Brazil
Bulgaria
Congo, Dem. Rep. of the
Ecuador
Pakistan
Spain
Sudan
United Kingdom
United States of America
Zambia
· For the third time in its six years of existence, the Federal Forestry School at Curitiba organized a public exhibition of forest products - (PRODEMA) in May 1968. The School is constituted as a UNDP (Special Fund) project, with Karl Oederkoven of FAO in charge.
In view of the tremendous depletion which still continues in the Paraná pine forests (Araucaria angustifolia), this exhibition gains more importance and attention every year. More than 2,500 visitors were counted this time.
The idea of such an exhibition was first conceived in 1965 by the then president of the student body, José Sgrâncio Filho. Its first organizer was another forestry student, José Cesário Menezes de Barros. Ever singe, the entire preparation and organization of the PRODEMA has been exclusively the work of the student body.
Among the exhibitors are a variety of forest industries - sawmills, plywood and veneer mills, pulp and paper factories, furniture plants, packaging industries and others. For the first time this year, the newly created Brazilian Institute for Forestry Development (IBDF) presented a special exhibit.
· A symposium on the use of cableways in logging and forest utilization was arranged by the Association for Forest Science and Technology of Bulgaria and held at Sofia from 26 May to 2 June 1968. It was attended by 60 specialists, 16 of whom came from countries where cableways are already operating. FAO had a representative present. Reports dealt with:
1. the current situation in regard to the use of cableways in logging and forest utilization in different countries, and the prospects for the future;2. basic principles and data for the installation of forest cableways;
3. research and data needed on the productivity and safety of cableway installations.
There were lively discussions and useful exchanges of views during the meetings in Sofia, which were followed by a four-day study tour in the Balkans and Rhodopes mountains, where several systems of cableways in operation were inspected.
· The twin evils of deforestation and soil erosion are to be tackled by a three-year reforestation project extending over 8,000 hectares around Kinshasa.
This area, once covered by natural forest, has been reduced to brush and grassland by uncontrolled and wasteful cutting. The people living in the small hamlets in the area practice shifting cultivation, which has exposed the soil to erosion. Having no regular employment, these people suffer from malnutrition and the project will provide employment for some 500 men who will receive food for themselves and their families in part payment of wages.
The long-term objective of the project is to provide fuelwood and timber. In 25 years, it is expected that soil fertility will have been restored over about 60 percent of the area, which can then be used again for agricultural crops.
· Over the past four years the Forest Service of Ecuador, with the assistance of UNDP/FAO, has carried out studies and research work which has resulted in the granting of forest concessions to 11 existing and 3 new industries for the orderly utilization of state forests and subsequent reforestation, so that the forests will become economically productive.
Elbert S. Reid has been the FAO project manager of the Special Fund project in the Esmeraldas Province which has studied the possibilities of these concessions. According to the contracts, there is an obligation to install integrated industries, with absolute prohibition to export raw material and the obligation to utilize national technical personnel and labor; payment is to be made to the State for surface rental fees and for stumpage. Some U.S.$10 million are expected to be invested in the first five years.
· The last remaining blackbuck in the Sind desert, the few remaining tigers in the Sunderbans swamps and the much persecuted mountain sheep in the western Himalayas are profiting from a quiet revolution now affecting every region in Pakistan.
It all began in 1966 when President Ayub Khan, alerted by trustees of the World Wildlife Fund to the catastrophic losses among Pakistan's wildlife, invited a team of specialists to make a survey. A first reconnaissance was made immediately and a second, more detailed study has been completed this year.
The reasons for the losses of wildlife in Pakistan were not difficult to ascertain. Chief among them were land clearance involving destruction of primary forests, suppression of natural regeneration by millions of domestic goats, widespread use of the more virulent chemical pesticides and of poisoned baits to kill animals suspected of harming crops or cattle, and excessive pressure due to largely uncontrolled shooting and trapping.
The oat family, of which there are many species in Pakistan, has been one of the chief victims. Deprived of their natural habitats, ruthlessly hunted for sport, and poisoned, trapped or shot by skin traders, they have slender chances of survival. The Asiatic cheetah is already extinct and the tiger may soon follow. The snow leopard, perhaps the most beautiful of all the cats, has been a particular victim of the skin traders.
The World Wildlife Fund sent its first recommendations to Pakistan last year. As a result several important steps were taken. A total ban has been imposed on the export of skins of all wild animals, a move which wild be acclaimed by conservationists throughout the world as a splendid example. A similar ban forbids the shooting of blackbuck and gazelle and the shooting or netting of certain rare ducks.
A wildlife conservation committee (in effect a government commission) has been formed under the chairmanship of an eminent High Court judge to advise the Government on requirements for new legislation, the improvement of the game laws and the establishment of wildlife reserves. This committee will provide a link with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a focal point for technical and scientific information.
After the second expedition, recommendations were made for creating national parks and reserves. The first, in the Himalayas at Gilgit, may prove to be the most spectacular yet established. On one side Nanga Parbat rises to 8,120 meters and on the other the 8,620 meter peak of K-2 is visible.
· Scarce rainfall over most of West Pakistan means that agriculture, from which most of the population gain a living, depends on water from the rivers rising in the Himalayas and their foothills. But overgrazing in the watersheds has stripped the land of the vegetation which holds the soil in place, so that silt carried down the rivers is brooking the storage dams downstream and threatening the irrigation systems.
The remedy is to reduce the number of animals grazing in the watersheds and to reforest the bare slopes. The authorities plan to undertake watershed management operations over an area of 8,000 hectares in the valleys of the Kaghan and the Daur and to construct some 22 kilometers of access roads. The World Food Program will assist the project over a period of two years by providing food for about 1,800 workers and their dependents as an incentive to voluntary participation.
· Several publications have recently been issued which are of practical interest, in particular, for technicians and forest services in Latin American countries. Three issued by the Instituto Forestal de Investigaciones y Experiencias, Madrid, are:
- El empleo de la tracción animal en los aprovechamientos forestales by Jesús de la Maza, Luis M. Elvira and Miguel Garcia Fuentes. Deals with the technical and economic aspects of animal haulage;- Tractores forestales - Diferencias fundamentales con los tractores agrícolas by Jesús de la Maza. Presents clearly the technical differences between tractors for use in forestry and agriculture;
- Aplicación del muestreo estadístico al control de los aprovechamientos forestales by Jesús de la Maza. Deals with statistical sampling.
A manual on one-man and two-man operated chain-saws, Manual de motosierras by Jesús de la Maza and Adolfo G. Castañeda has been published by the Sindicato Nacional de la Maderas y Corcho.
· The Government of the Sudan gives high priority in its five-year plan of economic and social development to forestry undertakings in the Blue Nile and Kassala areas, to provide the sawtimber, railway sleepers, poles, firewood and charcoal urgently needed in the Sudan, together with gum arabic, which is a valuable export.
An area of more than 1,000 hectares is to be reforested and, during the three years of the project's duration, a total of 58,000 cubic meters of sawtimber will be produced from already existing forests.
The Government has asked for help from the World Food Program in recruiting the 800 fulltime workers needed to carry out the project. They will receive at least 50 percent of their wages in cash and the rest will be given in the form of WFP food for themselves and their families. Food assistance, while helping the Government with its wages bill, will also improve the health and dietary habits of the workers.
· As the official introduction of the metric system of measures draws nearer, the adoption of a workable and economic standard list of metric sizes for sawn softwood has become a matter of urgency for the timber importing trade. To stimulate interest in this important matter, and as an entirely unofficial and independent venture, the Timber Trades Journal has sponsored a competition based on a table of sizes prepared as a working paper for the committee which is considering the British Standards Institution's proposed list of sizes. What is involved is the selection, and indication on the chart, from the metric dimensions proposed by the various national and international bodies involved, of not more than 100 dimensions which in the competitor's view would comprise an ideal range
A firm of joinery manufacturers has recently completed its first contract to be designed under the metric measure system. This involved prefabricated timber-frame walls and mahogany doors and screens for the first metric modular building of its type in the United Kingdom. It was merely a matter of using a different scale, singe the machines needed no conversion, and the managing director considered that the use of millimeters instead of inches simplified the whole operation.
· There are 17,600 hectares of planted forests in the State of Hawaii. The largest island, Hawaii itself, has the greatest area. New forest plantations are being established at a rate of about 1,200 hectares per year, mainly on state lands. About 55 percent of the planted forests are in public ownership. Earlier plantings were predominantly on private lands.
There are several government programs to arouse interest and support forest tree planting:
1. Sharing 50 percent of the cost of reforestation, with a maximum payment of $2,500 to any one landowner in a given year. This ii a federal program.2. Professional technical assistance. This support is provided cooperatively by the state and federal governments though the state forester's office.
3. Tree seedlings are provided at low cost ($5 per thousand). This is also a cooperative state-federal program.
4. A state law provides for delayed yield tax in lieu of annual taxes on land or timber, if a landowner will dedicate his land and manage it for timber production.
5. The United States Federal Government provides direct financial support to the State of Hawaii to share costs of reforestation of its state lands.
· The establishment has been reported of a company to manufacture paper mulch for vegetable crops it manufactures equipment for a planting and mulching system and will contract its complete services to commercial growers.
Development of a self-propelled machine capable of the precision placement of seed and the laying of mulch paper simultaneously resulted in this breakthrough for the use of paper mulch a commercial basis. The chemically treated paper is designed to decompose within a specified length of time, according to the crop.
· About 1,000 elephants have been killed in Zambia in the past two years - to preserve one of the country's most valuable assets, its tourist industry. Elephants and other large animals must die so that many more may live.
The scene of this drama is the vast Luangwa valley in eastern Zambia, one of the richest game areas in the world. But the vegetation cannot support all these animals and the rate at which elephants and others are tearing down trees and vegetation shows there is not enough for them to eat.
Already 24 species of trees have disappeared from the Luangwa valley and nourishing grass is being eliminated and replaced by grass with no protein. Carcasses of elephants have been found under inedible baobab trees which they have ripped in desperate efforts to find food.
To prevent the vegetation from being progressively denuded experts have estimated it is necessary to reduce the area's 23,000 elephants by 6,000, and the present program is to kill 5,000 in the next three or four years. Thousands of buffalo, which now total about 12,000, as well as some of the 5,000 hippopotamus are being eliminated.
Zambia needs wildlife to develop her tourist trade in order to diversify an economy almost entirely dependent on copper. By scientific management the Government can also supplement the supply of cheap meat available for Zambians. This source of protein is badly needed to combat widespread malnutrition.
FAO's Forestry and Forest Industries Division is starting to operate a UNDP (Special Fund) project to develop the Luangwa valley for wildlife management and tourism.
See cover photograph. The other side of the picture which appears on the front cover. A litter of paper and boxes in the roadway and on the sidewalk of a city street in one of the largest cities in the world.
Although refuse collection techniques have improved during the past decade or so, disposal practices around the globe seem to have changed little since the Middle Ages. Now that throw-away clothes are gaining acceptance, throwaway sheets and towels are just around the corner.
Still, packaging material causes more mess than anything else, as a by-product of the higher standard of living in many countries it is considered that its use is excessive. In one northern country there is an official scheme to reduce packaging by 10 percent. Fortunately, this is supported by the people who make the stuff in the first place.
PHOTO UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
TIMBER TRENDS AND PROSPECTS IN AFRICA
Timber trends and prospects in Africa.
Timber trends and prospects in Africa completes the series of timber trends studies which has already covered Latin America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.
The African study sets out the results of a three-year survey carried out jointly by FAO and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. It summarizes information on forest resources, primary wood-using industries, and the consumption of, and trade in, wood products. It also estimates future demand for these products up to the year 1975. The study concludes with a review of the prospects for developing forestry and forest industries in Africa and the problems to be overcome in realizing these prospects.
The object of the study is to help governments in Africa to formulate policies and plans in the forestry and the forest industries sectors. In no way is it intended to obviate the detailed planning that these countries will have to undertake. It is meant to provide a measure of guidance by setting out in a condensed form the available information on the regional and subregional framework within which each country needs to operate.
Timber trends and prospects in Africa. English and French obtainable through FAO Sales Agents or from FAO Distribution and Sales Section, Rome, Italy price: U.S.$2.50 or 12s. 6d.
