Kenya

Friday 19 and Saturday 20 October 1973 were spent in Entebbe and environs visiting and discussing EAAFRO activities on provenance studies and seed orchard establishment for eucalypts and pines. There was also time to celebrate Ivon’s first birthday. At 9.00 PM we left Entebbe for Nairobi again in Kenya.

East African Airways Douglas DC-9 at Nairobi Airport in 1973.

Kenya

From Monday 22 to Friday 26 October 1973 in Nairobi I attended a joint meeting on tropical provenance and progeny research and international cooperation by IUFRO Working Parties S2.02.8 Tropical Species Provenances and S2.03.1 Breeding Tropical and Subtropical Species.

In the formal part of the meeting, I presented four papers, three on provenance trials of pines in Papua New Guinea for which Nev Howcroft was senior co-author and one authored by me on provenance trials on E. deglupta.

2These papers were published in the Proceedings.

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In discussion following my presentation on E. deglupta, the participants agreed with me that additional provenance seed collections were required from Sulawesi, Seram and Irian Jaya in Indonesia. It was suggested that CTFT personnel be requested to collect from Sulawesi and Seram because of their

2 Howcroft N and Davidson J 1973 A provenance trial of Pinus caribaea in Papua New Guinea. Combined Meeting of IUFRO Working Parties S2.03.1 and S2.02.8, Nairobi, Kenya; Howcroft N and Davidson J 1973 An international provenance trial of Pinus merkusii in Papua New Guinea. Combined Meeting of IUFRO Working Parties S2.03.1 and S2.02.8, Nairobi, Kenya; Howcroft N and Davidson J 1973 A provenance trial of Pinus kesiya in Papua New Guinea. Combined Meeting of IUFRO Working Parties S2.03.1 and S2.02.8, Nairobi, Kenya; Davidson J 1973 Provenance trials of Eucalyptus deglupta in Papua New Guinea. Combined Meeting of IUFRO Working Parties S2.03.1 and S2.02.8, Nairobi, Kenya. 3 Burley J and Nikles D G (eds) 1973 Proceedings of a joint meeting on tropical provenance and progeny research and international cooperation held in Nairobi, Kenya, 22-26 October, 1973 by IUFRO working parties: S2.02.8 Tropical Species Provenances, S2.03.1 Breeding Tropical and Subtropical Species. Oxford, Commonwealth Forestry Institute. 597 pp.

experience already in collecting eucalypts in eastern Indonesia and that FRI Australia and PNG personnel mount a separate mission into Irian Jaya from Vanimo in PNG.

I raised the issue that because of the rising prominence of breeding eucalypts, the Working Parties consider forming an “Action Group” of specialists on eucalypt provenances and breeding. I was willing to start up and lead such a group.

Since I would be attending the meeting of IUFRO Working Party S2.01.5 (Reproductive Processes) in Rotorua almost immediately after this meeting, participants in Nairobi requested I prepare a report on that meeting for later circulation to members of working parties: S2.02.8 Tropical Species Provenances and S2.03.1 Breeding Tropical and Subtropical Species.

The 28-storey Kenyatta International Conference Centre, Nairobi, opened in September 1973, just before our visit. On Saturday 27 October 1973 we travelled to Muguga, about 24 km from Nairobi and at about 2,100 m altitude, the location of EAAFRO.

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We were informed the Organisation came into being because the then governments of Kenya, Uganda, Tanganyika and Zanzibar agreed to cooperate in carrying out research in forestry and agriculture especially and also for animal husbandry, fish, tsetse flies and trypanosomiasis. Research work had to be practical and applied with a minimum of long-term experiments, even in forestry. Examples included experiments in forest nursery techniques and trials of exotic tree species, forest entomology and maintenance of an East African Herbarium and an excellent library. At the time about a quarter of the recurrent costs were being covered by the United Kingdom.

We left Nairobi by road for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, again calling in on field locations of a number of EAAFRO sponsored species trials of pines.

4 EAAFRO, the East Africa Agriculture and Forestry Research Organisation. From July 1977 its activities in Muguga were taken over by the Kenya Agriculture Research Institute.