Commonwealth Forestry Review

ALL LIFE ON EARTH 37
from the problem of indestructible waste. As a particular instance he quoted the
phenomenal persistence, chemically unchanged, of D.D.T. which had been found in
penguins many thousands of miles from any point of use. Dr. Beeby and subsequent
speakers emphasised the continued and increasing pollution of the atmosphere, the
rivers and the oceans caused by pesticides, industrial processes and the waste products
thereof.
The Rt. Hon. Peter Walker, Secretary of State for the Environment gave a very
good address. He showed a wide knowledge of the problems confronting him. Not
everyone is completely happy, however, to find the future of a motor way and the
conflicting interest of a National Park in the hands of the same authority.
From the floor of the Congress one gained the impression that many of the 600
participants were emotionally or sentimentally involved with the protection of particular
animals or birds and were not quite in the picture with the Congress trend of
protection of the environment including the oceans and the atmosphere.
As a forester I was singularly disappointed not to find a distinguished forester
among the speakers. As far as I could ascertain there were only two other foresters
among the participants, Mr. Aleem, Inspector General of Forests, Pakistan and
Mr. R. S1. Barbe Baker, founder of Men of the Trees. Surely the organisers of the
World Wildlife Fund must be fully aware that of all the land areas of the globe those
having the most effect on the environment or the biosphere are the World's forest
areas. Canadian forest researchers have recently come up with the information that a
healthy forest absorbs 12 tons of carbon dioxide and produces four tons of oxygen per
acre per year. Canada alone has 600 million acres of forest, an acre produces sufficient
oxygen for 20 people per year, a little simple arithmetic provides the answer that oxygen
from Canada's forests alone would supply double the anticipated World population
at the end of the century. Coming nearer home there are in Britain some 3,000,000
acres of forests mostly in the care of the Forestry Commission. Is one to conclude that
the World Wildlife Fund is afraid the spectre of 'serried ranks of Conifers' might spoil
its image? A forester among the speakers might well have brought a ray of hope to
brighten the otherwise gloomy list of prognoses. Of all people foresters are best
equipped favourably to influence the environment.
In this same forestry context one cannot help wondering whether the sponsors of
the World Wildlife Fund, not to mention the majority of the participants, are aware
that had it not been for the activities of earlier generations of foresters particularly in
the Commonwealth there would today have been very little wildlife to conserve or
habitat in which to conserve it. Foresters established their forest reserves, the first
game reserves and wrote the wildlife laws, many of which are still valid.
One strange omission from the gloomy forecasts was any reference to the possibility
of a nuclear holocaust. Science fiction writers have been so often right in the past.
They could be right again.
The Congress concluded with the adoption of a series of resolutions addressed to
all World Governments including a personal message from the President of the World
Wildlife Fund (International) H.R.H. Prince of the Netherlands inviting all Governlnents
to initiate some form of population control. Obviously Utopia cannot be
attained as a result of one Congress; many themes will require hammering home by
subsequent Congresses before a millenium is reached.
As an example the resolution which evoked the most emotional response from the
floor was that ably proposed by H.R.H. Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands appealing
to all women to renounce the wearing or use of garments or products from certain
endangered animals, in particular the larger felines; yet the following week-end a
well-known variety star arrived at Heathrow wearing a leopard skin coat and a Sunday
newspaper sponsored a competition involving a variety of fur coats including some
from skins of the named animals.
E.W.M.