Canadian Aerial Forestry for Burma

Abstract

IN the Indian Forest Records (Silviculture (New Series), 4, No. 1; Govt. of India Press, New Delhi, 1940), Mr. J. D. Braithwaite of the Burma Forest Service discusses the great advance which has been made in discovering comparatively cheap methods of applying aerial survey to solve forestry problems, and considers that these methods should be applicable to Burma. Burma started before India in making use of the aeroplane in connexion with the forests, for during 1924–25 the Delta and the Heinze Basin were both surveyed from the air with good results. Mr. Braithwaite relates that immense strides have been made in Canada in air work in the last ten to twelve years—strides which were to a great extent unknown even to the United States alongside. Their chief importance is their practical nature and cheapness as compared with methods in force in England, or, to quote an example given by the author, Germany, where he remarks “the scientists have got hold of both the photographic and mapping operations to such an extent that a very expensive and highly trained staff is needed to work the very delicate and costly machinery that has been painstakingly developed”.