The destruction and degradation of forest ecosystems throughout the world is a subject of grave concern. It is particularly serious in the humid and dry tropics where every year more than 11 million ha of closed and open forests are cleared to give way to other uses of the land and where, in addition, vast expanses of natural forest land are being subject to over-exploitation for timber and fuelwood, over-grazing and repeated fires. The situation has become critical also in many temperate zones where atmospheric pollution (“acid rain”), combined with pests, diseases and fires, are taking their toll of large forest tracts.
Convinced that forest conservation has become one of the greatest environmental problems, the Council of FAO, during its 86th Session in November 1984, requested all member nations to give special recognition to the forest during 1985. It declared 1985 the International Year of the Forest. It requested the Director-General to notify this fact to member nations and to seek to respond to requests from them for assistance in their separate and collective efforts during 1985 to have the forest duly recognized as a global concern.
Destruction of forests is the most powerful cause of the erosion of wild gene pools of the useful or potentially useful plant species which they contain. It was therefore fitting that, in this International Year of the Forest, the problems of in situ conservation of plant gene resources should have provided one of the main items for discussion at the First Session of FAO's Commission on Plant Genetic Resources. A note on this session of the Commission is included elsewhere in this issue.
Turning from the strategy to the “nuts and bolts” of developing forest genetic resources, it is satisfactory to record in this issue the availability of seed of a range of tree species and provenances. They include arid zone species of Acacia, Atriplex, Cercidium and Prosopis from Africa, Asia and Latin America; Acacia aneura and other species from Australia; dry, but not strictly arid, zone hardwood species from Central America; tropical pines available from both Oxford and Humlebaek; teak, gmelina and a variety of other tropical hardwood species from Humlebaek; and Calliandra from the Banco Latinoamericano de Semillas Forestales in Turrialba. New provenance limits have been defined for Pinus elliottii and P. taeda in the U.S.A.
The report of the Fifth Session of the FAO Panel of Experts on Forest Gene Resources is now in print. It includes an expanded list of forest genetic resources priorities, by region, species and operation.
We should like to remind readers that short notes of general interest and manuscripts of up to some 3,000 words are always welcome. All correspondence should be directed to the following address:
The Chief
Forest Resources Development Branch
Forest Resources Division
Forestry Department, FAO
Via delle Terme di Caracalla
I-00100 Rome, Italy.
