to plant trees for a worldwide celebration to mark AD 2000.
"It occurred to me that books and plays about the future always involved something grim so I thought I would give people something cheerful to think of - a whole decade of celebrations throughout the world from 1995 to 2005. Planting trees is pleasant and also symbolizes the continuance of life."
· The University College of North Wales will become the first British university to offer degree courses in wood science and economics. Starting in October 1968, the Department of Forestry intends to offer courses leading to a B.Sc. degree. The course will have a strong economics content and be supported by a wide range of options in subsidiary subjects. It may be taken for honours, at pass level, or for joint honours with another main subject, for example forestry. It is hoped that the three-year course will be particularly relevant to the needs of forest departments which have close dealings with primary wood-processing industries.
Construction of a portable cycle racing stadium which adopts the latest timber engineering techniques.
· A plan to develop West Irian, utilizing the $30 million Fund of the United Nations for the Development of West Irian (FUNDWI), has been approved by the Indonesian Government.
Drawn up by a 26-man team of top consultants, the comprehensive plan includes: a Forest Industries Development Corporation to exploit West Irian's extensive timber resources; and a Joint FUNDWI Development Commission to finance and promote a wide range of development activities in industrial, agricultural, fishing, shipping and other sectors. Investment of development financing resources in these two bodies will be a new and unique undertaking: FUNDWI is the first United Nations unit having authority to make such investment.
The Forest Industries Development Corporation will be established under Indonesian law with capital provided on a tripartite basis by FUNDWI (a $2 million investment), Indonesia, and foreign investors. Earnings accruing to FUNDWI as a major stockholder in the scheme would be used for further West Irian development.
