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Unidades industriales de explotación forestal

by LOUIS HUGUET, FAO Technical Assistance Mission, Mexico

A System of Organized Forest Exploitation practiced in Mexico

A LARGE - often preponderant - part of the forested area is in many countries in private ownership. All kinds of attempts have been made to persuade owners to manage their forests in the public interest and in keeping with governmental forest policy, and these efforts have in fact often met with partial success. Perhaps owners have been more ready to co-operate because the concept of property rights, which, under the influence of Roman law, were still held almost inviolate less than a century ago, has been changing rapidly into a feeling of public responsibility. It must be admitted, however, that nowhere has the problem of private forest property been completely solved.

True, there are in most countries private forests that are remarkably well administered. But as a rule, the interests of the private owner rarely coincide with, and are in fact often at variance with, the public interest. One difficulty is the frequent fragmentation of private forest property into units that cannot in any case be profitably managed, and this is further aggravated by the technical incompetence of small holders who cannot unaided be expected to keep up with the complexities of modern forestry and silviculture.

In some countries where modern methods of industrial or agricultural development have been recently introduced, most of the forests are state owned. But even here the very extent of the forests usually makes intensive management impossible. Exploitation is carried out on a concession basis, with an obligation on the part of the operator to take care of reforestation and improvements, to build houses for forest rangers, and so forth.

Under these conditions, it is extremely difficult for national-forest services to keep a close watch over fellings and the silvicultural methods employed by the concessionaires. In places there is a generally favorable trend towards good practices, but too often strictly legal obligations are observed without either technical skill or judgment. Moreover, there is always the difficulty of recruiting and maintaining, on the local budget, a forest service to direct felling operations and supervise work undertaken in virgin forests which are without communications and where there is no capital to put into such improvements.

As a result of particular historical and geographical factors, these two major problems of modern forest policy-private ownership and the creation of an efficient forest service for vast expanses of virgin forests- are inevitably encountered in a young country with a future. Such is Mexico, which has immense forest resources covering an area of some 20 million hectares. An attempt has been made by Mexico to solve these two problems simultaneously by an ingenious method which is of considerable interest. This is the system of Unidades Industriales de Explotación Forestal. Neither Mexican forestry legislation as a whole, nor those parts specifically concerning Unidades can be transposed elsewhere without serious risk, since, like all other national legislation, it is adapted to special conditions that have no exact counterpart elsewhere. Other countries, however, facing similar problems and with similar conditions, may be able to derive some profit from Mexico's experience.

General remarks on Mexican forests

Some general information on Mexico¹ and its forests is essential to a proper appreciation of the system of Unidades.

¹ "Les forêts et les industries forestières au Mexique." P. Allouard. Bois et Forêts des Tropiques, No. 15, 3rd quarter 1950.

The total land area of Mexico is roughly 2 million km.², or about four times the size of France. Although the country stretches from latitude 32° N. to 16° N. and is bisected by the Tropic of Cancer, only those parts below an altitude of 1,000 meters, comprising less than half the total area, have a typical tropical climate. Pine makes its appearance at 1,000 meters, and at 2,000 meters and over, there are extensive forests of conifers (pines and firs), some of which have never been worked, although they are periodically swept by surface fires. Even without precise figures, the total area of softwood forest may be estimated at 10 million hectares which, if not all immediately ready for systematic exploitation, could be after 20 or 30 years' protection against fire, grazing and indiscriminate cutting. Except in the north, the forests have a potential yield of 3-12 m.³ per hectare per year, with an over-all average for the country of 5 m.³ With the adoption of sound management and silvicultural methods, production could be raised to 50 million m.³ a year.

Tropical forests relatively rich in valuable species such as mahogany, little worked and covering at least as extensive an area as the pine forests, are to be found mainly in the south and southwestern parts of the country (Yucatan Peninsula).

The pine forests are massed in the higher parts of the country in large compact stands. Although nature has grouped these forests together, ownership is split up. Many of them are communal forests, known locally as "ejidales", the property of communities ("ejidos"); it should be remembered that the Mexican agrarian laws turned over the estates ("haciendas") of the Spanish colonists to these "ejidos." There are few state forests. Mexican forests, therefore, present a dual character, in that ownership is variously split up between the State, "ejidos," and private individuals, while exploitation retains the features of the old "colonial" system. Management is thus handicapped simultaneously by property rights (and fragmentation) and by "colonial" attitudes.

The legislation that had to be introduced for the development of such great potential forest wealth had to have due regard for the country's agrarian system. The result was the system of Unidades lndustriales de Explotación Forestal.

FIG. 1: The results of fire, uncontrolled grazing and indiscriminate cutting. Pinus leiophylla forest in Mexico.

Legal background of the Mexican Unidad System

A Forest Law was promulgated on 10 January 1948. According to Article I, subsequently amended by a Decree of 30 December 1948, the Law is based on Article 27 of the Constitution which authorizes State control and conservation of the country's natural wealth and regulation of its use, and declares that the conservation, improvement and restocking of the forest is in the public interest, with all the legal consequences that such a declaration entails. This basic Article draws attention to the fact that many Supreme Court decisions have confirmed this declaration. In other words, the State is perfectly justified in enforcing its authority, when necessary, to ensure forest conservation, improvement or restocking.

The chief characteristic of the legislation, unknown in most countries, is that while it disregards property rights, it still retains the principles of private ownership, as will be seen later. Another original feature is that the Law considers as matters of public interest not only the forest's function in soil and water conservation, but also its role as a producer of timber, as is set forth in Article 13: "the creation by Presidential Decree of Unidades Industriales de Explotación Forestal, both in public and private forests, with the object of supplying the raw material necessary for the woodworking industries, is deemed of public interest."

The Law extends the Unidad system to communal or "ejidales" forests, with certain allowance for the special legal status of the "ejido": private forest areas, sometimes as large as half a million hectares, can be placed under the technical jurisdiction of the State. In principle, any decision as to fellings no longer rests with tie owners; the State decrees the time, place, manner and extent of cutting. With these exceptions the owner retains all the other privileges inherent in property rights. The State manages the Unidad forests through the Directorate-General of Forestry, in practice through the office of the Technical Manager of a Unidad.

The principles governing the organization and working of the Unidad are defined in special regulations which have the force of a decree, since they were signed by the Head of the State and by Ministers concerned, and promulgated on 12 July 1050.

They provide, in substance, that:

1. It must first be ascertained that a proposed Unidad is of public interest (Article 124). This is done either by demonstrating the need for, and possibility of, supplying raw material to an industry, or by showing the economic advantages that the country would derive from it.

The survey must fulfil certain conditions defined under Article 125:

(a) A map must be submitted of the sector proposed for supplying the industry to be established;

(b) A set of general operating rules must be drawn up covering the products (pulpwood, sawlogs, etc.) to be extracted, methods of processing these products and the amount of capital necessary for the purpose; the latter has to be justified by a preliminary plan of the consumer plant.

Article 125 also provides that a plan be made of all privately-owned estates involved which amounts, in fact, to the establishment of a forest property register.

2. This preliminary survey must be studied by the Ministries of Agriculture and Economics and transmitted by them, together with their comments, to the President of the Republic for his decision.

FIG:. 2: With the adoption of sound management and silvicultural systems, production can be raised considerably. Forest of Los Capulines.

The organization of the Unidad

While this system obviously furthers the common good (by the subordination of property rights to general welfare), there is no doubt that the consumer industry also derives considerable benefit from it, for in this way it is assured of regular supplies guaranteed by the State. It must not be forgotten that in Mexico certain industries previously owned large tracts of forest from which to draw their regular supplies, and that they were dispossessed by agrarian reform laws. The law thus deprived the large mills of their sources of supply, and as the suspension of their operations could not but have had considerable economic and social repercussions, it was both logical and essential to take legislative action to replace the source of supply by another whose permanence could be guaranteed. From this point of view, the creation of Unidades would appear to lessen the adverse effects of the agrarian reform laws on the woodworking industries.

This guarantee of sustained supply, together with knowledge of the size of Unidad which is legally permissible, enable the industrial concerns to arrange the large capital investments needed to set up modern wood-preserving factories (at least U. S. $ 6 million for a paper mill and U. S. $ 1.5 million for a fiberboard factory). Also, as it is appreciated that a variety of wood-processing plants are indispensable to the optimum utilization of the forest, careful planning for the integration of a number of industries using forest products, including waste, is possible.

The choice of the industrial concern for each Unidad naturally rests with the Government. It is thus possible to eliminate any concerns suspected as being likely to adopt a forest policy contrary to the public interest. It is conceivable, for instance, that a firm with little capital might seek to amortize its investment rapidly and inflate profits by overfelling in stands which should provide sustained supplies. A makeshift sawmill could for example, exhaust a forest in a few years and abandon it after making a great deal of money without investing much capital. A paper mill, on the other hand, which is very expensive to set up, is more likely to have the greatest possible interest in conserving the forests which it exploits.

A guarantee of serious interest by any concern is the size of the investment required. A recent Government circular compels Unidades Industriales to invest at least Mex. $600,000 (U.S. $65,000) apart from monies required for road building, and the Government can demand investment not only on the industrial side but also on the purely forestry side (nurseries, silviculture, etc. ).

The forest engineer in charge of the Unidad is appointed, housed, and paid by the industrial concern, but he receives his instructions from the National Forest Service. He remains a civil servant, and the backing of the National Forest Service gives him the moral authority to oppose all pressure contrary to national interests. The management plan which he draws up for the Unidad must be approved by the Forest Service. It is well known how difficult it is to draw up a detailed management plan, for tropical forests in particular, and it is equally difficult to implement it properly. The creation of Unidades is therefore far from doing away with the need for an official forest service because an intelligent and technically competent supervisory body is still required to exercise control in the field. The system may cut down the number of employees on the State payroll, but it increases their power.

The system in practice

Eight Unidades have already been formed in Mexico three of them, covering a total area of some 400,000 hectares, to supply paper mills. There are two Unidades in tropical forests covering 1,600,000 hectares; the main product of one is mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) which is exported as sawn timber; the other produces cedar (Cedrela odorata), which is exported as plywood.

Ciudad Guzman (Jalisco) Unidad

Let us now examine the individual decrees establishing one particular Unidad, for example, the Ciudad Guzman (Jalisco) Unidad. It comprises 130,000 hectares of forest, mainly pine, divided among more than 1,000 different owners.

The Decree provides for "the establishment of an industrial Unidad for forest utilization to supply a consumer industry with wood pulp, cellulose and fibers."

According to Article 3 of the Decree, the Office of the Technical Manager of the Unidad shall receive instructions directly from the Central Forest Service, but the Manager shall be appointed by the consumer industry, with the approval of the Directorate-General of Forestry, and be paid by the industry.

It is also stipulated that the consumer industry shall finance the running of the Unidad, be responsible for the supervision of the forests, and spend at least 250,000 pesos (U.S. $ 30,000) a year on a reforestation program. There are no instructions in the Decree on the type of management for the forests themselves.

It should be added that the owners are paid for their wood at pre-arranged rates agreed between the consumer industry and the owners.

On this legal basis (the law, its regulations and the Establishment Decree) and on a management plan (" Proyecto de Ordenación "), the Ciudad Guzman Unidad appears to function both effectively and efficiently.

The Unidad Technical Manager has several subordinates under his immediate orders (3 engineers in charge of forest sectors, and the heads of general services: forest police, nurseries, reforestation, and administrative services); and this group is sufficiently small for him to be able to direct and supervise it efficiently. Thus it is possible to decentralize control and increase the responsibilities of the subordinates.

The equipment (stocks, tools, and various supplies) is well suited to its purpose and sufficient in quantity to enable each officer to do effective work.

The staff is adequate to begin surveillance and intensive management of the stands, although each ranger (" montero ") is responsible for approximately 7,000 hectares of forest. In the near future it is proposed by additional recruitment to reduce this figure to 2-4,000 hectares.

Salaries and wages are comparable to those paid in private industry. It is almost certain that the actual cost of each job is ultimately less than if low salaries were paid. Certainly the whole staff seems to be keen and interested in the work, and the industrial management shows a real understanding of forestry interests which are, fundamentally, its own.

Total number of employees is 61 for 130,000 hectares, or almost one employee per 2,000 hectares, which is a good proportion and comparable to that obtaining in countries with a long tradition of intensive forest management.

Such an organization has not many equivalents in the forestry world today. It might, at best, be compared with the system built up by the owners of large private estates in Europe to improve the management and utilization of their forests, but there are few such great estates left in the world today. A parallel might also. be drawn between the organization of the Unidad and that of the great state forests of western European countries, with the difference that in these countries the Forest Service is not usually directly linked to a wood-using industry which has exclusive rights to the forest products; in fact, the service is more often estranged from the consumer industries or logging concerns which obtain their concessions each year by public tender.

The forestry side of the organization of the Unidad is given in the following table:

Office of the Technical Manager

Administrative Services
(8 employees)


Nursery and Plantation Service (9 employees)


Technical Service
(3 engineers, each head of one forest sector)


Felling and Extraction Supervisory Service (inspector of felling and hauling; 11 employees)


Surveillance Service (21 rangers, some mounted)


Felling permits, etc. ( 11 employees)



Forest-fire control (the joint responsibility of both inspectors and foresters)


The Unidades may also be compared with the Cooperative Sustained Yield Management Units or perhaps forest farms of the United States. The Units, however, usually group together, for the benefit of a particular private company, only the forest belonging to that company and the appropriate state forests, with a view to ensuring sustained supplies to the industry and sound management of all the forest stands that feed it. Such a grouping is on a voluntary basis and the law authorizing the establishment of such cooperatives has come in for much criticism, on the grounds that private concerns are in this way being granted monopolies in state lands.

Conclusions

The implementation of the existing legislation as exampled at the Ciudad Guzman Unidad, appears to show that:

1. the creation of Unidades presupposes the existence of suitable forests that can be worked on an economic basis, since the very formation of a Unidad is contingent on the particular industry which the forest must sustain. A Unidad embracing forests not immediately capable of yielding a reasonable return would presumably have to be subsidized by the government, unless credit institutions assisted, which is not inconceivable if there were definite promise of improved output;

2. there would be advantages in establishing some similar system in countries where the official Forest Service has not itself the means of carrying out intensive management. This would apply particularly to those countries where, because of reluctance on the part of the government to grant funds or authorize recruitment, the forest services have a small budget or are under-staffed. By the Unidad system, the woodworking industries themselves must provide the technical forest services which, provided they are given sufficient freedom of action, should be able to guarantee proper management of the forests.

The Law relating to Unidades provides Mexico with a system entirely suited to the country's particular economic and social conditions. Its success will undoubtedly very much depend on the way the law is implemented. There are few Unidades as yet and in practice there are still a number of unresolved problems. Ideas abound on this system; some have been translated into law but many have not yet been confirmed as sound in practice. But under the existing legislation, one Unidad at least has shown itself over the past few years capable of being operated effectively and efficiently in the interests of the forest and of the general public.

The system ensures close collaboration between the timber industry and the official Forest Service. Operators are no longer the destructive forces of bygone days; they now have a better idea of their responsibilities. Timber industries and derivative industries (paper, plywood, fiberboards, etc.) are making increasingly large capital investments so that they must obtain, in their own interests, a sustained (if not maximum) yield from the forest. Thus, in most cases, the establishment of Unidades is accepted by the companies rather than imposed on them by the State.

Finally, a realistic attitude must be taken towards the traditional institutions of the past. In many countries the power of the official forest services does not grow commensurately with the increasing importance of forests and forest products. National budgets, now burdened by military expenditures, are apt to neglect the forest services, so that their scope of action is severely restricted. A more direct link between forest services and the actual sector where the forest wealth is converted into commodities that can be sold or exchanged (that is to say, the wood-using industries) can obviously provide forest services with the means of raising the forest yield because capital is in such cases made available to put back into the forest.

Altogether, the Unidad system appears able to help raise the status of foresters and at the same time provide a means of ensuring sound forest management under circumstances in which otherwise it would be difficult to achieve results.


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