Introduction - Afforestation, Reforestation and Forest Restoration in Arid and Semi-arid Tropics - page 9

Already ten million hectares of industrial-commercial plantations of fast growing
species have been established in the developing countries. New plantations are being
raised at the rate of half a million hectares per year. A recent phenomenon, observed
in India and Africa, has been the proliferation of numerous forest-based companies
that promise highly attractive returns on public investment in land that they lease
from governments. Although apparently overplayed, this phenomenon is a proof
that the shortage of timber has made private initiatives in timber production eco-
nomically viable, and tree cultivation ranks the same as, or perhaps even better than,
the traditional agricultural cash crops. There are many issues, such as availability of
land, which limit the size of these programmes, but as of now, it is certainly clear
that private investment in industrial-commercial plantations is going to expand in
the near future.

1.6 The Technology of Afforestation

Although traditional forestry and silvicultural practices have been primarily rooted
in forest regeneration techniques, artificial planting of trees in barren lands and
enrichment planting in gaps in natural forests has had a long enough history by now.
Two distinguishing features of large-scale afforestation works in arid and semiarid
areas are planting of a large number of nursery-raised seedlings, and effective in
situ water conservation measures. Nursery techniques for raising plants of desired
species, good health, and vigour have been almost perfected by now. There is a
considerable degree of uniformity in nursery practices, at least in the case of arid and
semiarid areas. Modern techniques like the use of bio-fertilisers and bio-pesticides
and specialised containers like the root trainers are some of the modern practices at
the cutting edge of technology, and it will be some time before these can replace
the commonly accepted, standard practices like use of polypots as containers and
chemical pesticides for plant protection in nurseries. In soil and water conservation,
use of improved equipment and better accuracy in marking of contours for accurate
planning and layout of soil working is already a widely accepted practice and is
indispensable to the success of afforestation and reforestation programmes in arid
and semiarid areas. Even with considerable research work done in areas such as
seed technology and tissue culture, they are not yet ready for adoption in large-scale
afforestation programmes for lack of funds and for the reason that poor productivity
of the degraded sites cannot justify high investment.

1.7 Participation of Local Communities

There clearly has been a kind of paradigm shift in the process of management of
forests from the old isolationist approach of most forest services to a modern partici-
pative one. Forest services in the image of a policing force could not have succeeded