They will contribute results of research and development experience gained since 1968. The Association of Technicians of the Pulp and Paper Industry, one of the organizers, will hold its 12th Annual Technical Meeting simultaneously with the Congress. The project is based on a concept developed by James Edward Collins, an Englishman who worked in the Kenya Forest Department. He produced a novel design for areas where bridges were urgently needed but where money and skilled manpower were in short supply. The basic units of his design are prefabricated modules or frames, about three metres long, which can be linked with light steel to form a structure capable of supporting heavy vehicles on spans up to 30 metres long.
Cypress trees provide the wood and mild steel is obtainable from Kenyan mills.
All skilled fabrication is carried out before delivery to the site. This explains, for example, how a 15-metre bridge across a small stream came into existence in one day. It cost only one fifth of what would have been needed for a concrete bridge. Some modular bridges have been built specifically for the Forest Department. Marketing tropical wood from African moist forests Possibilities of expanding the marketable base in African tropical forests as far as mechanical wood products are concerned are discussed in a background paper published by FAO and submitted to the fourth session of the African Forestry Commission held at Bangui, Central African Republic, in March 1976.