THE WORLD FOREST SITUATION

STUART BEVIER SHOW.

Many countries lack the wood they need in manifold forms for construction and reconstruction, for industry, for pulp and paper products, even for the specialized needs of industrial agriculture. In some other countries, if the wood is available, it is at such high prices as to be effectively beyond the reach of those who need it. In western Europe, the lack of wood is one of the deterrents to reconstruction and industrial recovery. Only few countries have more than enough for their own immediate needs. To understand the whole situation is the first step in suggesting the effective measures through which an attainable abundance of forest products can become actually available to potential users.

In 1948 the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, through its Forestry and Forest Products Division and with the cooperation of many member and nonmember governments, assembled and analyzed information on such essential points as the total productive and accessible areas of forests; their potential growth; and the output, production, consumption, and distribution of forest products. Through questionnaires dealing with forests and forest products, it was possible to draw a clearer picture than ever before.

That is not to say, however, that everything is known that should be known. Even in the United States, which for nearly 20 years has had under way a well-organized forest survey, there are still sizable regions in which forest area, volume, growth and loss, production, and use of forest products are known only through substandard estimates. Thus is it understandable that in many countries the state of forest knowledge is inaccurate. In Latin America, most of Asia and the Far East, and elsewhere, a good deal of inventory and survey work remains to be done, and the best available figures are no more than an approximation of the truth. In most of Europe, by contrast, information on forests is relatively accurate and complete. Because the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics provided no official figures on her vast forests, it is necessary in this article to use estimates that lack authority of that government.

THE TOTAL FOREST AREAS that is, including forests suited only for the production of fuel wood are distributed unevenly in different regions and in individual countries. Whether forest area is expressed as a percentage of total land area or as area per person, it is evident that some regions and countries are relatively wealthy in forests, others impoverished. Such extremes as between the South American (43 percent) and Pacific Area (9 percent) regions, and between Canada (37 percent) and Syria (2 percent) show the differences in potential availability of wood supplies, expressed as percentage of total land area. The contrast between South America (18.03 acres) and Asia (0.99) and between Canada (67.2) and Egypt (0) illustrates the great spread in forest area per person among different countries. By measures like those, the United States stands in relation to the grand average for the world as 33 to 30 percent for area, and as 4.61 to 4.20 acres per person.

A striking feature is the great contrast between countries in the same region for example, Sweden, with 57 percent forest area and 8.65 acres per person compared to Great Britain, with 6 percent and 0.32 acre, in Europe; or Brazil, with 46 percent and 22.35 acres, compared to Uruguay, with 2 percent and 0.49 acre, in South America. The other continents show sharp contrasts as well.

This is one useful measure of forests, but it fails to show what kind of forests, and more particularly, the accessible and productive forest estate. In the United States, for example, large areas are classed as forest that contain thin stands of short, scrubby trees, which may be useful as sources of local fuel, but can hardly contribute to national or world demands for manufactured wood, such as sawn lumber, pulp, ties, and poles.

The same condition exists in Australia, Africa, and elsewhere along the dry southern edge of forest belts and also generally on the cold, dry northern edge of the forests of Canada, northern Europe, and the Soviet Union. So, to form a more realistic picture of the productive forest estate, it is necessary to eliminate such local-Use forests. From the second table, it is evident that for the world fully 34percent, for the African region 64 percent, and for New Zealand 72 percent of the total forest area cannot be expected, under existing economics and technology, to yield forest products other than fuel. This reduces the grand average per person from 4.20 acres to 2.72. The United States, with a reduction from 4.61 to nearly 3.46, ranks ahead of the world average. ( The United States has customarily reported its forest areas as commercial and noncommercial. Certain areas in the latter category are so classed because they are reserved for recreation or other purposes, but are reported by FAO as productive forest, because they are physically capable of producing crops of usable wood.)

This is the most realistic measure of the true productive forests yet available. It shows that no continent, and relatively few countries, are fortunate enough to have all or nearly all the forest land in the productive category.

Of this productive forest estate as presently measured or estimated, by no means all is now yielding goods for national and world needs. Even in the advanced economy of the United States, substantial areas of productive forests (52 million acres) remain inaccessible to use and lack transportation and industrial establishments.

In many other countries and regions, even higher fractions of the productive forests are not usable at present or for the foreseeable future. Thus, 46 percent of Canada's productive forest area is inaccessible, as is 60 percent of the great forests of Brazil, 64 percent of New Zealand's, and 80 percent of the large productive forest areas of the Netherlands East Indies. By contrast, a high proportion of the productive forests in Europe ( excluding the Soviet Union) is accessible.

In comparison, the area of productive and accessible forest per person for the 2.3 billion people of the world (1.48 acres) is 50 percent of that available (2.96 acres) to the 146 million people in the United States from her own forests.

It is clear that large areas of productive forest, totaling 2,862 million acres, once made accessible, are still available to contribute to national, regional, and world needs for wood. This presently unused resource represents one of the great and widespread opportunities to improve living standards. Only 54 percent of the productive forests of the world have been made accessible, and well over half of these are in Europe, Soviet Russia, and in North America.