954 



Canadian Forestry Journal, February, 1917 



Ne^v Light on Tropical Forests 



Timber Region of Amazon Basin of South America Three 

 Times as Large as U. S. 'Forest Area. 



In announcing a new department 

 of tropical forestry, under Dr. H. N. 

 Whitford, Yale University has pro- 

 vided the following most interesting 

 discussion of opportunities awaiting 

 development in a field practically un- 

 known until very recent years. 



The recent development of tropical 

 countries has focussed the attention 

 of the world on their forest resources. 

 The question arises, have such coun- 

 tries extensive forests and if so can 

 these forests be utilized for their in- 

 dustrial development or will they have 

 to depend entirely on the forest 

 regions of Europe and North America 

 for their main timber supplies? 



Forests of the Tropics 



In North America and Europe there 

 are certain extensive forest regions 

 that at present time furnish the main 

 supplies of timber used in the world. 

 There are at least two very large 

 forest regions in the tropics. These 

 are the Amazon region of South 

 America and the Indo-Malay region 

 of Southeastern Asia and adjacent 

 islands. 



The forested region of the Amazon 

 River basin, comprising an area of 

 1,600,000 square miles is the largest 

 in the world. This is three times as 

 large as the forested area of the 

 United States and 260,000 square 

 miles larger than that of European 

 and Asiatic Russia combined. 



The forested area of Borneo, Suma- 

 tra, the Philippine Islands, the Malay 

 Peninsula and Burma is roughly es- 

 timated to be not less than 500,000 

 square miles, or nearly as large as that 

 of the United States. I 



Thus the forested area of these two 

 tropical regions alone comprises more 

 than 2,000,000 square miles. 



Some Misconceptions 



The popular conception of tropical 

 forests is that they are only capable 

 of producing woods chiefly valuable 

 for cabinet purposes, for dyes and 

 extracts, or for special uses requiring 

 extreme hardness and durability. 

 This is due to the fact that onl^^ this 

 class of material can be marketed in 

 temperate regions without competi- 

 tion with native woods and until re- 

 cently could not be marketed for 

 home consumption because of the 

 high cost of lumbering due to primi- 

 tive and expensive methods of logging 

 and milling. For example, the Philip- 

 pines formerly consumed the hard, 

 durable woods mainly, and depended 

 largely on outside sources for cheap 

 construction woods. Investigation 

 showed that the great bulk of the 

 woods of the forests consisted of soft 

 and medium hard woods suitable for 

 the same general construction pur- 

 poses as Douglas fir, the chief im- 

 ported wood. Modern methods of 

 logging and milling were introduced 

 and thus the cost of manufacture^ re- 

 duced so that today the Philippines 

 are not only supplying their own 

 wants but are rapidly forging ahead 

 toward becoming an exporting coun- 

 try. 



The impetus given to the lumber 

 industry in the Philippine Islands has 

 spread to parts of Borneo and Suma- 

 tra where modern methods of lumber- 

 ing are being introduced. 



Recent investigations in South 

 America show that their forests be- 

 sides containing hard and durable 

 woods, have a much larger percentage 

 of soft and medium hard woods that 



