UNTIL comparatively recently in the history of mankind's evolution, the individual and the community to which he belonged co-existed in a mutually balanced modus vivendi governed by custom. The pattern can still easily be found in remote parts of New Guinea or of the Amazon basin.
In this scheme of things, the natural vegetative cover - usually the forest - came in for little consideration, It was there to be used. People believed in its exploitation, knowing that if they did not make use of it for their immediate needs, someone else would. Their needs were small, and the regenerative powers inherent in the forest were often given time to repair any damage done. But a policy of every man for himself did lead to the unhappiness of neighbors, and in the case of many communities only deserts remain as an epitaph.
Man is a creature whose individualistic instincts are predominant, and who resents planning for his well. being by a minority who believe they know what is best in the interests of collective happiness. Nevertheless, people are coming more and more to believe in planning.
When it is done for them by some outside agency without their active and enlightened co-operation, there often results an unequal, often biassed, distribution of emphasis, which is epitomized by such phenomena as soil mining, river pollution, forest destruction, the lowering of water-tables, the production of harmful fumes and radiations, wildlife extermination - in short, general abuse of the basic resources upon which life depends. There follows rural exodus, unplanned urbanization with its shanty town development, unemployment and the lowering of moral values, brought about by the modern trend toward excessive technical control on the one hand and dormant social control on the other by man of man and his environment.
Rapidly increasing populations merely serve to aggravate the situation. Industrialization has been suggested as a palliative, but progress here in underdeveloped countries immediately presents another serious problem in regard to stabilization and improvement of rural life. It tends to widen the social distances between urban-industrial communities and the agricultural populations - to throw off balance their traditional subsistence economy and impair their social and cultural integrity - to expose them to the danger of being thrown back to obsolete forms of social structure.
A great deal of attention has, in recent years, been focussed on community development as the modern answer to the general problem of combining technical with social control in the interests of "the greatest good to the greatest number in the long run". The success of any such project depends upon a two-fold consideration: the conditioning of traditional public opinion to changes from without, and the conditioning of reformers to circumstances obtaining within the community affected. The plan established must combine, under local leadership and initiative, intimate knowledge of the environment and a sincere urge toward self-help, with outside technical information and stimulation. Community development, in other words, is primarily a question of education. Unless the help and technical guidance from outside is sufficiently enlightened to ensure an overall development of locally available natural resources, the stability and welfare of the community are bound to be compromised. And unless there is real awareness and understanding of the value of any such development by the community affected, the response given to the initial stimulus will be only partial and short-lived.
The planned re-establishment of natural vegetative cover, or its careful conservation and improvement, should constitute an essential part of any community development project. And yet it is true to say that forestry and tree planting have until now played little or no active part in such programs. This is the fault both of those responsible for the help and technical guidance brought in from outside, and of the community itself which has lost all awareness of the benefits it can derive from tree cover.
Advice aimed at improving local economic and social conditions in rural areas should be orientated to the needs of the rural family as a whole. An integrated service covering all fields of interest of an organization such as FAO is much more efficient for this purpose than a number of fragmented services each following its own policy.
