PART I 

 COMMUNICATION IN SPECIALIZED FOREST PROTECTION 



CHAPTER I 



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 SPECIALIZED FOREST PROTECTION '.' 



Section 1 Specialization Defined- /A, i. '>.? **'*>''' *>*' 



As applied to forest protection, specialization involves two primary modifications 

 of old style methods. These are, on the one hand, an extensive centralization of 

 executive authority in the hands of certain field officers who are responsible for the 

 protection of certain clearly defined forest tracts and, on the other hand, a classifi- 

 cation of the duties of the field staff into certain well-defined functions and the 

 assignment of special men to the performance of these special functions. This is best 

 understood, perhaps, by comparing the actual organization of the old style 

 forest protection staff with the modern specialized staff. In the more primitive 

 of the former the staff consists of a number of district chiefs or inspectors 

 each of whom is responsible for the general supervision of the patrol staff in a certain 

 area. These inspectors are most likely permanent employees. Under each is a 

 number of patrolmen or rangers, assigned either singly or in pairs, to a certain 

 subdivision of the inspector's district, called as a rule a " beat." Each of these 

 rangers is responsible for his own beat only and within that area he performs all the 

 functions of the fire prevention staff. The district chief or inspector is required to keep 

 moving from beat to beat principally for the purpose of ensuring that the rangers are 

 in the areas assigned to them and are performing their duties. In addition, he, being 

 a permanent employee and presumably more skilled in those duties than the temporary 

 staff, can assist the latter by advice and instruction. This extremely simple form of 

 organization has, however, only one point in its favour which is that it can be 

 employed where the field staff is wholly untrained or unskilled in modern protection 

 methods while no other form can be so employed. It is, therefore, particularly adapted 

 to regions where the subordinate protection staff consists of extremely low-priced 

 labour, as in India where natives are largely employed for this work. Where our own 

 standards of wages prevail, such a system to be effective must be tremendously 

 expensive. This is as inevitable in forest protection as it is in other forms of organized 

 human activity such as manufacturing, transportation, or military affairs, from all 

 of which in the modern world this system has long since disappeared. 



'Contrasted with this method of protection are the various more or less elaborated 

 systems of specialization that have been developed by the leaders in forest protection. 

 These developments differ in no material respect from those that have taken place in 

 other large-scale activity but, owing to the nature of the work, they have followed more 

 closely the methods of organization employed in military operations rather than those 

 of most industrial activities. The most striking characteristic of a specialized staff 

 is that instead of being a constantly moving patrol, each man confined to a limited area 

 within which he performs all functions, it becomes very largely a stationary staff, 

 each member of which performs only one function but may extend his activities over 

 a large number of the old-time beats. Thus, instead of each man being individually 

 responsible for detecting fires, certain men are specially assigned to this work and 

 are located permanently on prominent lookout peaks or towers; instead of each man 

 being responsible for putting out such fires as occur, special men, selected, equipped,. 



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