Tenth Conference – 1974, United Kingdom

The Forest and Global Environment

Date: September 4 – 27, 1974, Oxford, UK

Presidents: The Rt. Hon. William Ross, MBE, MP, Secretary of State for Scotland; The Rt. Hon. T. Frederick Peart, MP, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food; The Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, OBE, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Northern Ireland Office and Mr. S. Barry Jones, MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Welsh Office

Chairman: Mr. J.A. Dickson, CB, LL.D., Director General of the Forestry Commission of Great Britain.

Attendance: ~200 from 23 countries

Content: Country reports, plenary sessions, field trips (Forest of Dean and Chilterns; Aberdeen University, Inverness), technical sessions.

In his opening address, the Chair Mr. Dickson emphasized that foresters recognize that forestry is concerned not with trees but with how trees can serve people. Beside simply growing timber, the environment and conservation played an important role in all forestry schemes. Forestry provided various habitats for wildlife and trees were able to hide the scars of our industrial past. maximum advantage must be taken of the complimentary roles of forestry and agriculture… we must develop the potential of forests and woodlands for public outdoor recreation, the need for which is growing rapidly as the population increases and the people have more leisure to travel more widely.

Country reports stressed the provision of amenities, national parks, recreation facilities and wildlife. Other themes featured in many reports were second rotation problems in monocultures and monocultures themselves. Technical sessions focused on forest policy, forest management, services to management, harvesting and market planning, utilization of forest products.

Field trips demonstrated a scheme for rehabilitating unthrifty areas, forest operations, such as line thinning, skyline winch extraction, deep ploughing, viewing of pole-barn building, using home-grown timber in buildings; and deer farming project. Other sites included viewing of the reclamation progress over >50 years.

Delegates recognized the Conference is worthwhile and although only taking place every five or six years, has since its inception maintained a continuity of purpose, has only one language involved, is non-political and, above all, it accomplishes things through its resolutions.

From:

THE TENTH COMMONWEALTH FORESTRY CONFERENCE

FRANK FRASER DARLING, D.F.D., E. W. M. and J. R. Palmer

The Commonwealth Forestry Review

Vol. 53, No. 4 (158) (December 1974), pp. 251-279 (29 pages)

Published by: Commonwealth Forestry Association