British Mandate: A Survey of Palestine: Volume I - Page 426

CHAPTER XI.

the forest, and it has been a simple matter to draw a line round the agricultural land to separate it from the main mass of forest selected for conservation. In Palestine, on the contrary, no demarcation of forests was accomplished until 1926, when 'it was necessary not only to extricate the forest or scrub land from the numerous patches of cultivation around it and within it. but to deal with a multitude of claims and groundless assertions of ownership. Earlier attempts at demarcation had failed, and it had been left to the coming of Land Settlement to define the forest boundaries and to save the remnants of the natural vegetation. By 1926, however, it became clear that, if no protective measures were taken, the vegetation would all disappear long before the arrival of the Settlement Officers in the hills. The present system of forest reserves was therefore started, and has since proved its value.

9. The Forests Ordinance provides for the demarcation and proclamation as a forest reserve of any uncultivated land not being private property. In a forest reserve no cultivation is permitted, and no grazing nor cutting except by a licence issued by the Department. In practice, all local villagers are permitted to graze and cut, but not to cultivate, so that no new claims to ownership, based on cultivation, are allowed to arise. As a result, with the minimum of disturbance to the life of the villagers, the rights of the State have been safeguarded, and the State still has the chance of afforesting and developing these uncultivated lands at some future date when circumstances permit.

10. The need for immediate action was so keenly felt that, in 1926-28, 166 forest reserves, with a total nominal area of 644,000 dunums, were gazetted although the boundaries could be described only in the vaguest manner, e.g. all the forest land of a village. This step was no doubt justifiable at the time for tactical reasons, but it has proved to have no permanent value. In practice, the only satisfactory method is the survey and demarcation of the boundaries of the forest land and of the cultivated enclaves. As a result of experience, the proclamation of a forest reserve describes the land in considerable detail and states that, apart from the enclaves enumerated, the reserve contains no land at present cultivated.

11. The vital need for protecting the natural vegetation and the magnitude of the operations required were not initially appreciated. From 1926 the progress of demarcation was slow. Preliminary reconnaissance revealed numerous blocks of forest land; these were recorded and thereafter known as "proposed forest reserves". Survey and demarcation operations then determined the bound-

Page 426