This special issue of Unasylva has two main objectives. It brings to our readers an edited selection of some of the position papers of the important 4th Session of the FAO Committee on Forestry Development in the Tropics and, in doing, this, it emphasizes FAO's principal concern in the field of forestry: how to make the best and wisest use of man's least understood ecological formation, the moist tropical forest.
The first article in this issue could as well have been called "Terra incognita." It is a revealing examination of how little we know about the world's tropical forests. As Sommer says at the start, the "euphoric belief" in the unlimited nature of tropical forests is over. Concern everywhere for the state of the natural environment is the main reason for the end of this particular delusion. But the new awareness of tropical ecosystems has not been accompanied by any really coordinated effort to collect information about them. All we really have, as Sommer says, is "a mass of incomplete data and a number of assumptions."
Storage of information about the world's tropical forests needs to be centralized, improved and constantly updated in order for it to be both accessible and useful, a formidable task. The success of such an international endeavour will depend upon the will and the ability of governments in particular to cooperate in supplying good information. We are aware that this is easier said than done. But we believe it can be done.
The gist of Adeyoju's article is that the solutions to land tenure and land-use problems in tropical forest regions have to be suitable to the people and the places concerned. Too often conventional land-use and tenure concepts have failed in the tropics because they were transferred or poorly adapted from other parts of the world radically different from the tropics: different in the social sense, historically, culturally and ecologically. The long-term insurance and best defence for land use in forestry, as Adeyoju concludes, is always to put the public interest first. This means not only knowing what those interests really are, but increasing the understanding among people of land-use problems and policies.
Lanly's article on inventories for investment is built around an equally practical, common-sense message - and one often overlooked in the past a specialized inventory aiming at investment should be designed to achieve this aim from its start. For instance, vital information such as the nature of soil and stone contained in a tropical forest, if put into such an inventory initially, can influence decisions and costs for creating infrastructure such as roads and ports. To ignore the question of infrastructure in developing countries in particular is to ignore what development is all about. Lanly also makes the important point that all tropical forest countries need to have permanent inventory facilities at the national level. Forest policy decision-making day to day as well as over the long range depends upon the availability of such facilities.
Schmithüsen's paper, the longest in this issue, deals with the complex subject of utilization contracts on public lands in the tropics. As the sub-titles of the four parts of this article indicate, it is very much of a "how to do it" piece: how to make contracts, how to implement concession policies, what to do for management plans, the assessment of taxes.
One important thought underlies the whole exposition. It is not enough for a country to have forest land; it should be able to control its use or non-use for the public benefit.
In a lucid discussion of the choice of the best silvicultural systems to employ in the moist tropical forest, Synnott and Kemp write about the most fundamental characteristic of the moist tropical forest, the great variety of species. Biological variety, as others in this edition remind us, may be the major problem of tropical forestry, but it is certainly not an insurmountable one. Synnott and Kemp suggest that variety also means that silviculturists dealing with the tropics need to have particularly flexible and imaginative approaches, much more so than in the forestry of temperate or cold climates.
Chauvin's article shows clearly how costs in tropical logging operations differ, often radically, according to the methods of extraction chosen. Again, it is clear that the forester in the tropics must remain flexible and that the job at hand can be done in a number of ways, often equally effective but differing significantly in costs.
Kyrklund debunks the view that paper-making with mixed tropical hardwoods is impractical. The technology and methodology for making pulp for various paper grades from mixed tropical forests exist today and the economics of the task, often cited as a major constraint, can be worked out. It is still true that where there is a will there is a way.
Collardet has a similar point of view concerning hard-to-process and lesser used species. Industrial uses of tropical species are often inhibited by lack of imagination and commercial habits of using - sometimes to a point of extinction - a few species with proved market value.
Collardet concludes that better and more complete utilization of tropical wood species "is not only an essential and urgent need to meet the threat of a world-wide wood shortage and to help the development of those countries possessing these forests, but should also lead to gradually improving forest management with a view to attaining a sustained and higher production of the more valuable woods."
Wood from the tropics has been gaining a larger and more important part of the world wood trade. Pringle analyses how this is taking place and the regional trade flow trends involved in the process. He is basically optimistic about the future of the tropical wood trade within as well as with developing countries. This optimism is based on the premise that the range of species and qualities utilized will be greatly expanded, a development that Pringle believes is certain to take place.
His position is supported from another side and in another way by Erfurth's article. We should not wait for these developments to take place, he says; we should make them happen. He argues that conventional promotional approaches, which have stressed individual or groups of species should be replaced with promotion campaigns related more to processed wood products. Used in the form of chips, fibres or composite products, or in combination with these, tropical wood will become increasingly competitive. The accent in promotion should be on use, and the uses of tropical species are virtually limitless.
These ten articles in one way or another are directed at the best ways of utilizing the moist tropical forests of the world. The last article, by Poore, says that man may be nearing the eleventh hour as regards the unthinking and unnecessary exploitation of the whole natural world upon which, lest he forget, he is still totally dependent for life. Poore warns and reminds us that in the moist tropical forests especially we are dealing with a complex ecosystem about which scientists and technicians actually know very little. The danger is that we may destroy or transform for short-term gains resources which are irreplaceable.
But, like all of the other contributors to this special issue of Unasylva, Poore is nothing if not practical and realistic. Man has to use nature in order to live, to provide enough of the earth's resources for expanding populations, especially in developing countries, and, consistent with human history, to attempt to improve living standards.
The logic of Poore's conclusions about how man should approach the utilization of tropical forests is as true as it is timely: "Wise allocations to various uses; high standards of changing from one use to another, (and) high standards of management."
We agree with him that "these are the simple, cardinal rules."
T.M.P.
