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| :: History :: |
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| BRIEF HISTORY OF TIMBER INDUSTRY IN INDIA The timber industry in India had its birth in the earliest days of settlement in 1829, expanded rapidly from the 1890s and reached a peak in 1913. |
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However, no provision was made for sustaining timber resources through conservation and regeneration. As a result, by the end of 1917 production was at very low ebb. Many mills had closed and more of the workforce was enlisted in the armed services. It was with the passing of the Forest Act in 1918 that this trend was slowly reversed. By 1919, large numbers of companies returned to the industry and the demand for timber rose. From 1924 to 1928 the industry boomed, due largely to the large numbers of sleepers being produced for railways around the country and overseas. |
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In 1925 significant areas
were proclaimed as State forest to provide for better management
and protection. In the 1920s, logs were loaded by "cross hauling"
with steam whim and cable onto flat-topped trucks. A "rake"
of logs was formed and hauled up to 48 kms to the sawmill across
106 cm (3ft 6inches) guage steel railway by steam locomotives. In
the 1930s, diesel crawler tractors were introduced for direct log
hauling of container and to pull out giant karri logs, with steel
ropes and shoes. |
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By the end of 1930s,the industry had lost many overseas markets and people to the armed services. In the area of technology diesel power had been replaced by electricity in the great majority of sawmills. In 1967 the Indian Government and the Conservator of Forests sought ways to grow softwood timber in the State. |
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| Tropical forests, located almost entirely in developing countries, account for just over half of the World's 4.2 Billion hectares of forests. While in the industrialized countries the total area of forest cover is gradually increasing through the implementation of plantation forestry schemes, tropical forests, which represent 90% of the developing world's forests, are decreasing at a rate of 1.2 to 1.8%. At this rate, remaining tropical forests could be consumed in 55 years. This deforestation is attributed primarily to socioeconomic impacts such as unsustainable agricultural practices (shifting cultivation), fuel wood consumption, and industrial production and infrastructure projects. A shift towards sustainable forest practices has been, with a few notable exception such as Ghana, Costa Rica and Indonesia, largely an exercise in symbolic gestures because of the precedence given to overarching development strategies that are predicated upon an over-reliance on export-driven commodity-based economic activity. This tendency towards an approach to resource management and exploitation is further compounded by the fact that governments' must meet unmanageable foreign debt obligations while at the same time try to make good on their mandate to raise the living standards of its burgeoning population. Although growth rates are falling in almost all developing countries, continued population expansion is seen to be the single greatest threat to a country's limited forest resources due to high committing land usage for housing, agricultural and industrial activities. PRODUCTION The world's production of tropical forest products is overwhelmingly dominated by South East Asia. Production of some wood products (logs, sawn wood) has been declining over the past few years. The trend toward plantation wood as an alternate source of production is seen in the declining natural forest product exports of Burma and the ever-increasing plantation supply seen in countries with successful plantation developments. The World Wide Forest has projected that half of the tropical timber being produced in the year 2000 will be sustainable plantation wood. Developing countries are increasingly moving toward value added products with bans on logs and even rough cut lumber being seen in many countries. In order to survive, industries reliant on raw material such as furniture, boat builders, doors, etc., have to change their buying practices in order to survive. The Forest Products Commission is promoting an increased level of economic return to India from the use of forest products by: VALUE ADDING Value added: Is the extent to which the value of a finished product exceeds the cost of its raw material components or put simply "doing more with less". The aim of value adding is to further enhance wood utilization and increase local employment from the timber being processed. This has resulted into value added products, with some sawmills exceeding 80%. Value adding to timber resources are like : 1. INCREASING UTILIZATION OF LOGS
2. DEVELOPING SPECIALTY TIMBERS
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