Achieving the Sustainable Management

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Sustainable Development Goals Series
Life on Land

Alastair Fraser

Achieving the
Sustainable
Management of
Forests
Sustainable Development Goals Series

Series editors
R. B. Singh, Delhi Sch of Econ, Univ of Delhi, Dept of Geography,
Delhi, Delhi, India
Suraj Mal, Department of Geography, Shaheed Bhagat,
University of Delhi, Delhi, India
Michael E. Meadows, EGS, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch,
South Africa
World leaders adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as part of the
2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Providing in-depth knowledge,
this series fosters comprehensive research on the global targets to end pov-
erty, fight inequality and injustice and tackle climate change.
Sustainability of Future Earth is currently a major concern for the global
community ans has been a central theme for a number of major global initia-
tives viz. Health and Well-being in Changing Urban Environment, Sendai
Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030, COP21, Habitat III and
Future Earth Initiative. Perceiving the dire need for Sustainable Development,
the United Nations and world leaders formulated the SDG targets as a com-
prehensive framework based on the success of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). The goals call for action by all countries, poor, rich and mid-
dle-income, to promote prosperity while protecting the planet earth and its
life support system. For sustainability to be achieved, it is important to have
inputs from all sectors, societies and stakeholders. Therefore, this series on
the Sustainable Development Goals aims to provide a comprehensive plat-
form to the scientific, teaching and research communities working on various
global issues in the field of geography, earth sciences, environmental science,
social sciences and human geosciences, in order to contribute knowledge
towards the current 17 Sustainable Development Goals.
Volumes in the Series are organized by the relevant goal, and guided by an
expert international panel of advisors. Contributions are welcome from scien-
tists, policy makers and researchers working in the field of any of the follow-
ing goals:
No Poverty
Zero Hunger
Good Health and Well-Being
Quality Education
Gender Equality
Clean Water and Sanitation
Affordable and Clean Energy
Decent Work and Economic Growth
Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Reduced Inequalities
Sustainable Cities and Communities
Responsible Consumption and Production
Climate Action
Life Below Water
Life on Land
Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
Partnerships for the Goals
The theory, techniques and methods applied in the contributions will be
benchmarks and guide researchers on the knowledge and understanding
needed for future generations. The series welcomes case studies and good
practices from diverse regions, and enhances the understanding at local and
regional levels in order to contribute towards global sustainability.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15486

Alastair Fraser

Achieving the
Sustainable
Management of Forests
Alastair Fraser
Consultant in Forest Policy and Economics
Perthshire, UK

ISSN 2523-3084     ISSN 2523-3092 (electronic)

Sustainable Development Goals Series
ISBN 978-3-030-15838-5    ISBN 978-3-030-15839-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15839-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019935525

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or
part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way,
and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software,
or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in
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the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material
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neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To the Fraser Forestry Foundation, Indonesia.

v
Preface

As undergraduates, studying forestry in the mid-1950s we were taught about

the principles of sustainable forest management, and these have not really
changed over the years. At that time, “sustainability” was not much talked
about outside forestry circles, and so life as a professional forester became a
battle between the principles and the reality of a society that valued the short
term over the long.
Having become deeply involved in international forestry affairs, it has
been distressing to see so much of the world’s forests being destroyed, largely
for short-term financial gain, with little thought for all the other living organ-
isms that rely on forests for their habitat. The livelihoods of communities that
live in or near forests have been destroyed or compromised through loss of
access to a multitude of resources that they can obtain from the trees, other
plants, and animals that live in forests. Many such organisms are now either
extinct or are seriously endangered.
An enormous amount of time and effort has been put into international
meetings and fora to discuss the definition of, and need for, the sustainable
management of forests, but with a few notable exceptions there is little to
show for it on the ground. The reasons for this lack of progress are manifold,
but they can be boiled down to a few key issues that need to be addressed. The
usurpation of land by the state in many countries has tended to lead to a “trag-
edy of the commons” and overexploitation. The separation of responsibility
for timber production, conservation, and forest industry within government
hierarchies has led to contradictions and confusion in policies. The attempts
to promote sustainable forest management by market-oriented instruments
such as “certification” and Voluntary Agreements have resulted in leakage
and the displacement of the curse of illegal logging.
There are some notable examples of initiatives that have achieved some
sort of sustainability, and the features that they share are strong leadership,
multi-stakeholder involvement, and the sustaining of effort and funding over
a very long time period: over 20 years. Too many development initiatives
have a short, politically determined time frame and so never achieve
sustainability.

vii
viii Preface

This book is very much a practitioner’s perspective and draws on much

research conducted by others as well as an analysis of the main global ­forestry
database developed by FAO over many years. It concludes with a “to-do list”
of things for various stakeholders. It hopes to inspire young people consider-
ing a career in forestry to do what is needed and perhaps a few “Champions”
for the cause to devote some time and effort to persuading politicians and the
public about the need for action.

Perthshire, UK Alastair Fraser

Contents

Part I Background

1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   3
2 The Definition and Meaning of Sustainable
Forest Management ������������������������������������������������������������������������   7
3 The Current Status of Sustainably Managed Forests������������������ 11
Assessing Sustainable Management������������������������������������������������   11
Changes in Forest Area in the Last 5 Years��������������������������������������   12
Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation����������������������������   19
Illegal Logging��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   21
Property Rights and Land Ownership����������������������������������������������   22
Supply and Demand for Forest Products ����������������������������������������   22
Market Failure in Forest Products����������������������������������������������������   23
Institutional and Financial Issues����������������������������������������������������   24
Is Sustainable Forest Management Possible?����������������������������������   26

Part II Institutional Issues

4 Policy and the Political Will������������������������������������������������������������ 31

The Politics of Sustainable Forest Management������������������������������   31
The Benefits of Managing Forest Resources Sustainably����������������   33
The Need to Achieve Consensus Among Stakeholders ������������������   33
Forest Policy and the Instruments to Implement It��������������������������   34
The Politics of Land-Use and Ownership����������������������������������������   35
The Politics of Incentives for Sustainable Forest Management������   42
5 Institutions and Policy Instruments Required to Ensure
Forests Are Managed Sustainably�������������������������������������������������� 47
Institutional Arrangements��������������������������������������������������������������   47
Policy Instruments ��������������������������������������������������������������������������   51
Legal Instruments����������������������������������������������������������������������������   51
Financial Instruments����������������������������������������������������������������������   52
Technical Instruments����������������������������������������������������������������������   54
Human Resources����������������������������������������������������������������������������   55

ix
x Contents

6 Land Rights Issues and Rural Poverty������������������������������������������ 59

Land Ownership������������������������������������������������������������������������������   59
Rural Poverty ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������   62
Community Forestry������������������������������������������������������������������������   66

Part III Sustainabiliity

7 The Sustainability of Biodiversity�������������������������������������������������� 69

Landscape Management������������������������������������������������������������������   69
Protected Areas��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   72
Baseline Biodiversity Studies����������������������������������������������������������   73
International Initiatives��������������������������������������������������������������������   74
8 Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change �������������������� 75
Soil Erosion��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   75
The Contribution of Forests to Climate Change������������������������������   78
Potential Impacts of Global Warming����������������������������������������������   80
Changes in Sea Level����������������������������������������������������������������������   80
Extreme Weather Events������������������������������������������������������������������   82
Changes in Hydrological Systems ��������������������������������������������������   83
Distribution of Agro-ecological Zones��������������������������������������������   84
The Contribution of Forests to Solving the Problem ����������������������   85
Incentives for Avoiding Deforestation and Forest Degradation������   87
9 Sustainability of the Supply of Timber and Non-timber Forest
Products�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 93
Consumption of Timber Products����������������������������������������������������   93
Production Forest ����������������������������������������������������������������������������   95
Forest Timber Growing Stock����������������������������������������������������������   96
Supply–Demand Balance����������������������������������������������������������������   98
Trade-in Timber Forest Products ����������������������������������������������������   99
The Structure of the Timber Processing Industry���������������������������� 101
Forest Management for Timber Production������������������������������������ 104
Adding Value to Timber Products���������������������������������������������������� 105
Non-timber Forest Products������������������������������������������������������������ 106
Wood-Based Energy: Fuelwood and Charcoal�������������������������������� 106
Properties of Wood as an Energy Source ������������������������������������ 107
Wood Energy Conversion Technology���������������������������������������� 110
Other Non-timber Forest Products�������������������������������������������������� 111
Forest Grazing���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 113
10 Illegal Logging�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 115
Definition of Illegal Logging ���������������������������������������������������������� 115
Extent of Illegal Logging ���������������������������������������������������������������� 115
Drivers of Illegal Logging���������������������������������������������������������������� 118
Impact of Illegal Logging���������������������������������������������������������������� 119
Combatting Illegal Logging ������������������������������������������������������������ 120
Technological Solutions������������������������������������������������������������������ 121
Contents xi

Part IV Economic Issues

11 The Value of Timber and Non-­timber Forest Products�������������� 125

The Value of Forest for Production of Timber �������������������������������� 125
Timber Harvesting �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 126
Timber Values���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 128
Plantations���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 128
Bioprospecting �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 131
12 Valuation of Forest Ecosystem, Environmental
and Social Services������������������������������������������������������������������������ 133
Forest Ecological Functions and Values������������������������������������������ 133
Forest Environmental Functions and Values������������������������������������ 134
Rainfall and Floods���������������������������������������������������������������������� 134
Rainfall and Erosion�������������������������������������������������������������������� 137
Wind and Waves�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 138
Forest Carbon������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 139
Social Functions and Values of Forest and Ecotourism ������������������ 140
13 Costs of Forest Management and Regeneration ������������������������ 143
Establishment of Forest Management Units������������������������������������ 143
Management Tasks�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 146
Boundary Marking ���������������������������������������������������������������������� 146
Forest Inventory �������������������������������������������������������������������������� 147
Forest Management Planning������������������������������������������������������ 149
Management Plans ���������������������������������������������������������������������� 150
Roads and Access���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 154
Yield Regulation������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 156
Monitoring and Supervision������������������������������������������������������������ 157
The Cost of Sustainability���������������������������������������������������������������� 157
14 International and Global Issues���������������������������������������������������� 159
Conflicting Sustainable Development Goals ���������������������������������� 159
Market Failure for Forests and Forest Products������������������������������ 160
Natural Capital Accounting�������������������������������������������������������������� 161
Cross-Border and Trade Issues�������������������������������������������������������� 162
International Agreements ���������������������������������������������������������������� 163

Part V The Way Forward

15 Verification of Sustainability�������������������������������������������������������� 167

Criteria and Indicators���������������������������������������������������������������������� 168
16 Awareness Raising Among Politicians
and the Public in General�������������������������������������������������������������� 173
Developed Countries������������������������������������������������������������������������ 173
Developing Countries���������������������������������������������������������������������� 178
Target Audiences and Media Campaigns���������������������������������������� 179
A Parting Shot���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 180
xii Contents

17 Conclusions�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 183
Key Conclusions������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 183
Analytical Results������������������������������������������������������������������������ 183
For Action������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 184
Overall Conclusions������������������������������������������������������������������������ 185
Chapter 1�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 185
Chapter 2�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 186
Chapter 3�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 186
Chapter 4�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 186
Chapter 5�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 188
Chapter 6�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 189
Chapter 7�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 189
Chapter 8�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 190
Chapter 9�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 190
Chapter 10������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 193
Chapter 11������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 193
Chapter 12������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 194
Chapter 13������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 196
Chapter 14������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 197
Chapter 15������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 198
Chapter 16������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 198
References ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 201
Index���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 209
About the Author

Alastair Fraser Based in Scotland, he has recently retired after a 55-year

career as a professional forester working in the United Kingdom and 45 other
countries around the world. He graduated from Aberdeen University in 1957
with a bachelor’s degree in forestry and completed a doctorate at Edinburgh
University in 1970 with focus on the interaction between climate and forests.
He is also the author of the textbook Making Forest Policy Work and Forestry
Flavours of the Month: the Changing Face of World Forestry and has pub-
lished 128 papers and reports on a wide range of topics. In 1973 he co-
founded a forestry consultancy company that became LTS International Ltd.

xiii
 Part I
Background
 Introduction
In the late 1980s, as the world was preparing for
the UN Conference on Environment and
Development to be held in Rio de Janeiro in
1992, loss of tropical forests became a hot
political topic. One consequence was that the
British government pledged a large sum of money
to support efforts in developing countries to
introduce sustainable forest management and halt
deforestation. That decision eventually resulted
in the author travelling to Indonesia to manage
the joint Indonesia-UK Tropical Forest
Management Programme. It enabled the
continuation of work begun in 1974 on tropical
forest management in the Asia-Pacific region,
with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) funded by the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), which came to a shuddering
halt in 1975 when the UN ran out of money and
cancelled all projects.
The main outcome of the Rio Conference was
the Non-Legally Binding Authoritative Statement
on Principles for Global Consensus on the
Management, Conservation and Sustainable
Development of all types of Forests, known as the
“Forestry Principles”. The lack of any legally
binding agreement to take action was a spur to
civil society that led eventually to the
establishment of the Non-Government
Organisation, the Forest Stewardship Council.
This was aimed at the timber industry with a view
to getting private sector involvement in improving
the quality of management of tropical forests.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
A. Fraser, Achieving the Sustainable Management of Forests, Sustainable Development
Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15839-2_1
1
In the decades that followed the Rio
Conference, from a practitioner’s perspective,
forestry matters seemed to sink down in the polit-
ical agenda, until climate change became a hot
topic. It became clear that forests had a major
role to play, both in reducing emissions of green-
house gases resulting from deforestation and for-
est degradation and as a sink for sequestering
carbon dioxide emitted by industry and transport.
However, things were rumbling on at the UN
level with the establishment of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Forests, followed by
the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests and
finally in the year 2000 the UN Forum on Forests.
The outcome of the discussions organised by all
these bodies came in 2007 with the adoption by
the UN of the Non-Legally Binding Instrument
on all types of Forests.
This brief history of activities at the interna-
tional level over the past two and a half decades
shows that there has been a lot of discussion, but
there is very little tangible evidence in the field of
anything having changed. So the question is will
Sustainable Development Goals make any
difference?
The Sustainable Development Goals estab-
lished in 2015 under the auspices of the United
Nations include number 15 that refers to forestry:
“Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of,
terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage for-
ests, combat desertification and halt and reverse
land degradation and halt biodiversity loss”. The
3
4 1
goal has 12 specific targets to be achieved in the
coming 5–15 years as follows:
1. By 2020, ensure the conservation, restora-
tion and sustainable use of terrestrial and
inland freshwater ecosystems and their ser-
vices, in particular forests, wetlands, moun-
tains and drylands, in line with obligations
under international agreements
2. By 2020, promote the implementation of
sustainable management of all types of
forests, halt deforestation, restore degraded
forests and substantially increase
afforestation and reforestation globally
3. By 2030, combat desertification, restore
degraded land and soil, including land
affected by desertification, drought and
floods, and strive to achieve a land degrada-
tion-neutral world
4. By 2030, ensure the conservation of moun-
tain ecosystems, including their biodiversity,
in order to enhance their capacity to provide
benefits that are essential for sustainable
development
5. Take urgent and significant action to reduce
the degradation of natural habitats, halt the
loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and
prevent the extinction of threatened species
6. Promote fair and equitable sharing of the
benefits arising from the utilisation of genetic
resources and promote appropriate access to
such resources, as internationally agreed
7. Take urgent action to end poaching and traf-
ficking of protected species of flora and
fauna and address both demand and supply
of illegal wildlife products
8. By 2020, introduce measures to prevent the
introduction and significantly reduce the
impact of invasive alien species on land and
water ecosystems and control or eradicate
the priority species
9. By 2020, integrate ecosystem and biodiver-
sity values into national and local planning,
development processes, poverty reduction
strategies and accounts
10. Mobilise and significantly increase financial
resources from all sources to conserve and
sustainably use biodiversity and ecosystems
Introduction
11. Mobilise significant resources from all
sources and at all levels to finance sustainable
forest management and provide adequate
incentives to developing countries to advance
such management, including for conservation
and reforestation
12. Enhance global support for efforts to combat
poaching and trafficking of protected species,
including by increasing the capacity of local
communities to pursue sustainable livelihood
opportunities.
Within the 12 targets to be achieved in the com-
ing 5–15 years, the first two are specific to for-
estry, two cover ecosystems that are liable to
include trees (drylands and mountains) and one
refers to reforestation. The remainder are more
general and apply to the management of all natu-
ral ecosystems. Two indicators have been set that
are intended for monitoring progress towards
achieving the goals. However, the first is stated as
“the forest area as a proportion of a country’s
land area”, which is actually rather meaningless
since there is no optimum proportion of land area
that should be forest and sustainable management
of forests is not dependent on how much forest a
country has. The forest area can change as a
result of many possible events: the area of prime
natural forest could decrease and be replaced
with plantations, for example, leaving the total
forest area and its proportion of the land area
unchanged. A more useful indicator would be
change in the area of primary natural forest. The
second indicator is just stated as “progress
towards sustainable forest management” which,
without a baseline and indicators with threshold
values, will be difficult to judge whether progress
has been made as it is not something that can be
readily measured. Evaluating results in 2020 or
2030 will be difficult. Although there are several
systems of Criteria and Indicators for different
regions of the world (see Chap. 15 for details)
that can be used for assessing sustainability, these
have serious limitations. The only single
indicator, which is relatively comprehensive and
currently available for monitoring sustainability
of forest management is the “Certification”
system operated by the Forest Stewardship
1 Introduction
Council (FSC) and the Programme for the
Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) both
of which are primarily aimed at production
forests in order to reassure the consumers of
forest products that they are not contributing to
forest loss and degradation.
The goal’s first target describes action that is
required in line with international agreements,
which is primarily the Non-legally binding
agreement on all types of forests referred to
earlier; but there are no international legally
binding agreements relating to sustainable forest
management, only on Biological Diversity and
Trade in Endangered Species. These are covered
in other goals. There is no specific target for how
much forest should be sustainably managed by
2020, nor is there indication of the resources
required (human and financial) or available to
achieve the goals. The 10th and 11th targets
recognise that financial resources are needed but
give no indication as to where the resources
might come from, the magnitude of the resources
required and the need for innovative approaches
to developing new sources of funding like
payments for ecosystem services such as soil and
water conservation and carbon sequestration. An
attempt at assessing the magnitude of these
requirements is made in the later chapters.
The need to achieve sustainable forest manage-
ment has been discussed for almost three decades,
during which time about 500 million ha of produc-
tion forest has been certified as being sustainably
managed, but a large proportion of that was being
managed more or less sustainably prior to the cer-
tification system coming into effect and it includes
substantial areas of plantation forests.
Plenty has been written about the principles of
Sustainable Forest Management and WHAT it is,
but little attention has been paid to the HOW to
make it happen, which involves looking at the
reasons why only about 15% of the world’s
forests are currently being managed sustainably.
5
As we will see later, it has taken bodies such as
the UN Forum on Forests and Forest Europe and
others more than 20 years to come up with a
definition of Sustainable Forest Management that
is clear and can be accepted by (almost) everyone.
This shows how complex the topic is and as a
consequence, how difficult it will be to achieve.
In order to facilitate the discussion, the book is
divided into five parts: the first is general
background and deals with the definition and
current status of the Sustainable Management of
Forests globally; the second part deals with
institutional issues, including policy, policy
instruments, the organisation of forestry agencies
and land tenure, which are the main group of
indicators that the Food and Agriculture
Organisation of the United Nations (FAO)
currently monitors; the third part deals with the
issues relating to sustainability in practice and
what is currently going on in the field, and for
ease of discussion is divided into four chapters
covering biodiversity, environmental services,
production of timber and Non-timber forest
products and Illegal logging, which we will see
later is a crucial issue; the fourth part covers
economic issues, which are fundamental to
achieving Sustainable Forest Management and it
has four chapters dealing with the value of forest
products, the value of ecological, environmental
and social services, the costs of sustainable Forest
management and a number of related International
issues; the fifth and final part is called The Way
Forward and deals with the Verification of
Sustainability and Public awareness and pulls
everything together in the concluding chapter
that highlights the various actions that need to be
taken.
Separating the technical issues of sustainabil-
ity from the economic issues inevitably leads to
some repetition but, while this is kept to a
minimum, it is intended to help to emphasise to
the reader the importance of the issues raised.
 The Definition and Meaning
of Sustainable Forest Management
Foresters have been taught for generations about
the principles of forest management, which are
based on sustainability. Technically it is rela-
tively simple in that any removals from the forest,
be it timber, non-timber products or wildlife
(plant animal, insect or fungi), should be bal-
anced by the regrowth/colonisation after the dis-
turbance, with a small allowance for losses due to
such things as disease or fire. Silviculture is all
about organising interventions in such a way that
damage is minimised and future growth is maxi-
mised as far as possible and habitats are
maintained.
In practice, it is not so simple, as there are
financial issues such as balancing costs and rev-
enues and the short term against the long term
and in many tropical countries there are issues of
who owns the forests and who has the right to
decide what should and should not be done. In
tropical forests, which normally contain a multi-
tude of species and trees of different ages and
sizes, there are also issues about how to ensure
that the forest will regenerate with a similar mix
within a reasonable period of time. Too much dis-
turbance may allow fast growing pioneer species
or climbers to become established which could
change the composition of the forest dramati-
cally. In Thailand part of the Kaeng Krachan
National Park had been heavily logged over
before the Park was declared, with the result that
a substantial area was overrun with climbers that
were smothering the remaining trees and prevent-
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
A. Fraser, Achieving the Sustainable Management of Forests, Sustainable Development
Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15839-2_2
2
ing regeneration. The Park management faced the
dilemma of whether to leave everything to nature,
and perhaps in 50 years or more the climbers may
begin to die off and allow tree species to regener-
ate or to intervene and cut the climbers to allow
regeneration to establish; purists favoured the
former and pragmatists the latter approach. The
issue was complicated by the fact that the tangle
of climbers was obstructing access to water holes
and salt licks that are vital to much of the wild-
life, and there was also the risk of facilitating the
invasion by alien species if left to nature, which
tends to favour the strong over the weak.
Such problems are less common in the rela-
tively species poor temperate forests of Europe,
though other problems exists such as grazing by
livestock preventing natural regeneration. During
and prior to the 1970s in Greece, grazing by goats
in the forest was widespread with the result that
there was very little natural regeneration and the
forests were ageing. Permanent sample plots
indicated that the annual growth was declining
steadily so that the Forest Department became
increasingly conservative and reduced harvesting
volumes. This merely exacerbated the problem
and reduced the likelihood of ever achieving
sustainability.
Forest Europe: a Ministerial level conference
of 46 European countries has developed a fairly
simple definition of Sustainable Forest
Management (SFM). The basis of the work by
Forest Europe has been a common understanding
7
8 2 The Definition and Meaning of Sustainable Forest Management
of what sustainable forest management encom-
passes. The term was defined in 1993 in the
Helsinki resolution H1 as “the stewardship and
use of forests and forest lands in a way, and at a
rate, that maintains their biodiversity, productiv-
ity, regeneration capacity, vitality and their
potential to fulfil, now and in the future, relevant
ecological, economic and social functions, at
local, national, and global levels, and that does
not cause damage to other ecosystems”.
This definitionis straightforward but in some
ways ambitious, as it seeks to cover national and
global level sustainability, which is beyond the
control of forest mangers let alone governments
of European countries. The question of what are
relevant ecological, environmental and social
functions is left open. It also gives no guidance
on the degree to which sustainability may be
influenced by the silvicultural system adopted or
how to cope with human induced problems such
as the grazing referred to earlier. Clear felling
may be economically attractive and maintain pro-
ductivity in the very long term but it creates even
aged stands and may have a negative impact on
habitats, biodiversity and on the landscape. On
the other hand, in some areas, fire is a natural
phenomenon that is an important part of the
regeneration cycle and results in more or less
even aged stands. If left to nature, even in temper-
ate regions, forests will become mixed in species
composition and age classes over time, which
may increase the value for these environmental
services but reduce the commercial value so that
the issue is more about balancing values rather
than maintaining them. To what degree should
the manager intervene, and how much should be
left to nature?
One option is to separate the timber produc-
tion function from the other functions by creating
plantations purely for the supply of timber as is
done with commodities like rubber and palm oil.
This may involve the clearance of some forest in
the short term but could avoid the need to con-
tinue clearing forest in the medium to long term.
Plantations can be managed for the sustainable
supply of timber and apart from reducing pres-
sure on natural forest may, but not necessarily,
have some environmental benefits depending on
location and species composition. Large areas of
monocultures of species such as Acacia,
Eucalyptus, Salix or Picea sitchensis, because
they are alien species in most places where they
are planted, are quite different from natural for-
ests in terms of their biodiversity and may also
have negative environmental impacts. They have
the advantage of high productivity and therefore
can meet human needs for timber on a smaller
area than would be required otherwise.
In principle almost the entire human require-
ment for timber and fuelwood could be met from
plantations, allowing natural forests to be left
largely to provide environmental services and the
supply of high value speciality species for par-
ticular purposes such as restoration of historic
buildings, musical instruments and uses where
the aesthetic properties of wood are important.
Unfortunately, plantations are costly to estab-
lish and maintain and need to be accessible if
they are for supplying large industrial users such
as pulpmills. They also need to be established in
large enough units to meet the volume require-
ments of the end-user. In the Lao PDR a project
with an investment of around US$ 10 million
financed many smallholder plantations aimed at
meeting regional demand for small roundwood,
mainly for pulp. However, the individual planta-
tions were small, most just 1–2 ha, and they were
scattered over a very large area in four Provinces,
so that providing good extension support and
supplying inputs such as plants and fertiliser was
very costly. Subsequently the farmers were
unable to obtain a good price when it came to
harvesting because of the high cost in transport to
market.
A significant proportion of the forest area that
has been certified to date is plantation forest, and
it is doubtful if it should really be included as sus-
tainably managed forest as they provide few of
the environmental services and when harvested
may even have a negative impact on the environ-
ment, for a while at least. Certifying that wood
has come from well-managed plantations rather
than from sustainably managed forest would be
more to the point.
An example of the problem is the fate of the
teak plantations managed by the State Timber
2 The Definition and Meaning of Sustainable Forest Management
Company Perhutani on the island of Java in
Indonesia. The plantations were established by
the Dutch towards the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury and had been well managed over the years
with small areas of mature trees being felled
annually and replanted using an agroforestry sys-
tem referred to locally as tumpangsari. This allo-
cated patches of cleared forest to local farmers
who planted and tended replacement teak trees at
a fairly wide spacing, and grew crops and fuel-
wood shrubs on the land between the trees for a
couple of years after the teak was planted. This
kept the teak free of weedy competition and pro-
vided a good livelihood for the villagers, who
were given a new area every year or two as more
forest was harvested and the young trees began to
shade out the villager’s crops. The system had
worked well for almost a century when it became
one of the first forests in the tropics to be certified
in 1990 by Smartwood. However, by 1998 things
had changed dramatically. First, the availability
of “certified timber” encouraged the rapid and
uncontrolled expansion of the local furniture
9
industry, which greatly increased demand for the
timber. Second, the impact of the Asian financial
crisis and the fall of the Suharto regime increased
lawlessness, poverty and legitimate employment
in Java and resulted in illegal felling of the teak
forests on an industrial scale. As a result the
Certification was withdrawn in 1998. For more
details see Ardana and Fuad (2001) and Bartley
(2018).
This means that not all forests in a country can
be managed sustainably as there needs to be a
balance between natural forests that provide
many services and plantations that are primarily
for timber production. The latter may need to be
expanded at the expense of the former if human
populations continue to grow and individual’s
incomes continue to rise and increase demand for
resources. The current issue about plastic pollu-
tion has seen recommendations for the greater
use of paper for packaging and other items cur-
rently made from plastic, which could put further
pressure on forests. This is discussed in more
detail in Chap. 4 on policy issues.
 The Current Status of Sustainably
Managed Forests
Assessing Sustainable Management
Currently the only way to assess whether forest is
being managed sustainably is through
“Certification”. According to MacDicken et al.
(2015) less than 20% of the area of designated
permanent forest around the world meets some of
the criteria needed to be “Certified” as sustain-
ably managed, and most of that is in the temper-
ate forests and in plantations in the rich developed
countries. An analysis of areas “Certified” by the
two organisations referred to earlier (FSC and
PEFC) as being sustainably managed at present
suggests that about 500 million ha of forests are
currently “Certified”. This is only 12.5% of the
total forest area as defined and measured by the
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Global
Forest Resource Assessment (FRA). Examination
of the data from the websites of the two organisa-
tions suggests that there is some double counting
as a result of some forest being certified by both
parties.
The most comprehensive and up-to-date infor-
mation about the state of the world’s forests is the
2015 Global Forest Resource Assessment by
FAO. This defines Forest land as:
Land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees
higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more
than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresh-
olds in situ. It does not include land that is pre-
dominantly under agricultural or urban land use.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
A. Fraser, Achieving the Sustainable Management of Forests, Sustainable Development
Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15839-2_3
3
On the basis of this definition the total area
of forest in 2015 was 3999 million ha which
represents 30.6% of the global total land area
and it showed a net decline of about 16 million
ha since 2010. Seventy-one countries showed
an increase in forest area totalling 22.7 million
ha, while 77 countries showed a loss of forest
area totalling 38.7 million ha, which is the more
telling figure.
The assessment also records what is called
“other wooded land”, which includes much of the
open savannah woodland found in the drier parts
of Africa and South America. The total area
recorded in 2015 was about 952.5 million ha
which was a net decline of about 20.5 million ha
since 2010.
The FRA also defines Primary forest as:
Naturally regenerated forest of native species,
where there are no clearly visible indications of
human activities and the ecological processes are
not significantly disturbed.
And the total remaining area of primary forest is
1277 million ha or about 32% of the total forest
area. 1054 million ha (82%) is in just nine coun-
tries. This Primary forest needs to be the priority
for sustainable management as it provides the most
complete and comprehensive set of economic,
social and environmental benefits. 1118 million ha
are in countries where there is “Certified” forest.
The area of primary forest declined by 8.1 million
ha between 2010 and 2015, which is very sad and
further decline needs to be prevented urgently.
11
12
The FRA defines Plantations as:
“Forest predominantly composed of trees estab-
lished through planting and/or deliberate seed-
ing”, which has a subcategory that covers
plantations with exotic species rather than indige-
nous species. This definition includes such speci-
alities as Christmas trees and fuelwood crops.
By 2015 the total area of plantations world-
wide had reached 292.4 million ha of which 271
million ha are in countries where there is
“Certified forest”. The total area of plantations
had increased by about 15.3 million ha since
2010 or by about 3 million ha annually.
The final definition of interest here in the FRA is
Permanent Forest Estate (PFE) which is defined as:
Forest area that is designated by law or regulation
to be retained as forest and may not be converted to
other land use.
In 2015 there were a total of 1663 million ha
that have been designated as Permanent forest in
accordance with this definition which is almost
42% of the total forest area. One must assume that
all the forest that has been certified is within the
permanent forest, as this is one of the fundamental
requirements for Sustainable Forest Management.
If that is true, then about 30% of the permanent
forest has been certified. A reason for this rela-
tively low percentage could be that much of the
Permanent forest may be in protected areas such as
wildlife reserves or National Parks, which would
not normally seek certification, as they are not pro-
ducing and marketing timber. The available data
from the Food and Agriculture Organisation and
the Certifying agencies does not differentiate
Permanent forest that is composed of plantations
as opposed to natural forest, but it is probably safe
to assume that the “Certified” forest area includes
perhaps one-third of the plantation area covering
about 100 million ha.
 hanges in Forest Area in the Last
C The graphs in Fig. 3.1 for the “Temperate” and
5 Years
In order to examine the situation in the world’s
forests, the 190 countries, for which a complete
set of data on forest resources and other indicators
3 The Current Status of Sustainably Managed Forests
such as GDP are available, have been grouped
into five regions that more or less correspond to
major ecological regions. These are “Temperate”,
“Central Asia”, “Subtropical”, “Arid” and
“Equatorial”. Few countries lie exclusively
within one region, but countries have been
assigned to a region on a combination of their
latitude range, the major forest types in the coun-
try and the proportion of the country that matches
the general region description. Thus some coun-
tries may have some areas that match two or
more of the regions, but have been placed within
the one that matches the majority of the country’s
area. This is a form of stratification that reduces
the variation within the groups due to major cli-
matic and ecological factors. Table 3.1 below
summarises some basic data on the countries
within each of the regions.
As Table 3.1 shows, the extent of forest cover
is very low in the “Central Asia” and “Arid”
regions as one would expect, where the ecologi-
cal conditions are not suited to forest develop-
ment. The “Temperate” and “Equatorial” regions
both have a substantial proportion of forest cover
at 41% and 50% respectively and the
“Subtropical” region has less than half of the for-
est cover of these two regions but double the
population density. This suggests that population
density may be a contributory factor for loss of
forest cover.
The total forest area showed a net decrease of
16 million ha between 2010 and 2015. However,
that is the net loss, as 77 countries lost a total of
38.8 million ha of which about 22 million ha are
in the “Equatorial” zoneregion, while 71 coun-
tries gained a total of 22.8 million ha of which
about 15.4 million ha are new plantations. The
difference between these figures and those given
in Table 3.1 is due to lack of complete data for
about 50 countries that are included in the Global
Forest Resource Assessment, but have not been
included in the data presented.
“Equatorial” regions where forest cover is high-
est are remarkably similar, with the decline in
forest cover with increasing population density
being significant at 98% and 95% probability
respectively. The relationships are very similar
Changes in Forest Area in the Last 5 Years 13

Table 3.1 Summary of basic data for countries assigned to each of broad ecological region
Country type factor Temperate Central Asia Subtropical Arid Equatorial Total
Number of countries 46 8 65 20 51 190
Forest area 2010 1,689,354 26,177 765,665 23,162 1,417,032 3,921,390
(’000 ha) 2015 1,692,335 25,729 769,489 22,097 1,396,417 3,906,067
Change 2,981 −448 3,824 −1065 −20,615 −15,323
Land area (’000 ha) 4,120,023 560,480 3,759,128 1,354,012 2,778,882 12,572,525
Forest 2015 41.1% 4.6% 20.5% 1.6% 50.3% 31.1%
cover %
Population (million) 1,206 84 3,994 353 1,551 7,188
Population density 29 15 106 26 56 57
(p/km2)
Per cap GDP (US$) 34,485 3,785 6,736 6,592 3,725 10,700
Area of forest certified 426,793 0.3 45,901 212 27,691 500,596
(’000 ha)
Area of plantations 131,034 1,876 123,161 2,295 27,245 285,611
(’000 ha)
Area of primary forest 560,370 13,673 96,508 580 560,398 1,231,529
(’000 ha)
Permanent forest estate 634,521 10,788 386,098 5,988 606,765 1,644,160
(’000 ha)

and suggest that the elasticity of forest cover with
respect to population pressure is about −1.2% or
a 10% increase in population pressure will result
in a decrease in forest cover by about 1.2%. This
is very close to the findings from a study in
Indonesia (Fraser 1998) that examined changes
in forest cover over time and between the major
islands of the country.
In contrast, in the “Central Asia” zoneregion,
where both forest cover and population density
are low, the trend is the reverse, but insignificant,
with forest cover increasing slightly with increas-
ing population density. The higher forest cover
and population density are in the most westerly
countries of the region, which may be indicative
of better soils and a wetter climate that supports
greater forest development. In both the
“Subtropical” and “Arid” zones there is no
­relationship between forest cover and population
density. The “Subtropical” zone includes many
small islands in the Caribbean and some in the
Pacific, where the population is densely packed
around the coast and the forest is on interior
mountainous land, which is probably not suitable
for agriculture.
Kaplan et al. (2009) developed a model for
estimating historical trends in deforestation in
Europe during the period from 1000 BC to 1850
AD prior to the beginning of the industrial revo-
lution. They used population density as the main
driver of deforestation in their model, but adjusted
it to take account of the amount of usable land,
based on soil characteristics and climatic factors,
on the assumption that farmers would only clear
land for arable crops or pasture if it was suitable.
Forest in mountainous terrain or with very cold
climates would not be cleared. They also took
account of technological change and ran an addi-
tional version of the model by adjusting the rela-
tionship between population density and forest
cover at various times to reflect the increased car-
rying capacity of the land as technology
improved; thus the population density per unit of
usable land increased before further deforestation
occurred.
Their standard model indicates that forest
cover across Europe was around 75% in the
period around 1000 BC and that forest cover
declined slowly to about 55% around 400 AD
and then began to increase for about 300 years
during the so-called Dark ages after which it
resumed a steady decline to as low as 20% by
1850 AD. When possible technological changes
are taken into account, it seems that deforestation
14 3 The Current Status of Sustainably Managed Forests

Temperate Countries: Forest Cover and Population Density

80.0%

70.0%

60.0% Temperate Countries:

Forest Cover and
Population Density
50.0%
Log.(Temperate
40.0% Countries: Forest Cover
and Population Density)

30.0% y = -0.261ln(x) + 0.5108

R² = 0.23032
20.0%

10.0%

0.0%
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50

Central Asian Countries: Forest Cover and Population Density

16.0%

14.0%

12.0% Central Asian

Countries:
10.0% Forest Cover
and...

8.0%
y = 0.0006x + 0.04
R² = 0.3978
6.0%

4.0%

2.0%

Fig. 3.1 Graphs showing the relationship between forest cover per cent (vertical axis) and the natural logarithm of
population density (horizontal axis) for the five ecological regions

was more extensive prior to 1000 BC, because
agriculture was less efficient and forest cover was
possibly as low as about 50%, after which the
rate of decline in forest cover prior to about 400
AD was slower than with the standard model,
when it reached about 35%. Forest cover then
increased to a maximum of about 60% around the
time of the “Black Death” in the mid fifteenth
century and then declined to around 40% in 1850.
The current forest cover is about 30%, but it is
difficult to be precise because of possible differ-
ences in the geographical coverage.
Changes in Forest Area in the Last 5 Years 15

Sub-Tropical Countries: Forest cover and Population Density

90.0%

80.0%

70.0%

60.0%
Sub-Tropical
50.0% Countries:
Forest cover...
40.0%
y = -0.0105x + 0.3408
R² = 0.0009
30.0%

20.0%

10.0%

0.0%
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50

Arid Countries: Forest Cover and Population Density

9.0%

8.0%

7.0%

6.0%
Arid
5.0% Countries:
Forest Cover
4.0% and...

3.0% y = 4E-05ln(x) + 0.0232

R² = 8E-07

2.0%

1.0%

Fig. 3.1 (continued)

They also modelled six regions that appeared
to be more homogenous within Europe. The
western region followed a trend very similar to
the standard model, but a Northern and Alpine
region had very low forest cover per unit area of
usable land, because its low proportion of the
total area meant that more of it had to be cleared
to support the population. This contrasts with
Eastern Europe, which has a high proportion of
usable land but relatively low population density
16
Equatorial Countries: Forest cover and Population Density
120.0%
100.0%
80.0%
60.0%
40.0%
20.0%
0.0%
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50
Fig. 3.1 (continued)
so that forest cover remained high through much
of the period. These figures are consistent with
those for the Temperate Countries shown in
Fig. 3.1, which include Russian Federation and
Canada with low population densities and high
forest cover.
While population density is a useful indicator
of human pressure on the environment, since the
industrial revolution and rapid population growth
it incorporates a number of more direct drivers of
deforestation such as agricultural expansion,
urbanisation, infrastructure development like
roads, dams and power lines and demand for nat-
ural resources including timber and minerals.
Data from theglobaleconomy.com on agricultural
employment by country around the world, when
grouped according to the broad ecological
regions discussed above, show the differences
very clearly. The average proportion of total
employment in agriculture, weighted according
to the total GDP, is as follows: “Temperate”
2.99%, “Central Asia” 21.71%, “Subtropical”
15.98%, “Arid” 8.48% and “Equatorial” 23.9%
as shown in Fig. 3.2 below.
3 The Current Status of Sustainably Managed Forests
Equatorial Countries:
Forest cover and
Population Density
Log.(Equatorial
Countries: Forest Cover
and Population Density)
y = -0.357ln(x) + 0.6464
R² = 0.28777
2.00 2.50 3.00
In 2010 the population density in the 45 coun-
tries that lie predominantly in the temperate for-
est region was about a half that in the 51 that lie
predominantly in the equatorial forest region,
while the forest cover was about 8% lower. By
2015 the population density in the “Temperate”
forest region countries had risen slightly, by
about 1%, but forest cover had increased very
slightly by about 0.12% while in the “Equatorial”
region countries population density had risen
sharply by almost 7% and forest cover had
decreased by about 0.5%. The change in the for-
est cover in the Equatorial region is consistent
with the elasticity of forest cover with respect to
population pressure as shown in Fig. 3.1 above,
but in the temperate region the sign is reversed;
i.e. an increase rather than a decrease, but with
the same order of magnitude. This suggests that
Europe has passed a transition point from con-
traction to expansion.
A closer look at the situation in the 30
“Equatorial” countries that lost forest between
2010 and 2015 suggests that the growth in popula-
tion density was a strong driver of deforestation.
 Changes in Forest Area in the Last 5 Years 17

GDP and Agricultural employment

40,000

35,000 Temperate

30,000 Y = -14075ln(x) + 45559

R2 = 0.84425
25,000
GDP and Agricultural
employment
20,000

15,000 Log. (GDP and

Agricultural
10,000 employment)
Arid Sub-tropical
5,000
central Asia Equatorial

0
0.00 5.00 10.00 15.00 20.00 25.00 30.00

Fig. 3.2 Weighted average per cent of employment in agriculture in relation to average national per capita GDP (US$
per cap) for the five ecological regions

Percent forest lost and change in population density

0.00%
0 10 20 30 40 50

-5.00%
Forest Loss percent

-10.00%
Percent
forest lost and
-15.00% change in…

y = -0.0044x + 0.0057
-20.00% R² = 0.5348

-25.00%

Change in Population Density

Fig. 3.3 Percentage of forest cover lost with increasing population density for the 30 countries in the “Equatorial”
region that lost forest during the period 2010–2015

The relationship is shown in Fig. 3.3, which indi-
cates that an increase of one person per square
kilometre is associated with a loss of about 0.3%
in forest cover over a 5-year period. This is of the
same order of magnitude as that found by the
author (Fraser 1998) in a detailed study of changes
in forest cover in Indonesia, both over time and
between the different islands. That analysis
showed that a 1% increase in population density
would lead to a loss in forest cover of between
0.15 and 0.4%, with the higher figure being when
the data for the island of Java is excluded.
 18
% Increase in forest area with % forest cover
7.00%
6.00%
Increase in Forest Area %
5.00%
4.00%
3.00%
2.00%
1.00%
0.00%
0.0% 20.0%
Forest Cover %
Fig. 3.4 Percentage increase in forest cover in relation to the existing forest cover per cent for 28 countries in the
“Temperate” region
In contrast to the “Equatorial” region, the
“Temperate” region showed a net increase in for-
est area with 28 of the 46 countries showing a
gain collectively of 4 million ha, while five of the
countries showed a total loss of about 1 million
ha. About 800,000 ha of the increase were new
plantations. The average percentage increase in
the forest area in those countries that expanded
their forest was 0.94%, but it was significantly
correlated with the amount of forest cover in the
country, with countries having a low forest cover
expanding their forest the most; see Fig. 3.4. This
is partly to be expected because of the physical
limitations for expanding forest that is already
large, but the fact that the countries with low for-
est cover expanded their forest area at a much
higher rate indicates a desire to achieve a higher
degree of forest cover. This was despite the fact
that the population density in the 28 countries
that increased forest area was 64 persons per
square kilometre, or double the average for the
region, and higher than in the “Equatorial”
region. The reason that the population density
was higher in the countries that gained forest was
because the countries that lost forest included
3 The Current Status of Sustainably Managed Forests
Increase in
% forest with
% forest
y = -0.0646x + 0.0352
R² = 0.223
40.0% 60.0% 80.0%
Canada and Russian Federation, both with very
low population densities but huge forest areas.
Despite the net loss of forest cover in the
“Equatorial” region there were 11 countries that
gained a total of 3.2 million ha of forest area
between 2010 and 2015, of which about 1.7 mil-
lion ha were new plantations and about
550,000 ha that may have been “other wooded
land” being reclassified as forest. However, the
situation in the “Equatorial” region is somewhat
different to that in the “Temperate” region as
there appears to be no correlation between the
increase in forest area and the extent of forest
cover at present, nor with either the population
density or the population density increase nor
with per capita GDP. However, there does appear
to be a significant relationship between the per-
centage increase in forest area and the agricul-
tural employment percentage of GDP. The
relationship is positive with a 10% increase in the
agriculture employment share of GDP being
associated with a 1% increase in forest cover. For
example, Burundi, where agriculture employ-
ment is 90% of GDP, achieved a 9% increase in
forest cover between 2010 and 2015. See Fig. 3.5.
 Causes of Deforestation and Forest Degradation 19

% Increase in forest area and Agriculture GDP %

15.0%

10.0%
Increase in Forest Area %

%
Increase
5.0% in forest
area…
y = 0.0007x - 0.0072
0.0% R² = 0.1272
0 20 40 60 80 100

-5.0%

Agriculture GDP %

Fig. 3.5 Percentage increase in forest cover in relation to the share of agriculture employment in GDP in 11 countries
that gained forest area in the “Equatorial” zone

This is somewhat surprising, but may be because It also identified unsustainable wood extraction
a high percentage of agriculture employment in as the main driver of forest degradation.
the GDP is indicative of low forest cover in A more recent review of the Drivers of
smaller or more densely populated countries but Deforestation and Forest Degradation by
not in larger or more sparsely populated ones. Kissinger et al. (2012) comes to more or less the
The inference from this is therefore similar to same conclusion and attributes 80% of deforesta-
that for the “Temperate” zone countries in that it tion to agricultural expansion. The type of agri-
seems that countries with a low forest cover are culture responsible varies between the continents,
striving to increase their forest cover. with cattle ranching being the largest contributor
in Latin America, cash crops in Africa and
­commodity crops such as palm oil, rubber and
Causes of Deforestation and Forest coffee in Asia. The Government of the Democratic
Degradation Republic of the Congo cites population increase
in certain areas driving the demand for fuelwood
A study in Lao PDR by Mekong Maps into the as being a major contributor to forest degrada-
drivers of Deforestation and forest Degradation, tion. This was also true in the area around Addis
reported in the REDDiness Preparation Proposal Ababa in Ethiopia, where the so-called Green
(R-PP) submitted to the Forest Carbon Partnership Belt of Eucalyptus that had been established
Facility at the World Bank, identified five direct early in the twentieth century to supply the city
drivers of deforestation. These were: (1) large-­ with fuelwood was deteriorating rapidly due to
scale expansion of cash crops and tree plantations over harvesting. The World Bank funded a major
funded by Foreign Direct Investment; (2) small-­ project to restore the forest and expand the area in
scale agricultural expansion by individual farm- the mid-1980s (see Box 9.1, Chap. 9).
ers and pioneer shifting cultivation; (3) All these observations suggest that increasing
infrastructure and urban development; (4) min- population pressure with the consequential
ing; (5) dams for hydro-electricity and irrigation. increase in demand for more food and other
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
vigorously engaged upon a vain effort to preserve order by a
passable imitation of Chanticleer saluting the happy morn.
From ‘Q’s’ report of another outbreak of disorder it would appear
that in the House meeting in the ‘thirties of the nineteenth century,
exchange of personalities went far beyond modern experience. The
once heated Maynooth question was to the fore. In the course of an
animated set-to between a Mr. Shaw and Daniel O’Connell, the
former shouted ‘The Hon. Member has charged me with being
actuated by spiritual ferocity. My ferocity is not of the description
which takes for its symbol a death’s head and cross bones.’
O’Connell, as a certain fishwife locally famous for picturesque
language discovered, was hard to beat in the game of vituperation.
Turning upon Shaw, he retorted ‘Yours is a calf’s head and jaw
bones.’
‘Q’ records that the retort was greeted with deafening cheers from
the Ministerial side where O’Connell and his party were seated. Mr.
Shaw’s polite, but perhaps inconsequential, remark had been
received with equal enthusiasm by the Opposition.
 AFTER THE BATTLE.
by bennet copplestone.
‘Caesar,’ said a Sub-lieutenant to his friend, a temporary
Lieutenant R.N.V.R., who at the outbreak of war had been a classical
scholar at Oxford, ‘you were in the thick of our scrap yonder off the
Jutland coast. You were in it every blessed minute with the battle
cruisers, and must have had a lovely time. Did you ever, Caesar, try
to write the story of it?’
It was early in June of last year, and a group of officers had
gathered near the ninth hole of an abominable golf course which
they had themselves laid out upon an island in the great landlocked
bay wherein reposed from their labours long lines of silent ships. It
was a peaceful scene. Few even of the battleships showed the scars
of battle, though among them were some which the Germans
claimed to be at the bottom of the sea. There they lay, coaled, their
magazines refilled, ready at short notice to issue forth with every
eager man and boy standing at his action station. And while all
waited for the next call, officers went ashore, keen, after the
restrictions upon free exercise, to stretch their muscles upon the
infamous golf course. It was, I suppose, one of the very worst
courses in the world. There were no prepared tees, no fairway, no
greens. But there was much bare rock, great tufts of coarse grass
greedy of balls, wide stretches of hard, naked soil destructive of
wooden clubs, and holes cut here and there of approximately the
regulation size. Few officers of the Grand Fleet, except those in
Beatty’s Salt of the Earth squadrons, far to the south, had since the
war began been privileged to play upon more gracious courses. But
the Sea Service, which takes the rough with the smooth, with
cheerful and profane philosophy, accepted the home-made links as a
spirited triumph of the handy-man over forbidding nature.
 ‘Yes,’ said the naval volunteer, ‘I tried many times, but gave up all
attempts as hopeless. I came up here to get first-hand material, and
have sacrificed my short battle leave to no purpose. The more I learn
the more helplessly incapable I feel. I can describe the life of a ship,
and make you people move and speak like live things. But a battle is
too big for me. One might as well try to realise and set on paper the
Day of Judgment. All I did was to write a letter to an old friend, one
Copplestone, beseeching him to make clear to the people at home
what we really had done. I wrote it three days after the battle, but
never sent it. Here it is.’
Lieutenant Caesar drew a paper from his pocket and read as
follows:

‘My dear Copplestone,—Picture to yourself our feelings.

On Wednesday we were in the fiery hell of the greatest naval
action ever fought. A real Battle of the Giants. Beatty’s and
Hood’s battle cruisers—chaffingly known as the Salt of the
Earth—and Evan Thomas’s squadron of four fast Queen
Elizabeths had fought for two hours the whole German High
Seas Fleet. Beatty, in spite of his heavy losses, had
outmanœuvred Fritz’s battle cruisers and enveloped the
German line. The Fifth Battle Squadron had stalled off the
German Main Fleet, and led them into the net of Jellicoe,
who, coming up, deployed between Evan Thomas and Beatty,
though he could not see either, crossed the T of the Germans
in the beautifullest of beautiful manœuvres, and had them for
a moment as good as sunk. But the Lord giveth and the Lord
taketh away; it is sometimes difficult to say Blessed be the
Name of the Lord. For just when we most needed full visibility
the mist came down thick, the light failed, and we were
robbed of the fruits of victory when they were almost in our
hands. It was hard, hard, bitterly hard. But we had done the
utmost which the Fates permitted. The enemy, after being
harried all night by destroyers, had got away home in torn
rags, and we were left in supreme command of the North
Sea, a command more complete and unchallengeable than at
 any moment since the war began. For Fritz had put out his full
strength, all his unknown cards were on the table, we knew
his strength and his weakness, and that he could not stand for
a moment against our concentrated power. All this we had
done, and rejoiced mightily. In the morning we picked up from
Poldhu the German wireless claiming the battle as a glorious
victory—at which we laughed loudly. But there was no
laughter when in the afternoon Poldhu sent out an official
message from our own Admiralty which, from its clumsy
wording and apologetic tone, seemed actually to suggest that
we had had the devil of a hiding. Then when we arrived at our
bases came the newspapers with their talk of immense
losses, and of bungling, and of the Grand Fleet’s failure! Oh, it
was a monstrous shame! The country which depends utterly
upon us for life and honour, and had trusted us utterly, had
been struck to the heart. We had come back glowing, exalted
by the battle, full of admiration for the skill of our leaders and
for the serene intrepidity of our men. We had seen our ships
go down and pay the price of sea command—pay it willingly
and ungrudgingly as the Navy always pays. Nothing that the
enemy had done or could do was able to hurt us, but we had
been mortally wounded in the house of our friends. It will take
days, weeks, perhaps months, for England and the world to
be made to understand and to do us justice. Do what you can,
old man. Don’t delay a minute. Get busy. You know the Navy,
and love it with your whole soul. Collect notes and diagrams
from the scores of friends whom you have in the Service; they
will talk to you and tell you everything. I can do little myself. A
Naval Volunteer who fought through the action in a turret,
looking after a pair of big guns, could not himself see anything
outside his thick steel walls. Go ahead at once, do knots, and
the fighting Navy will remember you in its prayers.’

The attention of others in the group had been drawn to the reader
and his letter, and when Lieutenant Caesar stopped, flushed and out
of breath, there came a chorus of approving laughter.
 ‘This temporary gentleman is quite a literary character,’ said a two-
ring Lieutenant who had been in an exposed spotting top throughout
the whole action, ‘but we’ve made a Navy man of him since he
joined. That’s a dashed good letter, and I hope you sent it.’
‘No,’ said Caesar. ‘While I was hesitating, wondering whether I
would risk the lightning of the Higher Powers, a possible court
martial, and the loss of my insecure wavy rings, the business was
taken out of my hands by this same man to whom I was wanting to
write. He got moving on his own account, and now, though the battle
is only ten days old, the country knows the rights of what we did.
When it comes to describing the battle itself, I make way for my
betters. For what could I see? On the afternoon of May 31, we were
doing gun drill in my turret. Suddenly came an order to put lyddite
into the guns and follow the Control. During the next two hours as
the battle developed we saw nothing. We were just parts of a big
human machine intent upon working our own little bit with faultless
accuracy. There was no leisure to think of anything but the job in
hand. From beginning to end I had no suggestion of a thrill, for a
naval action in a turret is just gun drill glorified, as I suppose it is
meant to be. The enemy is not seen; even the explosions of the
guns are scarcely heard. I never took my ear-protectors from their
case in my pocket. All is quiet, organised labour, sometimes very
hard labour when for any reason one has to hoist the great shells by
the hand purchase. It is extraordinary to think that I got fifty times
more actual excitement out of a squadron regatta months ago than
out of the greatest battle in naval history.’
‘That’s quite true,’ said the Spotting Officer, ‘and quite to be
expected. Battleship fighting is not thrilling except for the very few.
For nine-tenths of the officers and men it is a quiet, almost dull
routine of exact duties. For some of us up in exposed positions in the
spotting tops or on the signal bridge, with big shells banging on the
armour or bursting alongside in the sea, it becomes mighty wetting
and very prayerful. For the still fewer, the real fighters of the ship in
the conning tower, it must be absorbingly interesting. But for the true
blazing rapture of battle one has to go to the destroyers. In a
battleship one lives like a gentleman until one is dead, and takes the
deuce of a lot of killing. In a destroyer one lives rather like a pig, and
one dies with extraordinary suddenness. Yet the destroyer officers
and men have their reward in a battle, for then they drink deep of the
wine of life. I would sooner any day take the risks of destroyer work,
tremendous though they are, just for the fun which one gets out of it.
It was great to see our boys round up Fritz’s little lot. While you were
in your turret, and the Sub. yonder in control of a side battery, Fritz
massed his destroyers like Prussian infantry and tried to rush up
close so as to strafe us with the torpedo. Before they could get fairly
going, our destroyers dashed at them, broke up their masses,
buffeted and hustled them about exactly like a pack of wolves
worrying sheep, and with exactly the same result. Fritz’s destroyers
either clustered together like sheep or scattered flying to the four
winds. It was just the same with the light cruisers as with the
destroyers. Fritz could not stand against us for a moment, and could
not get away, for we had the heels of him and the guns of him. There
was a deadly slaughter of destroyers and light cruisers going on
while we were firing our heavy stuff over their heads. Even if we had
sunk no battle cruisers or battleships, the German High Seas Fleet
would have been crippled for months by the destruction of its
indispensable “cavalry screen.”’
As the Spotting Officer spoke, a Lieutenant-Commander holed out
on the last jungle with a mashie—no one uses a putter on the Grand
Fleet’s private golf course—and approached our group, who, while
they talked, were busy over a picnic lunch.
‘If you pigs haven’t finished all the bully beef and hard tack,’ said
he, ‘perhaps you can spare a bite for one of the blooming ’eroes of
the X Destroyer Flotilla.’ The speaker was about twenty-seven, in
rude health, and bore no sign of the nerve-racking strain through
which he had passed for eighteen long-drawn hours. The young
Navy is as unconscious of nerves as it is of indigestion. The
Lieutenant-Commander, his hunger satisfied, lighted a pipe and
joined in the talk.
‘It was hot work,’ said he, ‘but great sport. We went in sixteen and
came out a round dozen. If Fritz had known his business, I ought to
be dead. He can shoot very well till he hears the shells screaming
past his ears, and then his nerves go. Funny thing how wrong we’ve
been about him. He is smart to look at, fights well in a crowd, but
cracks when he has to act on his own without orders. When we
charged his destroyers and ran right in he just crumpled to bits. We
had a batch of him nicely herded up, and were laying him out in
detail with guns and mouldies, when there came along a beastly
intrusive Control Officer on a battle cruiser and took him out of our
mouths. It was a sweet shot, though. Someone—I don’t know his
name, or he would hear of his deuced interference from me—
plumped a salvo of twelve-inch common shell right into the brown of
Fritz’s huddled batch. Two or three of his destroyers went aloft in
scrap-iron, and half a dozen others were disabled. After the first hour
his destroyers and light cruisers ceased to be on the stage; they had
flown quadrivious—there’s an ormolu word for our classical volunteer
—and we could have a whack at the big ships. Later, at night, it was
fine. We ran right in upon Fritz’s after-guard of sound battleships and
rattled them most tremendous. He let fly at us with every bally gun
he had, from four-inch to fourteen, and we were a very pretty mark
under his searchlights. We ought to have been all laid out, but our
loss was astonishingly small, and we strafed two of his heavy ships.
Most of his shots went over us.’
‘Yes,’ called out the Spotting Officer, ‘yes, they did, and ricochetted
all round us in the Queen Elizabeths. There was the devil of a row.
The firing in the main action was nothing to it. All the while you were
charging, and our guns were masked for fear of hitting you, Fritz’s
bonbons were screaming over our upper works and making us say
our prayers out loud in the Spotting Tops. You’d have thought we
were at church. I was in the devil of a funk, and could hear my teeth
rattling. It is when one is fired on and can’t hit back that one thinks of
one’s latter end.’
‘Did any of you see the Queen Mary go?’ asked a tall thin man
with the three rings of a Commander. ‘Our little lot saw nothing of the
first part of the battle; we were with the K.G. Fives and Orions.’
‘I saw her,’ spoke a Gunnery Lieutenant, a small, quiet man with
dreamy, introspective eyes—the eyes of a poet turned gunner. ‘I saw
her. She was hit forward, and went in five seconds. You all know
how. It was a thing which won’t bear talking about. The Invincible
took a long time to sink, and was still floating bottom up when
Jellicoe’s little lot came in to feed after we and the Salt of the Earth
had eaten up most of the dinner. I don’t believe that half the Grand
Fleet fired a shot.’
There came a savage growl from officers of the main Battle
Squadrons, who, invited to a choice banquet, had seen it all cleared
away before their arrival. ‘That’s all very well,’ grumbled one of them;
‘the four Q.E.s are getting a bit above themselves because they had
the luck of the fair. They didn’t fight the High Seas Fleet by their
haughty selves because they wanted to, you bet.’
The Gunnery Lieutenant with the dreamy eyes smiled. ‘We
certainly shouldn’t have chosen that day to fight them on. But if the
Queen Elizabeth herself had been with us, and we had had full
visibility—with the horizon a hard dark line—we would have willingly
taken on all Fritz’s twelve-inch Dreadnoughts and thrown in his battle
cruisers.’
‘That’s the worst of it,’ grumbled the Commander, very sore still at
having tasted only of the skim milk of the battle; ‘naval war is now
only a matter of machines. The men don’t count as they did in
Nelson’s day.’
‘Excuse me, sir,’ remarked the Sub-Lieutenant; ‘may I say a word
or two about that? I have been thinking it out.’
There came a general laugh. The Sub-Lieutenant, twenty years of
age, small and dark and with the bright black eyes of his mother—a
pretty little lady from the Midi de la France whom his father had met
and married in Paris—did not look like a philosopher, but he had the
clear-thinking, logical mind of his mother’s people.
‘Think aloud, my son,’ said the Commander. ‘As a living
incarnation of l’Entente Cordiale, you are privileged above those
others of the gun-room.’
The light in the Sub’s eyes seemed to die out as his gaze turned
inwards. He spoke slowly, carefully, sometimes injecting a word from
his mother’s tongue which could better express his meaning. He
looked all the while towards the sea, and seemed scarcely to be
conscious of an audience of seniors. His last few sentences were
spoken wholly in French.
‘No—naval war is a war of men, as it always was and always will
be. For what are the machines but the material expression of the
souls of the men? Our ships are better and faster than the German
ships, our guns heavier and more accurate than theirs, our gunners
more deadly than their gunners, because our Navy has the greater
human soul. The Royal Navy is not a collection of lifeless ships and
guns imposed upon men by some external power as the Kaiser
sought to impose a fleet upon the Germans, a nation of landsmen.
The Navy is only a matter of machines in so far as human beings
can only achieve material ends by material means. I look upon the
ships and guns as secreted by the men just as a tortoise secretes its
shell. They are the products of naval thought, and naval brains, and,
above all, of that ever-expanding naval soul (l’esprit) which has been
growing for a thousand years. Our ships yonder are materially new,
the products almost of yesterday, but really they are old, centuries
old; they are the expression of a naval soul working, fermenting,
always growing through the centuries, always seeking to express
itself in machinery. Naval war is an art, the art of men, and where in
the world will one find men like ours, officers like ours? Have you
ever thought whence come those qualities which one sees glowing
every day in our men, from the highest Admiral to the smallest ship
boy—have you ever thought whence they come?’
He paused, still looking out to sea. His companions, all of them his
superiors in rank and experience, stared at him in astonishment, and
one or two laughed. But the Commander signalled for silence. ‘Et
après,’ he asked quietly; ‘d’où viennent ces qualités?’ Unconsciously
he had sloughed the current naval slang and spoke in the native
language of the Sub.
The effect was not what he had expected. At the sound of the
Commander’s voice speaking in French the Sub-Lieutenant woke
up, flushed, and instantly reverted to his English self. ‘I am sorry, sir.
I got speaking French, in which I always think, and when I talk
French I talk the most frightful rot.’
 ‘I am not so sure that it was rot. Your theory seems to be that we
are, in the naval sense, the heirs of the ages, and that no nation that
has not been through our centuries-old mill can hope to stand
against us. I hope that you are right. It is a comforting theory.’
‘But isn’t that what we all think, sir, though we may not put it quite
that way? Most of us know that our officers and men are of
unapproachable stuff in body and mind, but we don’t seek for a
reason. We accept it as an axiom. I’ve tried to reason the thing out
because I’m half French; and also because I’ve been brought up
among dogs and horses and believe thoroughly in heredity. It’s all a
matter of breeding.’
‘The Sub’s right,’ broke in the Gunnery Lieutenant with the poet’s
eyes; ‘though a Sub who six months ago was a snotty has no
business to think of anything outside his duty. The Service would go
to the devil if the gun-room began to talk psychology. We excuse it in
this Sub here for the sake of the Entente Cordiale, of which he is the
living embodiment; but had any other jawed at us in that style I would
have sat upon his head. Of course he is right, though it isn’t our
English way to see through things and define them as the French do.
No race on earth can touch us for horses or dogs or prize cattle—or
Navy men. It takes centuries to breed the boys who ran submarines
through the Dardanelles and the Sound and stayed out in narrow
enemy waters for weeks together. Brains and nerves and sea skill
can’t be made to order even by a German Kaiser. Navy men should
marry young and choose their women from sea families, and then
their kids won’t need to be taught. They’ll have the secret of the
Service in their blood.’
‘That’s all very fine,’ observed a Marine Lieutenant reflectively; ‘but
who is going to pay for it all? We can’t. I get 7s. 6d. a day, and shall
have 11s. in a year or two; it sounds handsome, but would hardly run
to a family. Few in the Navy have any private money, so how can we
marry early?’
‘Of course we can’t as things go now,’ said the Gunnery
Lieutenant. ‘But some day even the Admiralty will discover that the
English Navy will become a mere list of useless machines unless the
English naval families can be kept up on the lower deck as well as in
the ward-room and gun-room. Why, look at the names of our
submarine officers whenever they get into the papers for honours.
They are always salt of the sea, names which have been in the Navy
List ever since there was a List. You may read the same names in
the Trafalgar roll and back to the Dutch wars. Most of us were
Pongos before that—shore Pongos who went afloat with Blake or
Prince Rupert—but then we became sailors, and so remained, father
to son. I can only go back myself to the Glorious First of June, but
some of us here in the Grand Fleet date from the Stuarts at least. It
is jolly fine to be of Navy blood, but not all plum jam. One has such a
devil of a record to live up to. In my term at Dartmouth there was a
poor little beast called Francis Drake—a real Devon Drake, a
genuine antique—but what a load of a name to carry! Thank God,
my humble name doesn’t shine out of the history books. And as with
the officers, so with the seamen. Half of them come from my own
county of Devon—the cradle of the Navy. They are in the direct line
from Drake’s buccaneers. Most of the others come from the ancient
maritime counties of the Channel seaboard, where the blood of
everyone tingles with Navy salt. The Germans can build ships which
are more or less accurate copies of our own, but they can’t breed the
men. That is the whole secret.’
The Lieutenant-Commander, whose war-scarred destroyer lay
below refitting, laughed gently. ‘There is a lot in all that, more than
we often realise when we grumble at the cursed obstinacy of our old
ratings, but even you do not go back far enough. It is the old blood of
the Vikings and sea-pirates in us English which makes us turn to the
sea; the rest is training. In no other way can you explain the success
of the Fringes, the mine-sweepers, and patrols, most of them
manned by naval volunteers who, before the war, had never served
under the White Ensign nor seen a shot fired. What is our classical
scholar here, Caesar, but a naval volunteer whom Whale Island and
natural intelligence have turned into a gunner? But as regards the
regular Navy, the Navy of the Grand Fleet, you are right. Pick your
boys from the sea families, catch them young, pump them full to the
teeth with the Navy Spirit—l’esprit marine of our bi-lingual Sub here
—make them drunk with it. Then they are all right. But they must
never be allowed to think of a darned thing except of the job in hand.
The Navy has no use for men who seek to peer into their own souls.
They might do it in action and discover blue funk. We want them to
be no more conscious of their souls than of their livers. Though I
admit that it is devilish difficult to forget one’s liver when one has
been cooped up in a destroyer for a week. It is not nerve that Fritz
lacks so much as a kindly obedient liver. He is an iron-gutted swine,
and that is partly why he can’t run destroyers and submarines
against us. The German liver is a thing to wonder at. Do you know—’
but here the Lieutenant-Commander became too Rabelaisian for my
delicate pen.
The group had thinned out during this exercise in naval analysis.
Several of the officers had resumed their heart-and-club-breaking
struggle with the villainous golf course, but the Sub, the volunteer
Lieutenant, and the Pongo (Marine) still sat at the feet of their
seniors. ‘May I say how the Navy strikes an outsider like me?’ asked
Caesar diffidently. Whale Island, which had forgotten all other Latin
authors, had given him the name as appropriate to one of his
learning.
‘Go ahead,’ said the Commander generously. ‘All this stuff is
useful enough for a volunteer; without the Pongos and the
Volunteers to swallow our tall stories, the Navy would fail of an
audience. The snotties know too much.’
‘I was going to speak of the snotties,’ said Caesar, ‘who seem to
me to be even more typical of the Service than the senior officers.
They have all its qualities emphasised, almost comically
exaggerated. I do not know whether they are never young or that
they never grow old, but there is no essential difference in age and in
knowledge between a snotty six months out of cadet training and a
Commander of six years’ standing. They rag after dinner with equal
zest, and seem to be equally well versed in the profound technical
details of their sea work. Perhaps it is that they are born full of
knowledge. The snotties interest me beyond every type that I have
met. Their manners are perfect and in startling contrast with those of
the average public school boy of fifteen or sixteen—even in College
at Winchester—and they combine their real irresponsible
youthfulness with a grave mask of professional learning which is
delightful to look upon. I have before me the vision of a child of
fifteen with tousled yellow hair and a face as glum as a sea-boot,
sitting opposite to me in the machine which took us back one day to
the boat, smoking a “fag” with the clumsiness which betrayed his
lack of practice, in between bites of “goo” (in this instance Turkish
Delight), of which I had seen him consume a pound. He looked
about ten years old, and in a husky, congested voice, due to the
continual absorption of sticky food, he described minutely to me the
method of conning a battleship in manœuvres and the correct
amount to allow for the inertia of the ship when the helm is centred;
he also explained the tactical handling of a squadron during sub-
calibre firing. That snotty was a sheer joy, and the Navy is full of him.
He’s gone himself, poor little chap—blown to bits by a shell which
penetrated the deck.’
‘In time, Caesar,’ said the Commander, ‘by strict attention to duty
you will become a Navy man. But we have talked enough of deep
mysteries. It was that confounded Sub, with his French imagination,
who started us. What I really wish someone would tell me is this:
what was the “northern enterprise” that Fritz was on when we
chipped in and spoilt his little game?’
‘It does not matter,’ said the Gunnery Lieutenant. ‘We spoilt it,
anyhow. The dear old newspapers talk of his losses in big ships as if
they were all that counted. What has really crippled him has been
the wiping out of his destroyers and fast new cruisers. Without them
he is helpless. It was a great battle, much more decisive than most
people think, even in the Grand Fleet itself. It was as decisive by sea
as the Marne was by land. We have destroyed Fritz’s mobility.’
The men rose and looked out over the bay. There below them lay
their sea homes, serene, invulnerable, and about them stretched the
dull, dour, treeless landscape of their northern fastness. Their minds
were as peaceful as the scene. As they looked a bright light from the
compass platform of one of the battleships began to flicker through
the sunshine—dash, dot, dot, dash. ‘There goes a signal,’ said the
Commander. ‘You are great at Morse, Pongo. Read what it says, my
son.’
 The Lieutenant of Marines watched the flashes, and as he read
grinned capaciously. ‘It is some wag with a signal lantern.’ said he. ‘It
reads: Question—Daddy,—what—did—you—do—in—the—Great—
War?’
‘I wonder,’ observed the Sub-Lieutenant, ‘what new answer the
lower deck has found to that question. Before the battle their reply
was: “I was kept doubling round the decks, sonny.”’
‘There goes the signal again,’ said the Pongo; ‘and here comes
the answer.’ He read it out slowly as it flashed word after word: ‘“I
laid the guns true, sonny.”’
‘And a dashed good answer, too,’ cried the Commander heartily.
‘That would make a grand fleet signal before a general action,’
remarked the Gunnery Lieutenant. ‘I don’t care much for Nelson’s
Trafalgar signal. It was too high-flown and sentimental for the lower
deck. It was aimed at the history books, rather than at old tarry-
breeks of the fleet a hundred years ago. No—there could not be a
better signal than just “Lay the Guns True”—carry out your orders
precisely, intelligently, faultlessly. What do you say, my Hun of a
classical volunteer?’
‘It could not be bettered,’ said Caesar.
‘I will make a note of it,’ said the Gunnery Lieutenant, ‘against the
day when, as a future Jellicoe, I myself shall lead a new Grand Fleet
into action.’
 L’ILE NANCE.
by rowland cragg.
Nance was a tomboy, or whatever may be the equivalent of this
type in the doggy world, and she looked it. An ungainly body, clad in
a rough coat of silver and grey on a foundation of brown, carried a
head that appeared ill-shaped because of the unusual width of skull.
Over her forehead continually straggled a tangle of hairs that mixed
with others growing stiffly above her snout, and through this cover
were to be seen two pearly eyes that were wondrously bright and
intelligent. She had a trick, too, of tossing her head in a manner
suggestive of nothing so much as a girl throwing back the curls from
face and shoulders, and it seemed to emphasise the tomboy in
Nance. But she had sterling qualities, of which her broad skull and
quick eyes gave more than a hint. If ungainly, her little body was
untiring and as supple as a whiplash, and her legs were as finely
tempered steel springs. She had, too, a rare turn of speed, and it
was the combination of these gifts with her remarkable intelligence
that in later days made her the most noted dog in Craven.
Her puppyhood was unpromising. Indeed, for one born on a farm,
where is lack neither of shelter nor food, her earliest hours were
doubly perilous, for, in addition to the prospect of a watery grave in a
bucket, her existence, and that of the whole litter, was threatened by
negligent nursing. Fate had given the little family a mother not only
herself young, but of all dogs that ever worked on a farm the most
irresponsible. It was quite in keeping with her reputation that Lucy
should bring her children to birth in the exposed hollow trunk of a
tree and then forget the blind, sprawling, whimpering puppies for
hours together. It was going hard with the weaklings when fate again
took a hand in their welfare, this time in the person of young Zub.
It had become evident to the farm folk, to whom matters of birth
and reproduction are commonplaces of daily life, that Lucy’s new
duties had come upon her, and it was plainly evident, too, before the
third day had run, that she was neglecting them. It was then that
young Zub, or Zubdil, as he was indifferently called, either name
serving to distinguish him from Owd Zub, his father, actively bestirred
himself. Hitherto he had done no more than keep his eyes and ears
open as he moved about the farm buildings, but neither soft whimper
nor the sound of tender noses nuzzling against a warm body had
rewarded him. His first deliberate efforts were to watch Lucy’s
comings and goings, in the hope of tracing her hiding-place. But the
mother dog, a poacher at heart and with all a four-footed poacher’s
cunning, had easily beaten him at this game. When he recognised
this, angry at the thought that somewhere a small family was
suffering, he soundly cuffed her about the ears in the hope that she
would bolt for her hiding-place and her blind charges. But the
graceless one, howling, raced no further than to her kennel, and
from its depths kept one watchful eye open for further developments.
‘Drat thee,’ cried Zubdil, as his experiment went wrong, ‘but I’ll find
’em yet.’ He turned and slowly entered the kitchen, where Owd Zub
was quietly chuckling to himself.
‘Shoo’s bested thee, reight an’ all, this time,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t thy
books tell thee owt?’
It was a thrust he was fond of making. Zubdil’s strongly developed
taste for reading was something beyond the old farmer’s
understanding. He would have given but occasional heed to it had
not the younger man taken up works on scientific farming and
breeding, and also studied these subjects in a course of postal
lessons with the Agricultural Department at the Northern University.
New ideas thus acquired often clashed with the father’s ingrained
conservative methods, and they left him sore. A chance to get in a
sly dig at this ‘book larning’ was too good to be missed. He chuckled
again as he asked the question.
The younger man laughed. He was broadening in more ways than
one, and he bore no malice. ‘Happen they do,’ he said. ‘Yo just
watch, fayther, an’ happen yo’ll leearn summat.’
 He reached up to the blackened oak beam that spanned the
ceiling, took down his gun, and strolled casually out across the yard.
In a moment Lucy had tumultuously burst out of the kennel and was
dancing about him, all animation and keenness. Graceless she might
be, and lacking in the discharge of her mothering duties, but heart
and soul she was a lover of sport. At the sight of the gun she was in
transports. Unheeding her, young Zub passed on through the gate.
Wriggling through ere it closed, Lucy was after him and away in front
of him like a streak, making river-wards. There, as well she knew,
were the plumpest rabbits. When the old dalesman, his curiosity
whetted, reached a point where he could see without being seen, the
two were ranging the low field where runs the Wharfe. Steadily they
passed along through Dub End and into Lang Pasture, the gun still
hooked in the curl of the man’s arm, then as they came through the
field gate together into the High Garth Lucy’s tail suddenly drooped.
She hesitated, turned about in indecision, and finally, disregarding
the sharp whistle calling her to heel, slid off up the hill under the wall-
side and vanished by the riven oak.
‘Dang it,’ said Owd Zub, greatly interested, and understanding, ‘I
owt to ha’ knawn shoo’d ha’ gooan to ’em if they came owt near ’em.’
By the time he arrived on the spot, and he walked across the field
with a great show of carelessness, Zubdil had the whimpering
youngsters on the grass and was examining them. Couched near by,
her tail going in great pride, Lucy was mothering each one as it was
laid down again.
‘They’re a poor lot,’ said the elder man, eyeing them critically, and
discreetly making no reference to the finding of them; ‘put ’em ivvery
one i’ t’ pail.’
Zubdil did not reply immediately. He was watching one puppy,
more vigorous than any of the rest, trying to prop itself up on its
forelegs. Its sightless eyes were turned towards him, its tiny nostrils
were working, and there was a decided quiver—it was an immature
wagging—in its wisp of a tail. He picked it up again. A tiny patch of
red slid out and licked his hand, and there were faint noises that
brought Lucy’s ears to the prick. Zubdil laughed.
 ‘Sitha for pluck, fayther,’ he cried. ‘This is best o’ t’ lot. I’se keeping
this for mysen.’
‘Thou’ll drown t’ lot,’ said his father, sharply. ‘We’ve dogs enough
on t’ farm. Besides, they’re hawf deead.’
They are sparing of speech, these Craven dalesmen, but their
words are ever to the point. They have also a stiff measure of
obstinacy in their constitution, as have all men whose forebears for
generations have lived and died amid the everlasting hills. Obstinacy
now showed in the younger man. He put the youngster down beside
the mother dog, gathered up the others into a bag that he took from
his capacious pocket, and rose. Lucy was up in an instant, ears
cocked. Zubdil checked her sternly.
‘Lig thee theer,’ he ordered, and she resumed her nursing under
constraint. Young Zub turned to the elder.
‘I’se keeping it,’ he announced, briefly.
The other knew that tone, and gave in. ‘Well,’ grudgingly, ‘I’se
heving nowt to do wi’ it, then. An’ if theer’s another licence to get, tha
pays for it thysen.’
So the pup was spared, and she flourished and grew apace.
Nance, he called her, after one from a neighbouring farm, thoughts
of whom had been occupying his mind a good deal of late. He
ventured to tell her what he had done when one evening, by chance
that had been occurring frequently of late, he met her by the old
bridge. The girl reddened with pleasure at the implied compliment,
giggled a little, and gave him a playful nudge with her elbow. It was a
nudge that would have upset many a city-bred man. ‘Thou’s a silly
fond fellow,’ she said, but there was no reproach in her words.
Rather was it that in turn he was pleased. It was a little incident that
marked a distinct advance in their relations.
It was also an incident that led young Zub to take more interest in
the dog’s welfare than otherwise he might have done. Dimly floating
at the back of his mind, tinged with romance, was the idea that the
four-footed Nance ought to be worthy of the name she bore. It led
him to take her education in hand seriously, and to the task he
brought all his fieldcraft, his native shrewdness, and his great
patience. He began early, when she was not yet half grown and still
a playful puppy; but, early as he was, someone was before him.
Whatever her demerits as a mother, Lucy excelled in woodcraft and
the art of the chase. She had the soul of an artist for it, which was
perhaps why, as an ordinary working farm dog, she was an
indifferent success. And what she knew she taught her daughter,
taking the young one with her as soon as Nance was strong enough
to stand these excursions. Their favourite time was dawn of day, and
their hunting-ground the woods that mantled the breast of the moors
high above the farm, or the sandy stretches along Wharfe side,
where fat rabbits were abundant. Nance was an apt pupil. She
learned to stalk, to obliterate herself behind seemingly inadequate
cover, to crawl almost without action visible to the eye, and her
instinct for choosing the moment for the final fatal rush was not
bettered even in the older dog.
Thus it happened that when Zubdil took up her training the ground
had been prepared for him better than ever he knew. Yet he began
his task opportunely, for Nance was at the parting of the ways. Lucy
was a clever dog, but her best and finest qualities, neglected through
want of recognition, had deteriorated until she was now no more
than a cunning hunter. The little dog—l’ile Nance she was to
everybody—inherited all her mother’s cleverness, and, happily for
her, Zubdil took her in hand while yet she was in her plastic,
impressionable days. He made her his constant companion. If he
went no further than the length of the field to fasten up the chickens
safe from the predatory fox, he called her to accompany him. If he
went on to the moor, or to the village, or to a neighbouring farm, she
was with him. And she was taught to do strange things. Sometimes
she was sent chasing round a field and brought back to heel in
zigzag tracings. At other times she was bidden to crouch by a gate
and to stir not at all until his return. Sometimes she was sent ahead
at full gallop and then made to stop dead and lie prone, when he
would overtake and pass her, man and dog alike apparently
unconscious of each other’s presence, save for the way in which
those pearly eyes of hers watched his every movement.
 It was all done with no more language than can be conveyed in a
whistle. But expressive! With his ash stick tucked under one arm
Zubdil would thrust the better part, as it seemed, of both hands into
his mouth, whence would proceed now a single piercing call, now a
prolonged high-pitched note, now a series of staccato commands,
and ever and again fluty modulations as if a blackbird had joined in
the business. And every note had a definite meaning. It was a great
game for Nance, who at these times was nothing more than two
bright eyes and a pair of ever-working ears. She strove to please
and worked hard, and when it dawned upon the deliberately moving
mind of the young dalesman that he had a dog of unusual parts it
stimulated him to greater efforts. It also stimulated him to secrecy,
though why he could not have explained.
He gave her experience in the rounding-up of the half-wild, hardy,
half-bred sheep on the moorlands, and here she learned to work
dumbly, without yielding to the temptation to nip the flying legs of the
nervous fleeces. It was on these uplands, too, that he received his
first meed of praise, and it fired the smouldering pride in his heart
and lifted him out of the ordinary workaday rut. For it gave him an
idea. It was dipping-time, when the moors had to be thoroughly
scoured for the sheep, and from a dozen farms in the dale below
men had gathered together to co-operate in the work. With them
came their dogs; dogs that barked and fought, dogs that raced hither
and thither irresolutely trying to obey the many and confusing
whistlings, doing their best to please all and giving satisfaction to
none. Young Zub stood on a knoll a little apart, and at his bidding a
silver and grey-brown form flashed among the bracken and the ling,
sometimes buried from sight, at times only the tips of pricked ears
visible, but always making a wider and further stretching circle than
the others. And wherever Nance ranged sheep came into view and
were deftly piloted to the common gathering-ground.
It was Long Abram who first recognised what she was doing.
‘That theer young dog o’ thy lad’s is doing weel,’ he said, turning to
Owd Zub. ‘It’ll mak a rare ’un i’ time.’