JOHN Q. WILLIAMSON
JOHN Q. WILLIAMSON is Director of Education, Forestry Commission of Great Britain, and Director of Forestry for Wales.
Brief extracts from a report to FAO about the English-speaking African countries
In all of the 14 African countries visited, 1 there was full realization of the value of forest development, not only to ensure adequate supplies of wood products for ever-increasing populations but also for the protective function which forests exercise. Unfortunately, full implementation of forest policy was not always possible, mainly because of inadequate funds.
1 Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Libya, Malawi, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Southern Rhodesia, Sudan, Tanzania Uganda, United Arab Republic, and Zambia.
Forest reserves are inadequate in the majority of countries, and one of the main tasks facing the forest services in Africa is to ensure that further areas of land are reserved for forest, at a time when there is a continually growing demand for more land for agriculture. Indeed, some of the existing forest reserves are under heavy pressure from agriculture, especially as shifting cultivation (the traditional subsistence farming system) is in some places finding a diminishing forest area which can be cultivated. This, in turn, leads to smaller rotations, less build-up of fertility and a consequent desire for more productive forest land.
The rising demands for sawnwood and pulpwood, estimated to be doubled and quadrupled, respectively, by 1980, has led to increasing attention being given to plantations of fast-growing softwoods and hardwoods, even in the west coast countries and in Uganda, where there are still large areas of tropical forest containing an abundance of timber. In all countries a great effort is being made to improve the existing indigenous forests so as to increase their productivity and the proportion of species now recognized as valuable.
There is a growing danger that governments will be under pressure, not to increase forest reserves but to decrease them. Wise statesmanship, sound legislation, efficient forest services and widespread education of the public will more than ever be needed if the destruction of forests is to be avoided. Past governments created adequate forest services but the need for forest reserves was so great that many of them were perforce designated in a rather autocratic way because time was insufficient to build up among their peoples a full understanding of the benefits, direct and indirect, which managed forests can provide. The result has been a general hostility to forestry which will require patient and skillful propaganda to convert into friendly acceptance.
All the countries visited had development plans, mainly of a short-term nature, and also long-range targets not necessarily related to finance or future staff requirements. Apart from Sudan, Nigeria and Ghana, where practical forecasts of staff requirements for many years ahead had been made, the countries of east and central Africa, although working to modest development plans, clearly considered that increases in the staff of national services on any scale were out of the question in the immediate future.
Because of this attitude to staff expansion it was only possible to examine the educational and training program in these countries on the present pattern of development, bearing in mind that a time will almost certainly come, in say 10 to 15 years from now, when more training facilities will be necessary to cope with additional development.
The development plans examined appeared to be soundly based and full cognizance had been given to the need for adequate finance and adequate trained staff to carry them out.
Until recently professional education could only be gained outside Africa and most of the African graduates and undergraduates from the countries visited had been or were being educated in the United Kingdom.
This system is now undergoing a radical change: firstly, because scholarships for education in other countries such as the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany are becoming more readily available; secondly, because of the decision to set up additional forestry faculties in English-speaking Africa; and thirdly, because men are being sent for training to other continents where training is available in particular subjects of use to forest services in Africa.
Some variety in types of professional education is bound to be of value to the forest services, especially when such education is taken with a particular end in view such as the study of tropical silviculture in India, or of eucalypts and fast-growing conifer plantations in semiarid conditions in Australia, or of utilization in North America. A danger exists, however, if men are attracted to certain universities abroad solely because of their lower standards of entry and training. Wherever possible each country should ensure that forestry degrees are only recognized from acceptable universities. This can be controlled by bursary committees and public service selection boards.
To meet professional needs the establishment of further forestry faculties in Africa is recommended as long as such faculties serve a region and not just one country. The reason for this regional condition is that not one of the forest services visited appeared at present to have a recruitment policy which could justify the establishment of a forestry faculty to meet its needs alone. The main consideration in setting up a forestry faculty must surely be one of ensuring that it can offer an education program comparable to that given in the developed countries and, for ecological study, an even better one. It has been generally accepted that a minimum output of at least 10 students per year must be maintained. No forest service in Africa is planning at present for a recruitment level as high as this.
When a forestry faculty is established it should always be attached to an existing university, because a forestry graduate must be capable of evaluating forestry techniques, of understanding clearly the place of forestry as a form of land use in the national economy, of making the right management decisions, of giving advice on and formulating policy, and of planning executive programs and controlling their execution.
It is evident that such an education program can only be successful if it is carried out, not in an isolated technological environment, but within the framework of a university where the student is given the opportunity to broaden his mental horizon by mixing with those from other faculties and to develop his power of independent thinking by sharing in the corporate intellectual life.
Whenever a forestry faculty is in process of being established, another recognized forestry faculty should be asked to act "in loco parentis." Further, FAO, in cooperation with its Advisory Committee on Forestry Education, the universities and the country concerned should ensure that the curriculum is correctly designed and the faculty well organized from the start. The teaching staff could be of different nationalities so long as there are sufficient lecturers appointed of the right caliber and with sound experience in their subject field, supplemented where possible by knowledge of local forestry conditions.
Nigeria
The decision to set up a forestry faculty at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria appeared to be very sensible and, after inspecting the science and other facilities available and talking with the university staff, it was obvious that it has every prospect of success. A United Nations Special Fund project, executed by FAO, is now in operation with staff drawn from the United Kingdom, British Guiana and Australia.
The course will be of four years' duration. During the first two years, the agricultural and forestry courses will be broadly similar, but the third and fourth year will be devoted solely to forestry. The Federal Department of Forest Research is close at hand.
The Commonwealth Forestry Institute of the University of Oxford is acting in an honorary advisory capacity.
It is hoped that this forestry faculty will serve the professional training needs of Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Gambia.
Ghana
The Government has decided that a forestry faculty is necessary to supply the graduates required for its forest service. Cabinet approval has been received, and immediate steps are being taken to establish it at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology at Kumasi. It may be doubted whether, at the present juncture, it is economically justifiable to have more than one fully equipped and staffed English-speaking forestry faculty of a high standard in west Africa. But, if a faculty is established in Ghana, there is every reason to believe that it also will be of a high standard because the Kwame Nkrumah University is modern and well equipped, and its faculty of agriculture can provide excellent basic science tuition.
Liberia
The other forestry faculty in west Africa is located at Monrovia in Liberia. After discussions held in 1953 between Liberian authorities and United States and German forestry advisors it was decided to set up a College of Forestry, and this was established at the University of Liberia in 1955. Until FAO provided instructors in 1956, the American foresters of the United States Operations Mission assisted in lecturing. In 1964, the college has been operating as a United Nations Special Fund project executed by FAO, with international staff drawn from the United Kingdom, Pakistan and Finland.
The college is housed on the present university campus. It is intended to move the whole university out of Monrovia to a new campus, but this will take time.
The curriculum is well designed and is supplemented by vacation training tours which are held in the national forests and in neighboring countries.
United Arab Republic
There is a Chair of Forestry, in the College of Agriculture at the University of Alexandria, which is the only university to deal with forestry of the four universities in the U.A.R. conferring agricultural degrees. All agricultural students there must spend three hours a week for one semester on forestry.
Sudan
Sudan has decided to set up its own forestry faculty. It will be attached to a university with an agricultural faculty so that basic science facilities will be shared. Although at the start it would only need to produce six graduates a year to satisfy the Forest Department's needs, it is hoped, in addition, to attract students from Libya and the Near East, and possibly from other countries in Africa. It was not considered that its situation at Khartoum, so far away from forest reserves for teaching purposes, would be a major drawback.
The headquarters of the United Nations Special Fund research project which FAO is executing is also at Khartoum.
East and central Africa
An investigation was made into the possible establishment of a forestry faculty to serve this region, and a separate report was written. It is recommended that a forestry faculty should be set up at University College, Makerere, Uganda, within the University of East Africa. Provided that there is full co-operation between east and central African countries both in establishing the faculty, and in sending all first degree students to it, the scheme should succeed.
Although it is essential to have an efficient professional staff in a forest service, such a staff cannot be effective unless it is supported by an adequate number of well-trained foresters and rangers. The training of such men must ensure that they are capable of dealing with all forestry operations of a technical nature, can execute plans of operation, and can train and supervise the labor force under their control. Such training must be basically practical but with sufficient theory to give the trainees a general background knowledge of forestry and an understanding of the professional officer's language.
It was very encouraging to find that at this level the training position in practically all the countries visited was of a reasonably high standard. Each country has developed courses to meet its own needs and the educational backgrounds of its recruits.
In most countries, a permanent forestry school had already been established and, although some were better than others - in physical facilities, training methods, educational level of students, or selection procedure - it can be stated without hesitation that there was much to praise and little to criticize.
It was abundantly clear that the decision in all countries to retain training under the direct control of the forest service was correct. The forestry school instructors were members of the forest service and knew from experience what should be taught in order to turn out men well qualified for forester and ranger duties. Discipline was good because it was based on normal service discipline and, although perhaps not enough attention had been given in certain schools to character development and to ensuring that the manual skills associated with forestry were mastered, the impression was given of a corps of dedicated instructors determined to produce men who would be a credit to their own forest service.
