THE FIFTH SESSION of the FAO North American Forestry Commission, which groups Canada, Mexico and the United States, met at Ottawa in September 1969.
Reviewing the future of forestry as he saw it, Edward P. Cliff, Chief of the United States Forest Service, said that we were entering a new era of forestry. Many of us had seen this coming for some time. We had all been thinking and talking a great deal about the pressures which were building up that affect management and the use of forest lands. In some ways the year 1969 seemed to mark the beginning of the real " crunch " as the rising needs and expectations of people ran up against the realities of a static or diminishing resource base.
Demands for more housing, rapidly accelerating use of recreation areas, and greater concern for protection of the environment are a few of the manifestations of these increasing pressures.
In the United States, in Mexico and in Canada there is a greater awareness that the basic needs of people simply cannot be met without more fully protecting, managing and investing in the nation's forest lands. A new concern and interest in the brand of conservation that the forestry profession has taught and preached can be the beginning of a new era for forestry.
Clearly, more intensive forest management is needed on existing managed lands. The lands not now under management-particularly many of the smaller, non-industrial private lands - must be brought under management. Private industry, local government, the states or provinces and the federal governments are joining forces to bring this intensified management to pass.
Research in North America is making spectacular breakthroughs in forest protection and management- many of which are spin-offs from the space-age technology. In Canada, the Canadian Forestry Service, which has been combined with the federal fisheries authority to form a Department of Fisheries and Forestry, has a strong research programme and the new department, consequently, has an opportunity to make a coordinated attack on many problems of interest to the whole ministry These include multidisciplinary programmes in watershed development for fisheries and forestry with emphasis on the effect of forestry operations, forest protection programmes, and of forest industries on inland fisheries and on spawning areas.
There is an increasing trend for members of the forestry community to become concerned with uses of forest land for purposes other than the production of wood alone, and this is reflected in the range of research projects currently underway. The continually growing demands on forest environments for industrial uses, water production, recreation and wildlife habitat, along with many amenity values, also mean enlarged programmes of research as to ways in which to avoid serious conflicts in user interests and at the same time assure the continued well-being of the forest industries.
Delegates to the North American Forestry Commission meeting talked at length on the growing technological complexity of forest practices today. They exchanged views on the rapidly changing economic and social conditions which affect forestry; and the increasing impact of single-interest groups on the multiple use of forest lands.
From all the discussions the commission concluded that there was a clear need for a continuing world forum in forestry to provide guidance and advice on FAO forestry programmes, to improve the understanding and working relationships of forestry with other economic and social development areas, and to correlate more closely the problems and opportunities in developed and developing countries.
Within the context of the FAO Indicative World Plan for Agricultural Development, the necessity for Member Nations frequently to review trends in the forest products economy added further point to having a forum for regular discussions on world forestry problems as they emerged.
The commission accordingly recommended that the Director-General of FAO should explore means of meeting this need for a continuing world forum in forestry, which should convene at times not necessarily related to the machinery of the FAO Conference but certainly when FAO programmes for the immediate future were in the formative stage.
