It has been said that the civilization of a people may be measured by its forest practice, and in a sense this is true, for forestry as we know it to-day, and as the leading nations of Europe have known it for a long period, means the limiting of immediate gain in the hope of future reward, direct and indirect; in fact, it means present-day sacrifice for the sake of an unborn posterity. A wise national forest policy therefore involves not only foresight, but statesmanship and patriotism, which in their most advanced degree are to be found only among the people of the most enlightened nations. The manner in which a people regards its forest resources may be taken as fairly indicative of its outlook in general. What then has been the policy of the Philippine government and what the attitude of the people, toward these resources?
There is little room for doubt that practically the entire land area of the Philippines from the plains at sea-level to the highest mountain-tops was originally covered with forest growth. At the time of the American occupation two-thirds of this wonderful heritage had ceased to exist. This would be all very well if any considerable portion of the vast deforested areas were cultivated, or put to any permanent profitable use, but such is not the case. According to the best estimates which it has thus far been possible to make, only about fifteen per cent of the land from which the original forests have been stripped is to-day under any form of cultivation. The remainder is covered with commercially worthless second-growth forest, and with several giant grasses which are collectively known as cógon.
The cogonáles[3] make up approximately sixty per cent of the deforested area, or forty per cent of the land area of the entire archipelago. They are not good for grazing unless fed down very closely. They are difficult to bring under cultivation because of the vitality of the grass roots and the acidity which they impart to the soil. Cogonáles are often the breeding places of swarms of locusts which devour growing crops in neighbouring fields. They have been produced by the shiftless form of agriculture known as caiñgin making.
A large majority of the inhabitants of the Philippines will not fight, for any length of time, the tropical weeds and grasses which invade their cultivated fields, and rather than attempt to do so prefer to clear forest lands, slaughtering the trees indiscriminately and burning them where they fall. An area so cleared is known as a caiñgin. It is usually planted with camotes, corn, rice or some similar quick-growing crop. Cultivation is carried on in a haphazard way, but is soon abandoned when a jungle growth of grass, weeds and seedling trees begins to spring up. At the end of the first, the second or, at latest the third year the caiñgin maker abandons his clearing and starts a new one. Fires sweep over the abandoned areas, killing everything except the cógon grass which takes possession and holds it against all comers. The forest destruction thus wrought in the past is appalling. Within limits, it still continues, although unlicensed caiñgin making is now forbidden by law.
In cutting timber for domestic use and for the market, the Filipinos have in the past been absolutely indifferent to the matter of reproduction, making a clean sweep in those places where merchantable tree species could be readily and cheaply obtained.
Six weeks after the Philippine Commission became the legislative body of the islands, it passed an act for the reorganization of the Forestry Bureau, which had previously been created by military order, continuing as its chief Major George P. Ahern, who had held this position under the military régime, and who is to-day in length of service the ranking bureau chief of the insular government.
Major Ahern was thus intrusted with the management of some fifty-four thousand square miles of forest land, and was charged with the duty of investigating the forest resources of the Philippines, and of developing and protecting them. These two latter objects are by no means incompatible. Vastly more timber falls and rots in the Philippines than is cut and marketed, and the forest wealth of the islands may be developed in such a way as actually to improve the areas that are cut over by removing old trees, and thus giving light and air to younger ones which then rapidly grow up and take their places.
The stand of hardwood timber in the Philippines is now probably the finest in the world. The United States and Europe are ready to purchase every foot of the selected grades of lumber that we can ship. China offers a practically inexhaustible market for the cheaper grades. Stumpage charges are moderate. Yet in spite of all these advantages the islands do not, as yet, produce lumber enough to supply their own needs.
This condition is rapidly changing, however, and if adequate measures are not adopted for the conservation of the forests, we shall sooner or later be confronted with the danger of their devastation by the lumberman.
Under the direction of the Bureau of Forestry the trees which are to be felled are in many instances marked, and in any event care is taken to prevent the cutting of any which have not attained to certain prescribed diameters, while the leaving of enough adequately to provide for reproduction is obligatory.