A Brief History of Forestry.: In Europe, the United States and Other CountriesFernow, B. E. (Bernhard Eduard)
History
A Brief History of Forestry.: In Europe, the United States and Other Countries
Fernow, B. E. (Bernhard Eduard)
Forests and forestry -- History
Dr. Chloros, who obtained his education in Germany, became finally
Forest Director and was responsible for securing further legislation in
1888, the object of which was, as a first step towards improvement, to
survey and delimit and round off the State property. It provided that
enclaves, and all absolute forest soil was to be expropriated. If no
amicable agreement with the owner could be reached, the price was to be
determined by the net yield which had been obtained from the property
during the last five years, capitalized at 5 per cent. No attempts,
however, at an efficient organization or change of the destructive
permit system were made.
By general law, the State has the right to surveillance of private
property, although the extent of this right is not fully defined. The
government may take for its own use, by paying for it, upwards of
one-sixth of the annual cut; it collects a tax of 12 to 18 per cent. for
all woodwork cut; it forbids the pasturing of woods that have been
burned within 10 years, and obliges all owners of over 1200 acres to
employ forest guards. This and other interference with property rights
naturally acts as deterrent to private forest management. A notable
exception is the small private royal forest property near Athens, which,
since 1872 under a Danish forester, appears to have been managed under
forestry principles.
A thorough re-organization of the forest service was effected in 1893,
when 20 district foresters were employed, the number of forest
inspectors was increased to four, and a regular Division of Forestry was
instituted in the Finance Department. The general police or gendarmerie
was continued as forest guards. Until a native personnel could be
educated by sending young men to Germany, foreigners were to be
employed for the making of working plans.
Yet in 1896, the then Director of the Forest Department, a lawyer, still
complains of the absence of a proper organization and of any personnel
with forestry knowledge. Apparently no progress had been made. In that
year, however, the gendarmerie was to be replaced by forest guards (52
superior and 298 subaltern) who were to be appointed from graduates of a
special secondary school, which had been instituted at Vytina some two
years before. This replacement could, of course, not be effected at
once, since hardly more than 25 men could be graduated annually; hence
even this improvement in the lower class police would not be completed
for six or eight years. No steps had been taken to educate officers for
the higher grades, and in this direction, propositions merely were
discussed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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