ABSTRACT
The economic and social importance of forests in the lives of people in any region or nation is coming increasingly to be recognized in many countries of the world. While it has long been recognized that forests play many roles in national life in addition to providing wood fiber for many uses, the nonwood outputs of the forest are coming increasingly to be recognized and valued everywhere in the world. Forests have watershed values; while this role of forests has often been exaggerated, it is a very real one. Forests have certain biological and economic characteristics which greatly affect the limits within which national policy on forests may be established. First of all, tree growth extends over a period of years. For some species, the major growth period of the tree may be as little as a dozen years; at the other extreme, for other species, it may be measured in hundreds of years.
