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(7) Reorganization of the Forestry Department.
14341/33 (No. 5].
SIR,
•
(No. 620.)
No. 35.
THE OFFICER ADMINISTERING THE GOVERNMENT
to
THE SECRETARY OF STATE.
(Received 20th November, 1933.)
Ceylon, 31st October, 1933. I HAVE the honour to address you on the subject of the cadre of superior officers of the Forest Department for which provision has been made by the State Council at the instance of the Executive Committee for Agriculture and Lands in the Estimates for the current year (1933-34), and to submit to you requests made by the Minister-
(a) that you should be asked to obtain for this Government, as early as possible, the services of an expert of high standing to visit Ceylon and study local conditions with the object of advising as to the measures to be taken adequately to survey our resources and to make such use of them as will enable them to be regarded as a real revenue-producing asset (b) that application should be made for assistance from the Colonial Develop- ment Fund towards the expenses involved in the course of training as Utilization Officer which you have arranged for Mr. C. A. H. P. Jayawardena, Assistant Conservator of Forests (your telegram No. 132 of 30th August, 1933*).
I annex copies of two letters dated 2nd August, 1933, and 13th September, 1933, respectively, addressed to me by the Minister, in which he makes the two requests above referred to and states his views on the cadre question.
2. I will first make some general observations on recent levelopments in con- nexion with forest policy in Ceylon. It has to be admitted that the history of forest policy in this Island is not one which it is possible to view with satisfaction. It is a history of intensive exploitation of Crown forests carried out in the main in order to obtain railway sleepers and other timber for the use of Government departments, unaccompanied by sufficient and properly planned measures for re-stocking the forests with the timber of which they were being denuded, or by effective attempts to build up a local trade in the species and grades of timber made available in the course of exploitation for Government departments but not required by those departments. Periodical warnings have been given, both by officers of the Department and by experts who have been called in to advise on forest matters from time to time, of the consequences of such unscientific management of the forest estate, but departmental operations, in the fields of utilization and development alike, have continued to the present day without the guidance of a well-defined policy clarified by a carefully thought-out programme and, indeed, without that complete information in regard to the distribution and contents of the Ceylon forests which is essential for the formulation of policy. I do not suppose that this story is without parallels in other countries and it is no doubt partly explicable by the obstacles to remedial measures presented by the many uncertainties which have existed in the past as to the practicability of alternative policies and by scarcity of available funds. The realities of the forest situation in Cevlon were brought home to the Government very forcibly some 15 years ago, when exhaustion of accessible forests had reached the stage at which it was rapidly becoming impossible to produce sufficient timber to meet more than a small part of the require- ments of Government departments at a cost which would bear comparison with imported timber. In 1921 a committee consisting of five officials and seven unofficial members of the Legislative Council was appointed to consider a variety of matters relating to the Forest Department, e.g., the Forest Ordinance, the training of the personnel of the Department, particular forest problems such as the development of a coniferous forest, and soil erosion. The most important duty cast on this committee was, however, "to consider what steps can be taken to give effect to the recommendations contained in the report of Mr. P. M. Lushington on the Ceylon Forests (Sessional Paper XII— " under 1921)." Mr. Lushington had expressed in his report the opinion that organized management there is no doubt that the forests of Ceylon should be a source of great wealth to the Colony and become one of her principal industries.”
*P.F. 19365 [No. 99]: not printed.
The
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deliberations of the committee lasted for a period of no less than 6 years and resulted in a somewhat discursive report published as Sessional Paper 1-1928. The Com- mittee dealt at length with Mr. Lushington's recommendations, but did not attempt to formulate a programme of work which, in its opinion, it was expedient and practicable for the Department to undertake in the ensuing years in order to give effect to those recommendations. It made definite recommendations for the strengthening of both the superior and the subordinate staff of the Departnrent, but, before consideration of these recommendations could have reached a sufficiently advanced stage for practical effect to be given to them, the depression set in and they became financially impracticable.
3. Soon after the report was issued the question of supplies of timber for Govern- ment departments, more particularly sleepers for the railway, had become acute owing to the drop in the cost of imported timber and the increase in the cost of local timber. A small official committee was appointed to consider this particular aspect of the forest problem and presented a report which was published as Sessional Paper XIV—1929. That report contains a summarized statement of the forest problem as it then presented itself and an outline of the methods by which the Department then proposed to deal with it. The main recommendation made by the committee was that. in order to release personnel for the large amount of technical work required as a preliminary to scientific utilization and development, the Department should cease to carry out itself exploita- tion operations for the supply of timber to departments, the latter being left to obtain their supplies through the trade. This recommendation was approved and effect was given to it as from the 1st of October, 1930. Since that date the personnel of the Forest Department released by the change of system has been utilized for the inspection of forest lands in areas selected by the Commissioner of Lands for "mapping-out operations, i.e., the reservation of suitable areas for village expansion, smallholdings, colonization schemes, forest reserves, &c.
4. With the introduction of the new Constitution in July, 1931, the whole of this formidable forest problem came under review by the Minister and Executive Committee for Agriculture and Lands and naturally their approach to it was greatly influenced by the extremely difficult financial situation which had by then developed and the con- sequent urgent necessity for retrenchment in all directions in which retrenchment was possible. In the middle of 1932 the Executive Committee issued as a Sessional Paper (No. VIII-1932) a report on "Reorganization and retrenchment in the departments under the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands." The recommendations of the Com- mittee in regard to the Forest Department are contained on pages 3 and 4 of that Sessional Paper, while the material on which these recommendations were based will be found in Appendix "C" on pages 15 to 20 of the same document. The following general observations and specific recommendations contained in paragraphs 2 and 3 on pages 3 and 4 of that part of the Report which deal with the Forest Department indicate the lines which the Executive Committee intended that their policy should follow :-
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
"The sub-committee desire that Ceylon should be made self-supporting in its timber supply and that, for the present, the country should be slow in advancing schemes for the exportation of timber other than satinwood. Considerable gain would accrue if the present foreign importations now worth about 9 millions of rupees are kept out. To achieve this object the Department should be so reorganized as (1) to reafforest with suitable selected timber large compact blocks in selected areas in various zones and (2) to exploit systematically the existing natural resources in so far as they are commercially sound.'
C
That for the purpose of reafforestation work the Island should be divided
into three areas, namely, the Up-country, the Low-country and the Dry Zone.
"That the administration of inaccessible forest reserves should be handed
over to the Revenue Officers.
"That the licence system should be simplified to conform more or less to the system now in vogue in the Federated Malay States, and the new system entrusted to the Revenue Officers.
"That the timber resources of Ceylon be developed by encouraging persons
to grow the more valuable varieties of cabinet wood, such as calamander, in their private gardens by the distribution of selected species of plants.' Th: Committee also recommended a reduction of the superior staff to seven (the sanctioned strength being seventeen and the actual strength at the time sixteen), and
1