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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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Pakistan Journal of Forestry

June

Vol. 74, Iss. 1

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