AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY AND FORESTRY IN ASIA 
as designed by Prof. Spurr does not fulfill 
the expectationc in practical type mapping 
work. 
SOME SPECIAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE AP- 
PLICATION OF AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY IN DIF- 
FERENT PARTS OF S. E. Asia AND RESULTS 
OBTAINED 
To be able to compare the rate of develop- 
ment in the application of aerial photography 
in different parts of S. E. Asia the following 
information obtained from literature can be 
given. 
BURMA (1) 
In 1953 a contract was made between 
Burma Government and the World Wide 
Survey Institute. Aerial photography started 
in January 1953, using two aeroplanes simul- 
taneously. By the middle of April 1954 an 
area of 78,000 square miles was photographed. 
Photography was generally done on 1:24,000 
scale, with the exception of some big towns, 
which were made on 1:6,000 scale. Panchro- 
matic film was used for this purpose. 
The local Forest Department needed this 
photographical survey for the following rea- 
sons: 
a. to replace the lost stock maps of various 
forest divisions in Burma as soon as pos- 
sible; 
b. for the assessment of damaged forests; 
c. tolook for areas suitable for reservation, 
village forest and grazing grounds 
d. soil erosion control measures 
e. site election for afforestation 
f. to make stock and volume estimates of 
the commercially important forests. 
No further information was obtainable 
about the final results of this large survey 
project. 
INDIA AND CEYLON (3) 
According to de Rosayro India has been the 
only country in S. E. Asia, where the Forest 
Service was not convinced of the initial need 
to apply aerial photography. The explanation 
of this rather negative attitude can be found 
in the fact that the development of both 
suitable topographic maps and intensive 
forestry based on Working Plans, has reached 
a high pitch. Even as recently as 1957 it was 
stated in an official report, that aerial photog- 
raphy should have only a limited scope for 
Indian Forestry as the experience gained, in- 
dicated that it was not possible to distinguish 
their tropical species or even the various 
forest sub-types on the aerial photographs. 
The rather encouraging results obtained by 
Mr. de Rosayro in the forests of Ceylon in the 
field of photo-interpretation must indicate a 
need for caution in making general decisions 
in this respect. It is the author’s opinion that 
the results obtained by de Rosayro, although 
on a relatively small area (24,000 acres) are 
still an indication that undiscovered possibili- 
ties in the application of aerial photographs 
for special forestry work may be expected. 
Perhaps there will be a chance that the oppo- 
sition of the Indian Forest Service to aerial 
photography in forestry will decrease in the 
future. 
INDONESIA (5) 
Since the end of the Second World War, 
aerial photographs are used successfully in 
these countries for the delineation of types, 
and—especially in those forest regions out- 
side the island of Java—where the local situa- 
tion was favorable for the development of 
forest exploitation. 
For this purpose in 1948 a special “Bureau 
for Aerial Forest Photo-Interpretation" was 
established. After a period of 3 years, a photo- 
interpretation was made of a total are of 
6,000 square miles. On the vegetation maps 
based upon these interpretation results, the 
following types could be differentiated: 
A. Vegetation as a result of human action. 
a. Old secondary forest 
b. Young secondary forest 
c. Grass fields 
d. Dry agricultural fields 
e. Irrigated rice fields 
f. Plantation for the production of certain 
crops 
g. Forests damaged by logging industries 
B. Natural vegetation types 
a. Mangrove forests 
b. Brackish water swamps 
c. Fresh water swamp forests 
d. Peat swamp forests 
e. Dry land forests 
Within the last group, sub-differentiations 
could be made according to average crown 
sizes, and number of crowns per acre, of the 
dominant trees. 
It seems that this working method has been 
continued in more recent times, further spe- 
cial information about recent developments is 
not available. 
NORTH BORNEO (8) 
The vegetation of this country has been 
mapped on 1:50,000 sheets and has been de- 
scribed by Francis and Wood. The scheme 
provides for 16 classes of vegetation cover, of 
which 12 are predominantly woody and natu- 
ral in origin. The forest is classified according 
11 
—— IRE EDEN