Second Information Letter
Editor's note: The First Information Letter on the 8th World Forestry Congress was summarized on p. 41 of Unasylva No. 114. This second letter is published in its entirety because of the important details contained in it.
I take pleasure in presenting herewith the provisional technical programme of the Congress (see Appendix). It is still provisional because it is subject to the finding of competent authors, who are at the same time willing to cooperate, for the 30 "position" papers to cover the 30 agenda items. Some of the titles may have to be slightly altered in order to make them fit better the personality and the specific experience of the respective authors. I hope I have been able to make clear that the "position" papers will constitute the basic "essential" documentation as well as the guidelines for the discussion of the corresponding agenda items. There will also be "special invited" papers and, hope-fully, "voluntary" papers but the 30 "position" papers alone should ensure a structured and meaningful discussion throughout the Congress. You will realize that this is a device to forestall the shortcomings in the production and distribution of documentation which have been experienced on the occasion of some of the previous World Forestry Congresses.
It should also be noted that in order to avoid the complaint made often in the past about an excessive fragmentation of the Congress proceedings, which prevented participants from attending all or even most of the scheduled meetings, we have conceived this time a Congress consisting exclusively of plenary meetings to discuss the 30 "position" papers, plus an open meeting during which Congress panelists to be appointed in due course will hold a debate on the reports from the five major discussion areas (Forestry for Rural Communities, Forestry for Food, Forestry for Employment Promotion, Forestry for Industrial Development, Forestry for Quality of Life) and on the draft Congress Declaration. There will of course be opening (with a keynote address) and closing meetings, as well as five addresses by guest speakers (one for each of the five major discussion areas). We have, however, made provision within the 13-day Congress period (16-28 October 1978) for five half-days during which there will be no formal Congress activities in order to enable groups of participants to meet to discuss whatever issues they may decide to select. These meetings are usually referred to as "satellite" meetings and, subject to slight amendments to the timetable which may still prove to be necessary, they can take place on Wednesday (18 October) afternoon, Saturday (21 October) afternoon, the whole of Sunday (22 October), and on Wednesday (25 October) afternoon. Several of them can take place concurrently provided they need no interpretation because simultaneous interpretation facilities (English, French, Spanish) will be available for only one meeting at any given time.
Our ideas are crystallizing also with regard to the study tours to be conducted both prior to and after the Congress. Pending the compilation of detailed information for wide dissemination in due course, I can already anticipate that there will be a main study tour to East Kalimantan, Bali, East Java and Central Java, lasting about one week, to see logging and planting operations and a transmigration project in thinly populated areas, protection and plantation forestry in an excessively densely populated area, integrated and less integrated wood processing complexes, agrisilviculture combining wood crops with either food or fodder crops, and finally the management and the utilization of the most extensive teak plantation in the world, as well as the "management" of the associated staff. For logistical reasons no more than 100 participants can be accepted, but by replicating the tour clockwise and anticlockwise both before and after the Congress, as many as 400 requests could be entertained. It would help, of course, if an intimation of the interest in participating in this study tour (and in the others as well) could reach us as soon as possible, even though it can only be tentative in the absence of more precise information, especially on cost (but the cost depends also on the number of participants).
Other study tours are being contemplated to
(a) North Sumatra to see natural and man-made forests of Pinus merkusii, and possibly the Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre in Bohorok not too far from Medan: about four days in all, for a maximum of 30 persons at a time, or 30 per 4 = 120 participants as a grand total;(b) West Java, a two-day tour centered around the Congress major discussion area "Forestry for Quality of Life" along the following itinerary: Jakarta-Bogor-Oibodas-Bandung (overnight) - Tangkubanprahu - Jakarta, with no limitation in number:
(c) South Sumatra, to see transmigration projects during a two or three days tour for limited participation;
(d) daily excursions to the Botanical Garden in Bogor (one-hour drive from Jakarta).
The site of the 8th World Forestry Congress in Jakarta
It is important, as the French say, to link the end to the beginning. Therefore, I wish to take up the question of documentation for the technical programme of the Congress, dealt with in the first paragraph of this letter. It is of the utmost concern to us that the 30 "position" papers to serve as guidelines for the discussion of the 30 agenda items are written not only with competence and in a discussion-stimulating vein, but that they should also reflect the "facts of life" in the context of the realities of the different countries. The authors of these papers must, therefore, be helped in their engaging undertaking. And nobody can help them better than the countries themselves and those individuals who are particularly knowledgeable about the chosen agenda items. This is the reason for my present double plea to countries as well as to individuals.
As to countries, I am sure I need not elaborate at length on the tremendous help which the authors of "position" papers would receive if they could benefit from "country reports" briefly describing the experience countries have gained, the lessons they have drawn, and their activities underway or contemplated which are related to the 30 agenda items. The headings of these country reports could be the agenda items themselves, to the extent of course that they are relevant to the situation and conditions prevailing in any given country. It would also be helpful if the country reports were to be preceded by a short statistical chapter giving the salient socio-economic and forestry indicators, such as:
· Total land area
· Population
· Birth rate
· Gross national product (GNP)
· Investment as percentage of GNP
· Overseas financing as part of total investment
· Total agricultural area
· Total forest area
· Forest area under management (state owned, private)
· Annual cut
· Area of man-made forest and planting trend
· Forestry contribution to GNP
· Position of forest products in balance of trade
· Number and annual output (1916 or 1977) of primary forest industries (sawmills, plywood/veneer, particle board, fibre board, pulp, paper)
· Number of people employed in forestry and forest industries
Two copies of such country reports should kindly be airmailed as soon as possible to:
Mr. Lukito Daryadi,
Secretary-General
8th World Forestry Congress
P.O. Box 3668/JKT
Jakarta, Indonesia
with two more copies airmailed, please, to:
Mr. Oscar Fugalli,
Associate Secretary-General
8th World Forestry Congress
c/o Forestry Department of FAO
Via delle Terme di Caracalla
00100 Rome, Italy
As to individuals, so called "voluntary" papers are hereby solicited (and I would greatly appreciate your spreading this appeal of mine as widely as possible in your own country) and will be considered for inclusion in the Congress documentation, and eventually in the Congress Proceedings, provided they are relevant to the 30 agenda items detailed in the appendix and their length is less than 2 500 words, including a 200 word summary for translation into the other two working languages of the Congress. Such "voluntary" papers can be submitted in English, French or Spanish and their authors should please be advised to get in touch with the FAO Associate Secretary-General in Rome, at the address given above, in order to obtain the "Guidelines for Authors." To enable the authors of "position" papers to benefit from the contents of "voluntary" papers, the latter should also be submitted as soon as possible and preferably not later than 31 December 1977.
With sincere apologies for the length of this second circular information letter,
Yours faithfully,
(signed) Soedjarwo
Director-General of Forestry
and Chairman, Organizing
Committee
8th World Forestry Congress
Appendix: 8th world forestry congress
Jakarta, Indonesia, 16-28 October 1978
Keynote address: "Forests for People"
FORESTRY FOR RURAL COMMUNITIES (FRC)
Address by guest speaker: "The role of forestry in local community development"
Provisional agenda
1. People's participation in forestry for local community development.2. The interaction between stability in forestry and stability of communities.
3. Wood energy and rural communities.
4. Implementing forestry programmes for local community development.
FORESTRY FOR FOOD (FFF)
Address by guest speaker: "Forestry and land-use planning"
Provisional agenda
5. Forestry support for agriculture through watershed management and windbreaks.6. Resettlement to circumscribe shifting cultivation: an approach and resulting experience.
7. Agrisilviculture: the joint production of wood and food crops.
8. The integrated management of forest wildlife as a source of protein for rural populations.
9. Food from the forest.
10. The management of grazing lands to enhance production of animal protein, with particular reference to the role of fodder trees and shrubs.
FORESTRY FOR EMPLOYMENT PROMOTION (FEP)
Address by guest speaker: "Optimum levels of labour intensity in forestry"
Provisional agenda
11. The significance of forestry as a source of employment in rural areas.12. Improving health and safety conditions in forestry work.
13. The development of simple tools for forestry work.
14. The training, motivation, and social promotion of forest workers.
15. Women in forestry.
FORESTRY FOR INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT (FID)
Address by guest speaker: "Forest industries for socio-economic development"
Provisional agenda
I. The Forest Resource Base
16. The need for the continuous quantitative and qualitative assessment of the forest resource base and its accessibility.17. The interactions between genotype, site, and silvicultural treatment and their effects on forest production for industrial development.
18. The effects of logging on forest management.
II. The Forest Industries
19. Forest products promotion to enhance socio-economic development.20. Complete integrated utilization of tropical forests.
21. Small-scale mills for developing countries.
22. Wood preservation for the rural sector.
23. The importance of minor forest products.
24. Chemicals from wood: outlook for the future.
FORESTRY FOR QUALITY OF LIFE (FQL)
Address by guest speaker: "Environmental issues in forest and wild land management"
Provisional agenda
25. Evaluating and analysing environmental impacts of forestry.26. The conservation of forest animal and plant genetic resources.
27. Recreation and tourism in forest land use and management.
28. Urban forestry and its influences in human settlements.
29. The role of forestry in the utilization of wastes.
30. Energy consumption in forestry and forest industries.
Newsbriefs from Sweden
· The Swedish Forest Service will over the coming decade plant 80-90 00 hectares of forest land in central and northern Sweden with the fast-growing Pinus contorta variety of pine from North America. In southern Sweden, it will experiment with a new hybrid larch tree, a cross between the European larch and a fast-growing Japanese variety which is resistant to fungi.· Holmens Bruk AB have built an 8.5-kilometre-long steel pipeline to transport paper pulp between their new Barviken pulp and paper mill and their Norrköping paper mill.
· A chip mill using tree stumps as raw material and with an annual capacity of about 450 000 cubic metres solid volume is to be built by the Stora Kopparberg and Korsnäs-Marma Companies, according to the Swedish Pulp and Paper Association.
(Swedish-International Press Bureau)
1978 forestry course at Oxford
The British Commonwealth Forestry Institute will hold a 12 to 14-week course at Oxford next year for forest officers in positions of managerial responsibility to familiarize them with modern management practices. It will commence about 1 July 1978, and be limited to about 20 trainees.
Participants must have a degree in forestry and at least five years' field experience. They should be in, or expect shortly to be appointed to, positions of executive responsibility. Preference is given to candidates from developing Commonwealth countries, but places are available for other candidates.
New process for preserving wood
A wood-preserving process that is nontoxic has been announced by the U.S. Forest Product Laboratory.
The technique - treatment of wood with butylene oxide - is stated to be more effective or cheaper than some similar treatments and easier than many other equally effective procedures.
The preservative treatment changes the wood's chemical make-up enough so that termites do not attack it, the announcement said. Enzymes secreted by fungi to make wood digestible have little effect on the chemically modified wood. The addition of the chemicals to the wood structure makes it dimensionally stable so that it swells or shrinks very little if it gets wet and dries.
Detailed information on the patented process is available from Forest Products Laboratory, Department NOTOX, P.O. Box 5130, Madison, Wisconsin 53705, U.S.A.
Meeting on tropical wood fibre
An international conference dealing with wood fibre from tropical forests as an untapped renewable resource will be held at Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A., from 21 to 26 May, 1978.
Anyone wishing to offer a paper for consideration at the meeting or desiring information should contact Richard Auchter, Tropical Hardwoods Program Manager, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Products Laboratory, P.O. Box 5130, Madison, Wisconsin 53705, U.S.A.
Seventh Triennal Congress of the International Building Research Council (CIB)
Over 500 applications from over 40 countries have been received for places at the Seventh Triennial Congress of the International Building Research Council (CIB) which takes place in Edinburgh from 14 to 21 September this year.
With the construction industry in almost every country in the world based increasingly on technology, the Congress offers a chance for architects, engineers, surveyors and builders - in fact all connected with the industry - to keep in touch with this technology and to discuss it and its application with the research workers who add to the technology in practical ways. It offers research workers in many different fields and from many different countries the chance of discussing common problems, not least those that cut across traditional disciplinary boundaries, and of discussing the application of their work with those who can use it. All those attending have the chance of first-hand contact with the 30 Working Commissions of CIB, many of which will be reporting on their work.
Forest trend in EEC
Between 1968 and 1975, the total area of woods and forests increased in member countries of the European Community, with the exception of the Federal Republic of Germany and Luxembourg. The annual rate of increase varied between 0.1 percent in Belgium and over 4 percent in Ireland. In the Community as a whole, the-annual rate was 0.5 percent.
In 1974/75 (except for a slight decrease in France and a considerable increase in Ireland), there was little change in the general trend.
(Newsletter on the Common Agricultural Policy, European Communities)
Tasar culture in India's forests
The Indian Government's Central Silk Board has in recent years systematically promoted tasar culture, or "wild sericulture," to raise the income of tribal populations in remote forest villages and boost export earnings (see Unasylva, Vol. 28, No. 114).
In addition to traditional rearing of the tasar silkworm in the tropical and subtropical regions, research has pointed up the potential of oak flora in the sub-Himalayan belt. At the same time, a new oak-feeding hybrid strain has been obtained through interspecific hybridization between indigenous and Chinese silkworms which is stated to be superior to its parents in all characters of economic interest.
According to the Silk Board, tasar culture and reeling call for only minimal investments, can be practiced by the people right in the heart of forest villages and can get them attractive returns, helping to check migration to urban areas.
To be fully effective, this activity requires proper organization as well as improved extension, training and marketing services.
