OPPORTUNITIES FOR AMERICAN FORESTERS IN THE 

 TROPICS 



Bv H. N. WlIITFORD 



There is an increasing demand for men trained in forestry for work 

 .of various classes in tropical countries. This outlet is a comparatively 

 new one for American foresters and is likely to become larger as 

 the years go by. It is due primarily to the fact that many tropical 

 countries are beginning to be more fully economically developed. As 

 a nation we are becoming more and more dependent on certain classes 

 of raw material from other countries. This applies in general to kinds 

 of raw material found both in temperate and tropical countries and to 

 those materials that the tropics alone can produce. In this discussion 

 we are especially interested in the raw materials of tropical forest 

 products both those that are wild and those that have become so im- 

 portant that cultural methods have become necessary to keep the supply 

 equal to the demand. To the former class lumber for general and 

 special purposes belongs, to the latter class forest products like rubber 

 belong. 



Until recently many tropical countries, for economic reasons, have 

 not felt the necessity of utilizing their own forest resources. In some 

 cases their economic development has been so slow, the lumber they 

 needed to keep pace with it was little, or was supplied mainly by 

 imports from the highly developed lumber centers of North America. 

 Before the war practically every tropical country in the world that 

 had any industrial activity worthy of the name was importing lumber, 

 many of them more than their own poorly developed lumber industry 

 could supply. With the war the imported supply became practically 

 shut off. Not only this but the importation of many classes of raw 

 and manufactured products stopped. This stimulated local industries 

 of all kinds to meet the new situation and awakened many tropical 

 countries to the fact that they could do things they had never done 

 before. It especially stimulated the local lumber industries to great 

 activity and resulted in many countries doubling and even trebling the 

 output of lumber from their own forests. Many kinds of tropical 

 woods that were before thought to be worthless are now being utilized. 

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