Significance of International Collaboration in Forestry and Forest Products

As the outcome of the United Nation's Conference on Food and Agriculture in the spring of 1943 at Hot Springs, Virginia, there was established an Interim Commission to prepare the way for a permanent organization for international cooperation in problems of production and distribution of food and other products of agriculture, with the objective of raising the level of nutrition and general welfare of peoples throughout the world. Early in 1944 Panel Subcommittees on Forestry and Forest Products and on Fisheries were set up in the general framework of the Commission. The author was asked to serve as chairman of the Subcommittee on Forestry and Forest Products, with Egon Glesinger as rapportcur. This committee of twelve men has been deeply engrossed in the basic definition of objectives, problems, scope of activities, and proposed structure of a permanent organization for international cooperation in our special field.