Problem Identification

Abstract

Forests yield goods and services demanded by man. Forestry is concerned with satisfying these demands, to produce these goods and services for the benefit of man. Nature is the basic agent in forestry and creates — through biological processes — the resource — the forests — from which these goods and services derive. To make these goods and services available to man in the right form and at the right place and time requires sacrifices by man — man must, as nature, make an input, a contribution of his own resources. And as mankind increases in number and the forest resource is limited, man’s demands tend to successively exhaust nature’s own ability to produce. Apart from man’s inherent desire to enjoy the benefits of the forest — in quantity and quality — with limited sacrifices, a necessity arises to manipulate the forest resource towards increasing yields through a planned input of human activities. To economize with human activities in forestry is the notion of operational efficiency with which this book is concerned.