World symposium on man-made forests
European forestry commission
Indicative world plan: Forestry division work
Trends in ocean transport of wood chips for pulping
The Commonwealth Government of Australia was the generous host to a World Symposium on Man-made Forests and their industrial importance, held in Canberra from 14 to 24 April 1967. The Australian setting placed a fitting emphasis, both during the technical meetings and the study tours, on the importance of the genus Eucalyptus in plantation forestry. The symposium also served to supplement an earlier series of World Eucalyptus Conferences organized by FAO before the main interest turned to quick-growing conifers.
Prepared and organized largely by O. Fugalli and R.L. Willan for FAO and Charles Cree for Australia, the symposium brought together some 170 participants from 4 2 countries, a larger number of countries than had ever previously been represented at an international meeting in Australia. The United Nations Development Program, the World Meteorological Organization, the South Pacific Commission and the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations all had representatives present.
Opened by the Hon. David Fairbairn., Minister of National Development, who was unanimously elected honorary chairman, the symposium was chaired by Max Jacobs, Director-General of the Federal Forestry and Timber Bureau, Canberra. Jack C. Westoby represented FAO'S Forestry and Forest Products Division.
Elected as vice-chairmen were E.M. Bacon (United States), C.H. Brown (New Zealand), J. de la Puente (Mexico), G. Giordano (Italy), D. Iyamabo (Nigeria) and Nguyen van Tan (Republic of Viet-Nam).
There were three presymposium tours. That in New Zealand covered parts of North and South Islands, with emphasis on large-scale afforestation and forest industries based on Pinus radiata. Another covered eucalypts and pine plantations in south and east Australia, from Mary valley, Queensland, to Mount Gambier, South Australia, and the third covered industries based on southern eucalypts in Victoria and Tasmania. Of the three postsymposium tours, one covered the same ground as the earlier tour in south and east Australia, another eucalypts and pine plantations in the southern drier areas and the southwest of Western Australia, and the last dealt with tropical eucalypts and plantations in north Queensland and in New Guinea.
Against removals from natural forests generally of the order of a few cubic meters per hectare per year, and often much less, the yields of plantation forestry can be many times higher if species and site conditions especially suit each other. Against century-long rotations or the like, the fastest growing man-made forests can produce wood for pulpwood in ten years or less, and sawlogs if needed in about 15 to 20 years. Concentration of produce. its uniform size and homogeneous properties almost made to order, the possibility of selecting the plantation. site in relation to the location of the wood-using plant, all these contribute to substantial cost saving in logging, transport and utilization. Planting targets reported to the symposium indicated that the area of man-made forests in countries of the world should double by 1985. How best to tackle and solve the numerous and varied problems of attaining such goals was one of the major objectives of the symposium.
The conclusions will be published in a forthcoming special issue of Unasylva.
European Forestry Commission
The European Forestry Commission held its 13th session at FAO Headquarters in Rome from 15 to 19 May 1967. The meetings took place under the chairmanship of Professor Dr. O. Eckmüllner, who has since become deputy chief, Section V (Forestry), Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Austria. Seventy participants attended the session, representing 22 member countries and four international organizations.1
1Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom and Yugoslavia, and observers from the United Nations, the International Union of Forestry Research Organizations, the Economic Commission for Europe and the European Economic Community.
The chief items of discussion at the session were the state of forestry in Europe and the problems of adjustment to present-day circumstances.
The commission agreed that the two main tasks facing European foresters were to overcome the economic difficulties of forest production and to assure the place of forestry in the outdoor recreation boom.
The profit squeeze as affecting forestry makes it very difficult to convince forest owners, and in particular the private owner, to maintain or increase silvicultural activities and investments in the forest. An improvement in the profitability of European forest enterprises is of vital importance but this should be sought through lowering production costs rather than increasing stumpage or roundwood prices. Apart from rising wages generally, higher degrees of mechanization of forest operations meant employing more skilled and therefore more highly paid labor. At the same time often the only way to keep labor in the forest, especially young workers, was to give them interesting machines or equipment to handle.
The commission noted that in all European countries ideas about forest management were undergoing a rapid evolution. This trend was facilitated by the increasing interchange between countries of management experience and progress in assimilating new technology. But the evolution is hampered and retarded in many countries, either because basic forest policy has not as yet been revised to take into account the new perspectives, possibilities and problems revealed by the FAO reappraisal of European timber trends, or because forest policy has not been laid down in terms sufficiently clear to set precise goals for the forestry sector.
The formulation of goals for the forestry sector calls for a number of decisions which must be taken outside the forestry sector: decisions relating to the degree of self-sufficiency in wood production which should be aimed at, the extent to which forestry activities should be pursued to support agriculture and sustain the farm economy, and the level of expenditure on social forestry (be it protective, recreational or amenity) the community is prepared to underwrite. These are decisions which belong to governments. But it is to the forest services that governments must look for many of the data relevant to these decisions.
The commission stressed the importance in formulating forest production goals of up-to-date information relating to demand trends and of costs/returns data relating to all aspects of forestry operations. Moreover, it believed that the time was now opportune for a reappraisal of Europe's future wood supply possibilities. It therefore requested the EFC Secretariat as regards the:
1. Production aspects of forest management:
(a) to prepare an interim report on wood consumption trends in Europe, comparing the actual trends in consumption to date with those projected in the FAO study European timber trends and prospects - A new appraisal 1950-1975;(b) to seek from Member Countries revised and updated estimates of future wood supply possibilities, together with such available information relating to marginal costs as will enable these forecasts to be realistically interpreted and appraised, and to prepare an analytical report on these estimates;
(c) to make these reports available to Member Governments, if possible before the end of 1968. The commission felt that the 1968 session of the ECE Timber Committee should afford an opportunity for joint discussions between its members and that body on the progress achieved.
2. Social aspects of forest management, if the necessary means are available to the FAO Forestry and Forest Products Division:
(a) to study the technical adjustments which might have to be introduced into forest management methods and silvicultural systems in order to maximize the aggregate profits from the production and services provided by the forest;(b) to organize a study tour or to convene a symposium-like meeting to analyze the economic and financial implications for forest management of the growing demand for forest recreation.
The commission noted that in many countries more effective co-operation than hitherto between forestry and industry was essential if the nation as a whole was to obtain maximum benefits from the forest resource. A discussion between industrialists, planners and foresters was necessary fully to understand forest production difficulties.
At the operational level, co-operation was regarded as being important for industry and for forestry. In the interest of the former, it could facilitate a regular supply of raw materials on a long-term basis with adequate provision for price adjustments. On the other hand, forest producers had much to gain from efficient forest industries capable of rewarding adequately the investments in the forest supply sector. Among others, three ways were suggested to promote a modern forest industry: direct state participation in the industry; subsidies to the private sector for the establishment or modernization of forest industries; and state control of timber supply through long-term contracts as a means of encouraging efficient industrial units.
The commission also reviewed the work of its subsidiary bodies, forestry participation in FAO'S Indicative World Plan for Agricultural Development, the program of work of FAO'S Forestry and Forest Products Division, and its own future activities. On 17 May, since FAO'S European Commission on Agriculture was also meeting at Rome, a symposium on matters of common concern to agriculture and forestry was held under the chairmanship of P. Lamartine Yates, the FAO European Regional Representative, at which a number of papers on land-use planning in rural areas and the role of forestry in small farms were presented and discussed.
Concluding its meetings, the commission decided its next full session should be held in 1970. It elected F. Tomulescu, Deputy Minister of Forestry, Romania, as its new chairman and L. Velay, Director of Forests, France, F. Ortuño Medina, Director-General of Forests, Spain, and F. Ebeling, Director-General, National Board of Private Forestry, Sweden, as vice-chair men.
To achieve the objective of the FAO Indicative World Plan for Agricultural Development, the FAO Forestry and :Forest Products Division is compiling, for each developing country, a set of integrated information to permit assessment of the appropriate role for forestry and the forest industries in the nation's economic development. The methodology, some of the problems, and some of the advantages anticipated from the exercise are briefly outlined here, as described for the European Forestry Commission by G.R. Gregory, who has been in charge of the work in the Division.
The Indicative World Plan (IWP), many times described by the Director-General as the most difficult and most important task ever undertaken by FAO, has two principal objectives. The first (and most immediate) is to assist in the reorganization of agricultural production by the nations of the world so that freedom from hunger may be achieved. The second is to show how agriculture can contribute its maximum toward promoting economic development in the developing countries.
Because economic development is being avidly sought, by practically all nations, unless plans for increasing food production are integrated into overall development plans they wild receive scant attention.
At best, food production from forests is small. Consequently the aim of most significance to forestry is that of promoting economic development. One can, then, state the objective of the IWP work of the FAO Forestry and Forest Products Division as being that of promoting the maximum contribution of the forestry sector to economic development, with particular attention to the developing nations.
Before describing the actual methodology involved, a few remarks about planning seem desirable. One must bear in mind that this is an Indicative Plan. That is, it is intended only to indicate possible courses Of action in the forestry sector that would promote: economic development: FAO is not making national plans. The Division believes that development plans can best be made by those familiar with the forests or the industries in question. But development planning covers a far broader sector than forestry or even forest industries: it must encompass all industry and all sectors. If forestry is to be considered by development planning agencies it must be integrated into the overall economic structure of the country concerned. This means that forestry development plans must be fitted into the whole complex economic pattern of the nation. It is to this end that the methodology has been designed.
Because policy is made at national rather than regional levels, the individual nation has been selected as the working unit. For each country studied, the first step is to assemble the most accurate information available on production, imports and exports of all major forest products - 21 in all - for 1961, 1962 and 1963. The data are averaged over these three years to provide a base for further work. Consumption of each product is calculated by adding imports to production and subtracting exports.
From the production figures, raw material requirements are calculated through a set of conversion factors appropriate to the country. If, for example, a country produces 500 thousand cubic meters of sawnwood and it takes 2 cubic meters of sawlogs to produce 1 cubic meter of sawnwood, then one would estimate its raw material requirement for sawnwood production at 1 million cubic meters. Once the raw material requirements for each product have been estimated, the value of the raw material on a delivered to mill basis is calculated.
Preliminary forecasts of consumption for 1975 and 1985 are made by using the per caput consumption of the base year and combining this with estimates of population and income for 1975 and 1985. With these national consumption forecasts in hand the production potential is reviewed. If it appears that it would be difficult to produce the quantities indicated by these preliminary consumption forecasts, the consumption estimates are reduced. On the other hand, if it appears that the production potential is higher than the estimated consumption, export possibilities are examined. [Finally, for both 1975 and 1985, estimates are made of consumption, exports, production and imports of each of the forest products, then the raw material requirements and their values are calculated as before.
Next, for the base year and for 1975 and 1985, the value of the forest products produced, imported and exported is calculated. This gives a rather unusual set of figures: the estimated value of the output and of the raw material used, for each forest industry in the nation, for a 3-year base period, and for 1975 and 1985. From these basic data, finally, calculations are made of the total value of exports, the value of imports and the gross value added - the most usual indicator of the contribution to the gross domestic product (GDP) - for the forestry sector and for the forest industry sector, thus bringing forestry into the national economic picture.
As a last statistical step, the required expansion in production is calculated for each forest industry and from this the investment capital required to achieve this expansion is estimated. From the investment needs and the estimated addition to GDP are calculated the capital output ratios - ratios that indicate much to economic planning commissions.
What has been achieved up to this point can be optimistically termed a thoroughly consistent and integrated set of production, consumption, trade and investment data for the forestry and the forest industry sectors of the country under study. However, it should be pointed out that, while the data are consistent, they may be very inaccurate - and the estimates made for 1975 and 1985 are based on a large series of often questionable assumptions. Still, a consistent set of data is no small achievement, and it lays the groundwork for improved information at an early date.
On the basis of the data in hand an attempt is then made to outline the policy steps that must be taken if the program indicated by the plan is to be achieved. Often this is a delicate job - sometimes it is discouraging. Of course, FAO cannot attempt in any way to dictate what a country must do. But it can and does say that, according to the information available, it seems likely that the population of a certain country is going to need so much paper, sawnwood, particle board, etc. It appears highly probable (or it appears completely impossible, etc.) that this country can produce this amount, or this part of the amount. But to do so will require the investment of X dollars in the native forests, or the establishment of this many hectares of coniferous plantations, requiring this many millions of dollars. The authorities of the country will need to plan on investing, for example, $25 million in local forest industries between now and 1975, and another $65 million in these industries during the following decade. If the country does this, it can expect to spend $X million for imports of forest products in 1975 and $Y million in 1985, while it could probably anticipate $Y million of foreign exchange from exported forest products in these same years.
In conclusion, FAO is not attempting to draw up development plans for the countries. It is trying to put together the information that any rational planning agency should have, in order properly to assess the needs of the forestry and forest industry sectors of its economy.
Many problems have been encountered, and unfortunately satisfactory answers have been developed to only some of these. The FAO Secretariat would be delighted to receive comments and suggestions from any and all who can help.
The FAO Advisory Committee on Pulp and Paper held its annual session in Rome in May 1967. One of the items considered was the economic prospects of the overseas shipment of wood chips for pulping.
So far, ocean carriage of wood chips is on a limited scale - currently some 400,000 tons of coniferous chips shipped annually from the west coast of North America to Japan, plus possibly 100,000 tons of hardwood chips transported from eastern Canada to Scotland, account for most of this carriage. But, in spite of the limited tonnage involved, such carriage is believed to be significant in that-it is helping to widen, mainly through adaptation of ship design, the technology available for overseas trade in wood for pulping - a type of trade likely to gain in importance, as ways and means are found for supplying wood-deficient pulp manufacturing centers with raw material from distant areas that either possess a surplus of wood in their forests or else can economically create such a surplus by means of forest plantations.
The Forestry and Forest Products Division of FAO has initiated collection of data on the ocean carriage of wood chips under its program of transport studies.
The cargo-handling advantages of chips, compared to other forms of wood raw material destined for pulping, stem from (a) homogeneity of shape and (b) size and weight favoring continuity of flow in handling. Thus when utilizing low-grade wood from the forest or residues from sawmills and other conversion plants, chipping at or near the raw material source may to a large extent eliminate the disadvantages associated with the terminal handling and transport of these types of wood material of awkward shape; while at the receiving end - the pulp mill - both storage and flow within the mill may be substantially eased.
In the case of long-distance carriage by sea, transport of pulpwood in the form of chips makes for speedy and laborsaving loading and unloading; loading, in particular, can be very fast - for instance, the pneumatic loading devices at the United States Plywood Corporation harbor in Oregon are able to handle some 275 tons per hour. Unloading, usually performed with the aid of cranes, may take considerably more time than the loading operation, yet even so it usually results in considerable savings as compared to the handling, under comparable conditions, of wood shipped in the round. Thus the overall cost of terminal operations - including the overhead costs of the ship while in port - trends to be substantially reduced. On the other hand, the main disadvantage of chips as cargo, namely their great bulk and consequently poor stowage - even with loading by means of pneumatic crevices ensuring good distribution and a certain amount of compression, one ton of the coniferous chips shipped to Japan usually occupies about 2.8 cubic meters (100 cubic feet) of cargo space - is accentuated in ocean carriage as compared to overland transport or coastal shipping, since in the ocean carriage both the distance and the total cost of transport are usually much greater.
Endeavors toward reducing the overall cost of the maritime transport of chips have therefore centered on the development of a ship design that would overcome the drawback of poor stowage. The approach adopted in Japan has been the V-shaped vessel, specially built to carry bulky and light cargoes such as chips and scrap. Compared to the conventional cross-section of holds, the V-shaped section results in substantially more cargo space and a wider deck area, the latter allowing a ship to be equipped with more complete loading and unloading equipment. The height of the double bottom is limited to the minimum needed for hull strength. At the same time, in order to provide the ballast required for sailing the north Pacific in winter, a large ballast tank is installed amidships, so designed that it can be used for loading chips. The first V-shaped freighter (the 17,800 tons "Kure Maru" was launched by Nippon Kokan (NKK) in 1964.
From limited information at hand, it would appear that currently the cost of shipping chips (including loading and unloading) from North America to Japan - a round trip of, say, 34 to 36 days' duration - is of the order of U.S. $8 or U.S. $9 per ton. The corresponding cost for hardwood chips transported from eastern Canada to Scotland - a round trip of some 22 to 24 days - is believed to be slightly less.
In the long run, it seems not unlikely that costs might also be reduced by the use of larger ships (and, in certain ports, of devices permitting the loading and unloading of chips in midstream) and, particularly in the case of certain trade flows from developing countries, by organizing large-scale production of pulpwood in areas whence the shipments (whether in chips or other) would tend to offset prevailing imbalances in the direction of maritime goods carriage.
CELEBRATING ITALY'S NATIONAL PARKS
A recent issue of four stamps in 20, 40, 90 and 170 fire values is devoted to the four Italian national parks and shows examples of the rare species of animal preserved in each: the ibex (Gran Paradiso); Abruzzo brown bear (Abruzzo); the red deer (Stelvio) and the fallow deer (Circeo). The stamps are the first of their kind to have been issued by the Italian postal authorities and mark a growing awareness of the need for the preservation of Italy's threatened wildlife and ever-diminishing areas of unspoiled natural beauty.
