Brunei
· A manual of the dipterocarp trees of Brunei State (P. S. Ashton, Oxford University Press, p. 242, illustrated, Oxford, 1964, 63s) gives a complete picture of the most important family of the forest flora of Brunei, comprising 9 genera and more than 150 species. Thanks to his extensive experience throughout southeast Asia, Dr. Ashton's study makes an important contribution to the knowledge of tropical forest ecology in the region, and hence to forestry development.
Cuba
· At the time of the "conquistadores," the friar Bartolomé de las Casas, wrote of traversing Cuba from east to west under the shade of trees. In fact, during the four centuries of Spanish rule the forests played an important role in the island's economy. Their exhaustion or impoverishment is a relatively recent matter, consequent on the rise of the sngar and livestock industries, and the spread of shifting cultivation to the more remote areas and the poorest soils.
In the meantime, the islandne's eds for forest products, and particularly paper, continue to rise as imports become more difficult to finance or find. Fortunately the country still has areas of former broadleaf forests and of tropical pines (Pinus occidentalis, P. cubensis, P. caribbea and P. tropicalis) which can be rehabilitated without great cost, and suitable areas that could be put under plantations of quick-growing tree species without encroaching on agriculture and farming.
The policy of the Government is to push ahead in both these directions, and the planned budget of the Directorate-General of Forestry for 1966 is double the 7 million pesos expended in 1963. Lack of trained and experienced personnel and of equipment are not the least of the difficulties that face Cuban foresters in achieving the goals they have set themselves.
Germany, Federal Republic of
· An eight-week training course on the use of radioisotopes and radiation in forestry research was conducted from 11 May to 3 July by the Technical University of Hanover under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and FAO. Trainees from 24 countries attended the course which provided a background review and coverage of the principles and practices of modern techniques of radioisotope utilization, with the particular objectives of indicating the kinds of investigations in which these techniques can most profitably be used and their relationship to other research techniques.
The following main fields of research were covered: physiology of nutrition (including mycorrhiza)
(a) absorption by roots
(b) foliar absorption
(c) stem absorption
(d) transport, nutritional requirements, photosynthesis;
Pedology and soil fertilization;
Biochemistry;
Forest pathology and entomology;
Forest tree breeding and genetics;
Radiobiology and radioecology.
The course was under the general direction of Prof. H. Glubrecht, director of the Institute of Radiobiology, Hanover Technical University. The associate director was Dr. D. A. Fraser, Department of Forestry, Canada. Most, instructors were German but lecturing staff included experts from Greece, Romania, Sweden and members of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Atomic Energy in Agriculture.
Guinea
· The State is now successfully operating cigarette and match factories installed with the co-operation and assistance of the Government of China (Mainland) from which country is imported all the wood (poplar and lime) required for the match factory and part of the tobacco needed by the west African subregion.
The Government of Guinea is planning to establish plantations of fast-growing tree species in the vicinity of the capital, Conakry, and has obtained the services of an FAO technical assistance adviser with the long-term intention of producing its own wood for match production.
Iran
· Although special meetings of the International Poplar Commission have been held previously in the Near East and in Latin America, the first regular session held outside Europe was in May 1965, when the twelfth session was organized in Iran.
There were 50 participants representing 13 countries that are members of this autonomous commission established by the FAO Conference (Canada, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Netherlands, Pakistan, Romania, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia). Four other countries were represented by observers (Iraq, Japan, Jordan, United States of America), as was also the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations (IUFRO).
Preceded by two study tours the first to the Caspian region from 15 to 18 May to assess its potential for quick-growing euramerican hybrids, and the second to the Isfahan area from 21 to 23 May to study the conventional cultivation of white poplars and the extent to which traditional methods have been improved over the last few years the business meetings of the commission were held in Tehran from. 24 to 26 May. The Minister of Agriculture of Iran formally opened the session. Nasser Golesorkhi, Deputy Minister of Agriculture of Iran, was elected chairman, and. G. Giordano (Italy) and Ali Karaagac (Turkey) were elected vice-chairmen. Meetings of the commission's working parties on insect pests and on logging and wood utilization were held concurrently in Tehran under the chairmanship of O. Karagoz (Turkey) and G. Giordano.
Twenty-four countries are at present members of the commission and it is safe to assume that twice as many are interested to a varying degree in the cultivation and utilization of poplars and willows. The biggest producers of plantation-grown poplar wood are for the time being France (2.7 million cubic meters annually), Italy (2.35 million cubic meters), Iran (2.2 million cubic meters), Turkey (0.5 million cubic meters) and Yugoslavia (0.3 million cubic meters), and the average yield of plantations in countries reporting to the commission is about 10 cubic meters per hectare per year. The production of poplar sawnwood in France now exceeds the volume of oak sawnwood, and poplar in Italy constitutes more than one third of the total output of industrial timber (from an area which is less than one twentieth of that of the natural forests). About 1 million poplars are being planted annually in Japan.
The commission noted that in some countries there has been a drop in the consumption of poplar for plywood ascribed mainly to the increasing competition offered by tropical woods. In most countries the demand for poplar logs is twofold - sawnwood, plywood, matchwood and packing cases on the one hand, and wood for board and pulp on the other. (There is little demand for paper pulp from poplar in France, whereas the demand for board and packing cases continues to grow.) Growing techniques.(size and quality of planting stock, initial spacing, intensity and frequency of thinnings, pruning schedules) must be adapted to meet the new requirements of the wood-using industries.
Japan
· The Forestry Extension Association has published a set of three descriptive volumes entitled Singing birds in Japan. Included are 12 sides of recordings of songs and calls, and the books are illustrated by excellent colored photographs of the birds described in the text (Latin scientific names and common names also in English). To our knowledge, this is the first instance of a forestry association producing a publication of this nature.
Liberia
· Liberian high forest trees is the title of a systematic botanical study of the 75 most important or most frequent high forest trees, with reference to two numerous related species (published by the Centrum voor landbouwpublikaties en landbouwdocumentatie, Wageningen, 1965, 416 p.). It represents the thesis prepared by A. G. Voorhoeve for his doctorate degree, based on his three years' service with FAO under the Netherlands Associate Expert Scheme, during which time he was attached to the Forestry School, University of Monrovia, a project receiving financial aid from the United Nations Special Fund and operated by FAO.
Mexico
· Forestry specialists from Canada, the United States, and Mexico came together in Mexico City in March at an organizational meeting of a working party on forest tree improvement through genetics. The North American Forestry Commission of FAO decided to create such a working party at its last session. The National Institute of Forest Research, Subsecretariat of Forestry and Wildlife, was host at this first meeting.
Research programs to produce improved trees have expanded rapidly in North America in recent years. About 3 million dollars are spent annually on such research, according to reports by delegates, and research programs conducted by federal, state, and provincial governments, by universities and by private industry, employ nearly 100 scientists.
In Mexico City, the government representatives allotted priorities to 17 tasks of mutual interest to the three members of the North American Forestry Commission.
South Africa
· Forestry and forest industry in South Africa by Mikael Grut (A. A. Balkema, Cape Town, 1965, 115 p.) is the first book to deal with this whole field which is today rapidly increasing in importance. This sector of the economy provides employment for more than 100,000 persons in South Africa and yields a gross output worth well over 150 million Rands (US $210 million) per year. Before the end of the century, timber output is expected to have more than doubled itself.
The indigenous forests served the country well in the past but now they seem to have played out their economic role, although certainly not their protective role. Their small economic importance is illustrated by the fact that during the financial year 1959-60 they yielded a revenue of only 19 cents per acre (65 US cents per hectare) while during the same year the Department of Forestry obtained a revenue of 8.49 Rands per acre (US $29.40 per hectare).
The book is therefore devoted to the plantations of fast-growing exotics established in the country and to the industries based on them.
United Kingdom
The Forestry Commission has passed from the Ministry of Agriculture to a new Ministry of Land and Natural Resources: this is in keeping with the trend in a number of countries.
The Forestry Commission is also being reconstructed in recognition of the fact that it "has now passed from being a mainly timber-growing organization to a new phase where it has an equally important role as a timber-seller and, secondly, to accord with present-day practice for bodies with executive functions."
There will be a part-time chairman, four full-time executive members and five part-time commissioners. The full-time executive members will be the director-general (who will be deputy chairman and accounting officer), and three members with responsibility for forest management, harvesting, and marketing, and administration and finance. The five part-time members will be chosen for their knowledge of commerce, the timber trade, trade union matters, and forestry and the countryside.
There will also be a regrouping of the staff under the three functional full-time commissioners, and the administrative processes between headquarters and operations in the field will be simplified and accelerated.
The three national directorates for England, Scotland and Wales will be wound up and their functions reallocated between the conservancies and headquarters of the Forestry Commission, which will then transact business direct.
United States of America
· Twenty-three prominent foresters from twelve countries of various major world areas met at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, in April to discuss world tropical forestry problems and progress. Organized under the leadership of Dean E. S. Harrar, School of Forestry, Duke University, the symposium was cosponsored by the International Society of Tropical Foresters and the Foreign Forestry Office of the U. S. Forest Service.
Tropical forests occupy over half the world's forest area and in terms of food, fuel, shelter and a host of varied products, they contribute directly to hundreds of millions of the earth's peoples. Yet only a fraction of their potential has been realized. The symposium enumerated a number of factors responsible for this slow progress. Complexity of tree species, lack of transportation, climate and national attitudes all play a part in preventing a solution to many urgent problems.
These and other problems were discussed under six major heads: regeneration practices; shifting agriculture; utilization and marketing; education; forest policy and administration; international efforts and needs.
The symposium came to the conclusion that one important step in the progress of tropical forestry would be the creation of a permanent Tropical Forestry Committee under FAO. Such a committee could provide continuity of attention to tropical problems, programs and progress.
· Education in wood science and technology (Everett L. Ellis, Society of Wood Science and Technology, Madison, Wisconsin, 1964, 187 p.) was produced with the help of a grant from the National Science Foundation. No previous comprehensive study of education in these fields has, to our knowledge, been issued in print. Its appearance is timely when educators in many countries are reviewing their system of teaching forestry and allied subjects.
· According to Underwater logging, by John Cayford and Ronald Scott, (Cornell Maritime Press, Cambridge, Maryland, 1964, 81 p., $3.00) countless logs in the lakes, ponds and rivers of the United States and Canada can provide a diving group with a full season of work and substantial rewards. This booklet describes the techniques and equipment for the salvaging of timber sunken during extraction operations, and the text covers also selling, contracts, sawmills and the utilization of sunken logs.
Yugoslavia
· Forest management (in Serbo-Croat, with a short summary in French, by Prof. Dr. Dušan Klepac, University of Zagreb, 340 p., 125 photos, 58 tables, Zagreb, 1965) comprises a first part which deals with the theory of management and a second part which describes in detail the silvicultural systems that can be applied to the various types of forest stands found in the country, including those of the Mediterranean area. Management and landscaping of forests for recreational pursuits are also dealt with. The author has contributed to FAO's activities and objectives on many occasions.
