Timber Operations Research Articles

Public policies and the misuse of forest resources

Six contributors explore the role of governments in accelerating the rate of forest destruction by providing direct and indirect subsidies to support what would otherwise be non-commercial logging operations. Without these financial incentives, most timber operations in the tropics would cease. In a series of country-by-country investigations, including examples from the developed and developing worlds, this book documents the government policies that are leading to the misuse of forest resources. Each is written by an authority on the county, and each contains descriptive, analytical and empirical material on key policies and their effects. The final country analysis focuses on the United States, where the consequences of the subsidized timber sales by the US Forest Service from most of the national forests are discussed. The book concludes with an overview of the impact of forest policies and the role of bilateral and multilateral agencies in their formulation. By directing attention toward the political dimension involved in forest clearance, this book will provide a clearer insight into the basic reasons why forests continue to be destroyed despite the outcry raised by conservationists.

Species richness and endemism in the Usambara mountain forests, Tanzania

The East Usambara Mountain forests constitute what is probably one of the richest biological communities in Africa in terms of plant and animal species numbers and endemic taxa. This review presents brief accounts of the flora and of three invertebrate and four vertebrate groups and shows the percentage endemic taxa to vary from 2% (mammals) to 95% (millipedes) as a proportion of the true forest species. Notes are given on the geology, soils, climate and present land use of the Usambaras. Biological richness is considered to be due to long periods of isolation and geological stability coupled with periods of species immigration during times of re-establishment of a continuous forest cover. The nature of the endemic elements is briefly discussed. Evidence is given to show that the forests are subject to increasing pressure from legal and illegal encroachment due to agriculture (tea, cardamon, subsistence) and forestry timber operations. Air photograph analysis shows a forest decrease of some 50% in the vicinity of Amani from 1954 to 1976. The low conservation status of most forest reserves and the lack of detailed knowledge on the distribution, status and biology of the endemic species means present conservation efforts are poor and haphazard. This review calls for greatly increased research inputs and a complete halt to all exploitation of natural forest areas until a long term conservation land use plan can be implemented.

Lichens of Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota

Over 8000 lichens representing 405 taxa were collected at 128 dif- ferent localities during 11 weeks collecting in the park in 1978 and 1979. Several areas of special interest to the lichen flora are noted. Eighty-eight new state records were found within these collections and all but eight of the species collected by Bruce Fink in 1901 were recollected. Three new records for North America were identified: Arthonia fuliginosa (Turn. & Borr.) Flot., Chaenothecopsis savonica (Riis.) Tibell, Lecidea epixanthoidiza Nyl. Lichens for winter food for caribou would probably not be a limiting factor in the success of any reintroduction of woodland caribou to the park. The scarcity of Xanthoria elegans was studied and is probably due to lack of wave splash. The lichen flora is rich in fruticose lichens, which suggests that no air pollution is present. The lichens of Minnesota have not been studied much since Bruce Fink's work near the turn of the century (Wetmore 1978). A few lichenologists have visited the state recently but little new information on the lichens has been published since Fink's Lichens of Minnesota (Fink 1910). For the past ten years I have collected in many areas not visited by Fink, and have revised the lichens in the University of Minnesota herbarium as part of several lichen projects within the state. As a result, numerous new records have turned up and about 85% of the names in Fink's 1910 paper have been changed. One of the most extensive studies done was this lichen flora of Voyageurs National Park. Voyageurs National Park lies along the northern border of Minnesota adjacent to Can- ada and extends for 32 miles along the boundary just east of International Falls. The park was officially established in 1975 and development of the park is still underway. The vegetation of the park is typical southern boreal forest. Most of the park has been logged and burned at least once beginning about 1910 but a few small areas remain that were never cut. A large part of the park has regrown to quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) and white birch (Betula papyrifera Marsh.), especially in places with deeper more moist soil. Dry rock outcrops occur frequently and are surrounded by jack pine. (Pinus banksiana Lamb) (Fig. 1-2). Jack pines are also common on ridgetops and areas with thin, dry soil and in a few of these areas stunted red oak (Quercus rubra L.) is found in open stands. A mixture of red pine (Pinus resinosa Ait.) and white pine (Pinus strobus L.) grow in some localities but large old trees are found only in buffer zones along a few of the large lakes and in a few places not logged during the most recent timber operations. Moist hillsides may have black spruce (Picea mariana (P. Mill.) B.S.P.) with or without balsam fir (Abies balsamea (L.) P. Mill.), but, due to logging, fires and insect damage, there are no large stands of balsam fir. There are many islands and bays and the lowland bay heads and valleys have stands of eastern white cedar (Thuja occidentalis L.) or black ash (Frax- inus nigra Marsh.) but most of these have also been logged. Black spruce bogs and beaver ponds are frequent in depressions but tamarack (Larix laricina (DuRoi) K. Koch.) is rare.

The End of Indian Kansas: a Study of Cultural Revolution, 1854-1871

When Kansas became a U.S. territory in 1854 literally all of its land area was guaranteed by treaty to Indians. More than 10,000 Kickapoos, Delawares, Sacs, Foxes, Shawnees, Potawatomis, Kansas, Ottawas, Wyandots, and Osages, not to mention a number of smaller tribes, inhabited Kansas. By 1875 there were only a couple of bands left. forced removal of thousands of Indians from eastern Kansas between 1854 and 1871 affected more Indians and occupied more government time than the celebrated exploits of the military against the more warlike western tribes. In this volume Miner and Unrau show Kansas at mid-century to be a moral testing ground where the drama of disinheritance was played out. They relate how railroad men, land speculators, and timber operations came to be firmly entrenched on land in territorial Kansas. They examine remarkable incongruities in policy, land policy, law, and administration, pointing to specific cases in which legal maneuvers by the federal government within the framework of treaties, statutes, and executive pronouncements helped to insure the pattern of tribal destruction. Separate chapters deal with internal factionalism in the tribes, the practice of government chief-making, and the Indian Ring the sub rosa alliances influencing the treaty or sale process. authors also include revealing portraits of the individuals, from territorial governors to railroad officials, who helped engineer the end of Kansas. The reader's perception of those brave, hard-working sod-house settlers may never be the same after reading this book. American West.

Early Timber Operations in Southeast Arkansas

Early Timber Operations in Southeast Arkansas

Collective bargaining for medical care benefits: a recent development in the U.S.A.

Collective bargaining between trade unions and employers for health and welfare benefits has been perhaps the most striking recent development in the organization of medical service in the United States of America. The sudden burgeoning of plans resulting from such activity has out-distanced studies of them. However, it is known that by mid-1950 more than 7-6 million workers in practi cally every major trade union and a large number of their dependents were covered to a greater or less degree by such plans (Rowe, 1951; Brannon and Breher, 1951). A decade ago the number had been in the thousands. Industrial medical care plans of many types and of diverse quality had an early origin in the United States, (Klem, McKiever, and Lear, 1950; Williams (1951). The Federal Marine Hospital Service (1789), which was created by a check-off from the wages of merchant seamen, followed the earlier English pattern of providing medical care for coal-heavers on the Thames. As this part of the western hemisphere was developed, mining and timber operations, railways, and other new industries starting in virgin soil found it necessary to provide some type of medical care through a wide variety of patterns to meet their diverse needs. Usually the unorganized workers had little or no voice in either the form or the pattern of these services, yet they paid the bills in one way or another. But formal trade union collective bargaining for medical care benefits has been almost entirely a development of the last decade. By 1949 they had become the primary issue on the collective bargaining agenda for many unions, particu larly those in the basic industries (Becker, 1951). The bitter strikes in the steel and coal industries in 1949 revolved largely around that issue. By 1953, practically all the members of large trade unions had at least partial indemnity for hospital and surgical expenses, all through some such agreement. The currently developing labour-employer agree ments on health and welfare benefits interact with all other trends in the field of health and welfare, and can be expected to modify future governmental medical programmes. (This point is elaborated below.) The development has been so sudden that even the keen-sighted and intensive review, American Medical Services, published in this Journal 5 years ago makes no mention of it (McKeown, 1948).

Carrying Capacity of Timber Operations for Sustained Yield

Carrying Capacity of Timber Operations for Sustained Yield