GOLD COAST REPORT ON FORESTS. 109 



cases I know of in one of our West African Colonies and Protec- 

 torates, led to great difficulties in ridding the areas of burdensome 

 rights acquired after the areas were obtained from the native 

 authorities (by lease) and declared to be reserved forests. In one 

 case the actual existence of the forest itself is very seriously 

 threatened by the large number of settlements that were allowed 

 to spring up within its boundaries. The importance of clearly 

 defining the boundaries of, and the extent and nature of any rights 

 existing within, an area that is to be permanently managed as a 

 forest estate cannot be too strongly emphasised. Failure to ensure 

 its legal status invariably results in a large crop of vague, unde- 

 fined rights that eventually overburden and destroy the dominant 

 estate. 



Reverting now to the possible methods by which such conser- 

 vancy can be ensured in our West African Colonies, it is advis- 

 able to recall the main purposes for which forests are required in 

 those regions. They are : 



1. As means for protecting and favourably altering the 

 climatic factors. 



2. For a constant and sustained yield of forest produce 

 especially with a view to satisfying future increased demands. 



3. For supplying wooded areas suitable for the exercise on 

 them of those methods of practising agriculture now in vogue 

 amongst the natives. 



The last is an almost universal use to which such areas are put 

 by not very highly civilized native tribes inhabiting the tropics. 

 It is a native custom, and however wasteful and destructive it may 

 be, as far as the forests are concerned, it should be respected till 

 such a time as the tribes have been induced to adopt more modern 

 and less wasteful systems of agriculture. The custom in West 

 Africa is something with much more defined rights of a pro- 

 prietary nature about it than the vague ownership claimed by 

 nomad tribes practising shifting cultivation in other parts of the 

 world where they return to the same area only, if ever, after a 

 very long number of years. 



On the Gold Coast and in Southern Nigeria the fellings of the 

 bush are carried out in a more or less regular rotation, the latter 

 extending over periods from three ta twelve years in duration, and 

 are sometimes confined to restricted areas, the limits of which are 

 well recognised amongst the natives themselves. Unfortunately, 

 however, there is a great tendency on the part of the inhabitants 

 of those countries to alter from time to time the sites of their vil- 

 lages, especially the smaller ones, and the result is that new 

 centres of forest areas are being constantly involved in destruc- 

 tion. It should be noted that the essence of this system is its 

 wastefulness and large extent of land required in comparison with 

 the wants of even moderately intensive cultivation. In India and 

 Burma no difficulty is experienced in practising permanent culti- 

 vation, and it is almost the universal metKbd adopted there. As a 

 general rule the only extensive patches of really old forest now 

 left in British West Africa are situated on land the ownership 

 of which has been disputed amongst the tribes, or which are in 

 places inaccessible to cultivation. 



