Forest Reserves in Palestine before 1948 (Nakba), British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 425. Chapter XI: Irrigation and Drainage

CHAPTER XI.

mountain slopes and other land which have been damaged or even ruined by wind and water erosion. To this end it is important to bring under control as much as possible of this type of land, and to encourage the growth of vegetation as a first step in the reconditioning of the soil. There is no other feasible method of restoring the fertility of wide stretches of damaged land. The Department of Forests demarcates uncultivated land and recommends its proclamation as a forest reserve under sections 3 and 16 of the Forests Ordinance*, as is further explained below. This reservation empowers Government to regulate or prevent the destruction of the vegetation by means of cultivation , cutting, uprooting, burning or grazing. It should be noted that unregulated cultivation is a dangerous evil in existing circumstances, and that the vegetation has been destroyed over wide areas by a combination of all these actions.

7. The sections of the Forests Ordinance mentioned above read as follows:-

Definition of forest reserves.

3. The High Commissioner may, by proclamation to be published in the Gazette, bring any forest lands, not being private property, under the control and management of the Government as forest reserves and, on the issue of any such proclamation, the provisions of this Ordinance shall apply to any forest lands therein specified.

Protection of private forest lands for special purposes.

16.-(1) The High Commissioner may, when he thinks fit in the public interest, by order, authorise a forest officer to take under bis protection forest lands which are private property, and in respect of which it appears that the destruction of trees is diminishing or likely to diminish the water supply, or is injuring the agricultural conditions of neighbouring lands, or imperilling the continuous supply of forest produce to the village communities contiguous to such lands.

(2) Measures necessary for the protection of such forest lands, as determined by the forest officer whose decision shall be final, shall be carried out by or at the cost of the owner of the forest land who shall repay to the Government any reasonable expenditure incurred for this purpose.

(3) So long as any forest land shall be under the protection of the Government, it shall be deemed to be a forest reserve within the meaning of any provision of this Ordinance.

Forest reserves.

8. In most countries, at the establishment of a modern administration , villages and cultivation have been found lying among
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* Drayton, Vol. I, page 710.

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