International support to forestry research and development
International support to forestry research and development
K. M. Siddiqui
ABSTRACT
The foresters all over the world have been vigorously
advocating forest conservation for human welfare for
many decades. They tried to tell all those who would
listen, that forest have multiple benefits e.g. timber,
fuelwood, fodder, wildlife, water and recreation. Their
voice was truly one in the wilderness. They did not receive
any particular attention and political support for a long
time. The forestry problems were given a very low
priority in national and international development programmes especially in the developing countries. On the
other hand, agricultural and industrial development
started attracting the attention of planners in the sixties.
In seventies and early eighties, energy conservation
caught their attention due to energy crisis and resultant
high cost of fossil fuels. This crisis however, compelled
some development planners to find out the possibility of
extended use of biofuels including wood in place of fossil
fuels in the developed countries. Some efforts were also
directed towards establishment of energy plantations to
reduce the need for fossil fuels and improve the lot of
rural poor in third world countries. In the latter case, the
efforts made little impact on existing enegry situation due
to a number of reasons. The finanical inputs were rather
small and that too scattered over large tracts of land. The
requisite technical experience in developing woodfuel
resources in rural areas on the farmers' land was also
lacking on the part of foresters to counteract mounting
social and economic pressures especially those which
were due to tremendous increase in population. Their
knowledge and experience was confined to large forests
and plantations on state lands. Therefore, the situation
has not changed much over the years and deforestation of
tropical forests is continued on large areas all over the
world. According to FAO's recent estimates, the forests
in tropical countries are presently disappearing at a rate
of 1.2 percent or almost 17 million hectares a year due
mainly population growth and poverty.
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September 1990
Vol. 40, Iss. 3
