Forestry in the news

Media

Part of Forestry Leaves

Title: Forestry in the news
Language: English
Year: 1951
Rights
Fulltext: Forestry in the N._ews Forming part of the overall Economic Cooperation Administration aid program in the Philippines is the assignment of qualified American technical assistance toward full utilization of the country's wood product resources. To this end, the E.C.A. has engaged the services of Winslow L. Gooch, of West Point, Virginia, who is a senior member of the Society of American Foresters and a recognized forestry consultant. Mr. Gooch arrived here last July 7 and has since been holding office at the bureau of forestry on Juan Luna street, where he has been busy familiarizing himself with existing conditions in relation to his work in the Philippines. He left for Mindanao last Friday on the first of a series of field surveys which he expects to make in the course of his stay here. According to Director of Forestry Florencio Tamesis, Mr. Gooch, in cooperation with the bureau of forestry, will work toward the promotion of wood industries, includinfi: veneer and plywood plants, pulp and paper mills, and particularly those industries which would more efficiently utilize the very large volume of wood as well as fiber wastes in the Islands. Plants for utilizing these wastes would supt>ly such products as insulation boards, hardboards, and other forms of pressed boards so well suited to the needs of housing in the Philippines-both low cost and expensive structures. In addition to promoting more efficient utilization of the forests of the Philippines, Mr. Gooch, in cooperation with the bureau of forestry, will supervise the planning of a forest products laboratory which, according to him, "will provide authentic technical information on the seasoning, working character, and adaptability for specialized uses of the wide variety of valuable native woods indigenous to the Philippines." According to present plans, the laboratory will be financed through PHILCUSA and E.C.A. funds, the equipment to be purchased largely in the United States. Proposed site of the laboratory will be the college of forestry, University of the Philippines, at Los Banos, Laguna. Construction of the building is expected to get underway sometime next year and the laboratory, it is hoped, will begin functioning by 1Q53. The research staff of the laboratory will be se!Pcted largely from qualified Filipino technicians and will number about '.l!O to 30. Both in purpose and functioning, the laboratory will be not unlike that of the Forest Products Laboratory at Madison, Wis-· consin, which is recognized as the foremost institution of its kind in the world today. The Forest SEPTEMBER, 1951 Products Laboratory in Wisconsin serves as a clearing house for information on a great variety of problems concerned with the uses of American wood~ for the benefit of the wood-using industries of thl' United States. A professional forester, Mr. Gooch has for many years been associated with promotional work on woodusing industries in many parts of the world. In more recent years, he had been employed as consultant for industrial groups in Mexico and Colombia (South America), and for the Portuguese government in Central Africa. In 1945-46, he served as forest products specialist for the Western European countries under the U.S. state depanment, with headquarters at the U.S. embassy in Paris, France. Mr. Gooch obtained his master's degree in forestry in 1911 from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Michigan. He finished part of his undergraduate course in forestry at the University of Maine. He is included in the Society of American Foresters' List of Consulting Foresters. As forestry consultant, his territory covers the United States, Central and South America, Africa and Europe. His field of consulting forestry work has covered special investigations in vegetable tannin research: market study and trade promotion in forest products; cost and economic analysis of forest operations; survey of forest areas for industrial wood plant locations; timber surveying. and mapping as well as forest estimates and appraisals. It is expected that Mr. Gooch's services in the Philippines will be required for a period of at least two years. He will be joined here by Mrs. Gooch in September. -Manila Daily Bulletin-Aug. 8, 1951 * * * * "LUMBERMEN-Feeling acutely the need for promoting the Philippine export trade of logs and lumber, the prominent lumbermen in the islands have banded themselves together into "Philippine Lumber Producers' Association." Recently this body has been reorganized into a non-stock corporation, with its papers approved by the Securities and Exchan11;e Commission. The objectives of the association is not only to boost export trade for lumber and logs, but also to £eek ways and means to improve and standardize lumber production in the archipelago. A dollar-producing industry, lumbering needs government encouragement by granting it some sort of subsidy in terms of tax exemption anything produced above 1950 output and by making mandatory Page 47' the efficient grading and classification of all logs and figure importantly in the economy of its nasent abroad. The American mahogany market is tions. Europe leads the world in intensive lumberbeing jeopardized by exporters who send lu{llber abroad which is below the standards required by the association."-"The Manila Times", June 13 1951. "'RATTAN-ThP. volume of Philippine rattan fur· niture exportation goes up and down from year to year, with no visible prospect that it will go beyond the 2 million dollar figures. For instance, in 1947 we exported around ?947,325 and in 1948 Pl,311,· 722, in 1949 P986,757, and in· 1950 Pl,376,053. Truadio Mellora, chief of the foreign trade division of the bureau of commerce, observed yesterdav that Philippine rattan furniture trade could be so developed that it might be among the country's four prime exports. That it has not risen bevond the Pl.5 million peso level is principally because, he said, Philippine rattan furniture manufacturers are very reluctant to band together in order to bring about standardization of their products. He mentioned a specific instance wherein Hawaiian importers had lodged a complaint against the use ot unseasoned rattan through the Philippine consulate in Honolulu. Mellora suggested that in order to develop the rattan furniture market abroad Philippin!! manufactures should: ( 1) improve the quality of their products through the use of good materials; (2) manufacturers should adopt standardization; ( 3) keep track of current styles popular abroad; ( 4) use only &easoned rattan, and ( 5) devise ways and means to ship furniture in knockdown pieces in order to save freight."-from BUSINESS OF THE TIMES By E. D. !LUSTRE in -"The Manila Times", June 16, 1951 ·* * * * WASHINGTON (Reuter)-Prophets who, earlier in the 20th century, foresaw a fadeout for wood as a key material of industry, have been proved false. Metal and concrete would go far toward supplanting wood in all phases of building construction, they said. Metals would inherit many of wood's duties in the furniture and transportation trades. They were right enough in their way. But a few thousand wood uses remained, said the National Geographic Society, and a few thousand more have developed. Among the old and new ones, several have expanded far beyond early expectations. The whole field of wood chemistry, for example, has opened wide in the last decade. Bringing such words as lignin, cellulose and wood sugar to the fringe of public consciousness, it single-handedly guarantees that wood's greatest era lies ahead. As wood uses increase, so does the concern of the world's industrialized nations over their wood supply. Forests cover about three-eights of Europe Page 48 ing methods and, necessarily, in careful management of the renewable· timber crop. Europe's experienced foresters are, for the most part assigned to give technical assistance in a dozen or more United Nations timber projects now getting under way. These projects, sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization, are intended to reach great stands of virgin timber, mostly in the tropics. An aggressive forest regeneration policy main, tains the Union of South Africa as the biggest com-. mercial timber producer of its continent, despite the fact that the Union is one of Africa's least wooded areas. Forests cover only three per cent of the land, but South Africa produces more than onethird th11 continent's yearly timber output. In Tanganyika, East Africa, a British company has start.ed cutting fine hardwoods from a big forested area on a long-lease basis. In Malaya, where railway, mine, military and house construction puts lumbe.r in great demand. reforestation is a feature of the heavy timbercutting program. The Philippine Republic systematically replenishes trees of its renowned hardwood forests that now produce in prP-'l'!ar volume. Forestation of Canadian waste lands now helping to perpetuate paperpulp stock production in North America began as early as 1905. Australia, with a narrow forest belt lying inland along its east coast, cuts many of its eucalyptus. only slightly smaller than North America's giant sequoias. It now turns to its New Guinea territories on the north for the pine, cedar and other timbers its own limited forests lack. Yugoslavia puts lumbering high in its present strained economy, building roads and railways to exploit its large highland forest area. Some 30 countries are on its current timber export list. Russia, claiming about one-fourth of the world'1 woodlands, scheduled 20,000 miles of new roads and narrow-gauge railway trackage to increase acce~ sibility of forests in its current expiring, fourth FiveYear Plan. Biggest timber producer of all, the United States is one-third forest covered. Its woodlands yielded some 37,000 million board feet of lumber in 1950. Notably wasteful in the past, the nation's forest industries have increased their replenishing and conserving activities steadily in recent years. Wood chemistry provides uses for previously wasted parts of trees. * * * * In 1950, some 600 square miles of United States forest land were planted in trees for future commercial use. Only a beginning, it nevertheless reFORESTRY LEAVES presented a 50 per cent increase over the area planted in 1949.-Manila Daily Bulletin, July 17, 1951. A report on the market possibilities of Philippine rattan furniture in the Chicago consular area has recently been received by the bureau of commerce from the Philippine consulate at Chicago. The report contains information regarding the increasing d<!mand for rattan furniture throughout the United States in view of the fact that new homes are being built with recreation rooms in which rattan furniture fits in perfectly because of their tropical appearance and durability. Due to this current trend in the building of American homes, rattan furniture has become a year-round item in the market, it was learned. Another reason why rattan furniture is in demand in the United States is the fact that these items could easily be manufactured to conform with modernistic styles and tastes of the average American homemaker. American rattan furniture manufacturers and importers are reported to be unable to keep up with the increasing demands in the United States. The report contains certain suggestions for Phil· ippine rattan furniture manufacturers, which will enable them to take advantage of the American market. These suggestions are as follows: 1, Philippine manufacturers should develop styles of rattan furniture different from those of Hongkong origin. In the United States, unique styles count more than low prices. 2. Philippine manufacturers should develop a system of straight line production, which a particular group of workers are trained to handle only a certain phase of the furniture manufacture, thereby creating a highly skilled craftsmanship and specialization. 3. The knock-down s::;stem should be developed in order to lessen shipping space, thereby reducing transportation costs. 4. Close supervision in the manufacture of rattan furniture should be exercised to insure uniformity of workmanship and to conform with the standards or specifications set by American buyers. A partial list of American firms dealing in Philippine rattan in the United States may be secured from the chief, foreign trade division, bureau of commerce.-Manila Daily Bulletin, July 2, 1951. PRICES OF CEMENT, LUMBER, SAND AND GRAVEL SHOW UPWARD TENDENCY By EDUARDO R. ESCOBA~ President, Philippine Contractors' Association While there is a gradual downward trend in prices of imported construction materials, the same could not be said of some local products like cement and lumber. The price of cement, for instance, has gone SEPTEMBER, 1951 up and gravel and sand may follow suit. And then, of course, concrete hollow blocks are expected to fall into line sooner or later. Nails are a different matter altogether and for the better. Their prices have gone down further through the initiative of the Philippine Nail Manufacturers' association.-The Manila Daily Bulletin, July 19, 1951. ALAS TO JAYCEES Urges coordination in economic planning Is the Philippines to be an agricultural country exclusively or should it also be an industrial one pro· ducing many articles for exportation? This question was posed yesterday by Antonio de las Alas, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, il'l an extemporaneous speech before the Manila Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees) induction luncheon at the Manila Hotel. Philippine agriculture, he emphasized, has failed to produce many products that domestic and foreign markets can absorb. De las Alas took the case of industrialization. "We cannot deny", he said, "that industry here is still in its infancy and that we are not manufacturing many products that can well be made here." That the Philippines lack coordinated economic planning, he said, is best shown in the success of the Japanese plywood industry. The Philippines, he informed, has been exporting millions of board feet of logs to Japan which the Japanese turn into plywood and which they later export to the United States. "Why," De las Alas asked, "can't we manufacture the plywood ourselves?" -The Manila Times, July 25, 1951 THE WIND Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you; But where the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I; But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by. Christina Rossetti * * * * SMILE 'Tis easy enough to be pleasant, When life flows along like a song; But the man worthwhile is the one who will smile When everything goes dead wrong. Ella Wheeler Wilcox Page 49