THE INTERNATIONAL Union of Forestry Research Organizations will hold its Fourteenth
Congress in Munich, Federal Republic of Germany, in September 1967. IUFRO is
the longest established international forestry body, having been founded in
1890. In recent years membership has considerably expanded, and the Union's
influence on the direction and scope of forest and forest products research
is now widespread throughout the world.
FAO and IUFRO have formally agreed to collaborate for the furtherance and improvement of forestry, the forest industries, and research work concerning them. Indeed, at one time FAO provided secretariat services for the Union but that section of the FAO/IUFRO Agreement was later abrogated.
FAO has always supported the strengthening of research and increased allocations to research facilities. But in the case of the developing countries, to which much of FAO's efforts are now directed, their problem is mainly one of adapting to their own needs the knowledge and technologies already available. A country can develop its own scientific research and technology with comparatively little resources by concentrating on those problems which are of the greatest concern to its economic development objectives. The applied research most needed may often best derive from co-ordinated action between groups of countries or even from a centrally-based institute. Often forest policy in individual countries is insufficiently determined or assured to justify investment in research facilities on the scale needed to ensure viability.
In fact, a recent adviser to FAO postulates that the immediate forestry research needs of developing countries could most efficiently be filled by contracting requirements to established institutions in developed countries.
He bases his argument on the following premises:
1. There are few countries at present where forestry development is limited by problems which local research could resolve in a short period of time. These limitations are usually limited finance and lack of trained personnel.2. Modern forestry research, to be effective, needs extensively trained specialists and expensive facilities.
3. The common practice of appointing to research a man with normal forestry training and then, ipso facto, regarding him as an expert, is a waste of research expenditure. The planning and direction of research is not a logical process proceeding by stages to a predetermined goal. Inspiration comes to only a few individuals and the ability to communicate that inspiration to a research team is even rarer.
4. Proper training for effective research generally requires a minimum of 9 years at a university (4 years forestry, 2 years specialist training, 3 years research training). At the present time few developing countries can afford to forgo for so long the services of their best men in field forestry and administration.
5. The most pressing research requirements of developing countries are generally held to be in the fields of forest management, product utilization, economics (including marketing and industry) and work science. Many problems come into the category of development rather than research and could more appropriately be resolved by the kind of development organization set up in some countries by FAO under the United Nations Development Program, than by a research institute.
6. The research components of developing countries' forestry problems are seldom unique: for most projects there are well-established precedents in experimental design, method and analysis: for example, timber testing, growth and yield plots, and species trials.
7. Expensive and highly sophisticated research facilities in developed countries are often underutilized. Their employment by developing countries would be cheaper and more efficient than attempts to duplicate them locally.
Dean Shirley came to the College of Forestry in 1945 after a distinguished period of service with the United States Forest Service. He taught an introductory course in forestry, offering a new approach to student orientation in this field. Out of this experience came the textbook, Forestry and its career opportunities, which is now used widely in forestry schools throughout the United States.
He was a member of the Organizing Committee for the Fifth World Forestry Congress held in Seattle in 1960, serving as Chairman of the Program Committee. Dean Shirley hopes to continue to serve forestry and forestry education at the international level.
Dean Sisam is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick, Canada, and received his master's degree from the School of Forestry, Yale University. He was director of the Commonwealth Forestry Bureau, Oxford, from 1939 to 1945, after which he returned to Canada to the University of Toronto. Dean Sisam has also served as President of the Canadian Institute of Forestry and of the Ontario Professional Foresters' Association.
