Johannes Hendrikus Becking

Johannes Hendrikus Becking (1956)

Johannes Hendrikus Becking (born November 12, 1890 in Soerabaia ( Surabaya ), Java , Dutch East Indies , † April 19, 1972 in Arnhem , Netherlands) was a Dutch forest scientist and botanist . Important functions: 1936–1942 forest supervisor in the Dutch East Indies; 1946–1962 Professor of Forest Science at the Landbouwhogeschool Wageningen , Netherlands. Order of Merit: Ridder in de Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw .

Life

Willem ("Broer"), Johannes Hendrikus ("Sjang") and Laurens Theodorus (Theo) Becking.
Studio photo, around 1894, Soerabaja

Johannes Hendrikus ("Sjang") Becking was born in 1890 as the third son of the hydraulic engineer Salomon Wessel Becking (1850–1921). Salomon Wessel was a “climber”: he came from a village in the east of the Netherlands ( Varsseveld ), at school he was promoted because of his mathematical talent, was allowed to attend the teachers' seminar in Arnhem and finally studied at the Technical University of Delft . At 35 he moved to Indië (Dutch East Indies) and married the officer's daughter Johanna Maria Rijkens (1859–1923) there in 1886.

The sons Laurens Theodorus (1887–1945), Willem (1889–1949) and Johannes Hendrikus grew up in the Dutch East Indies. However, studying was only possible in the Netherlands; Laurens Theodorus (Theo) went to the Breda Military Academy , his two younger brothers studied forest science at the Landbouwhogeschool Wageningen . Johannes Hendrikus then visited the University of Munich on a scholarship for a year to get to know German methods of forest management better.

Career in the Dutch East Indies

Willem and Johannes Hendrikus Becking with their wives Adriana and Martha (from left), June 1923 in Blora (?)

All three brothers returned to the Dutch East Indies after completing their studies. The two forest scientists worked as forest overseers from 1913, did a lot together and published together. In 1922 Johannes Hendrikus married the German Martha Paula Gertrud Hennig (1899–1977); the sons Rudolf Willem (1922–2009) and Jan-Hendrik (1924–2009) were born in Blora (M. Java). Becking received his doctorate in Wageningen in 1929 with a thesis on teak ( Tectona grandis , Dutch: djati ): De djaticultuur op Java: Een vergelijkend onderzoek naar de uitkomsten van verschillende verjongingsformen van den djati op Java . In 1930 he became supervisor of the teak trading department ( Hoofd van de handelsafdeeling van het Djatibedrijf ), in 1933 supervisor of the protective forests on Java and Madura ( Hoofd van den Dienst der Wildhoutbosschen op Java en Madoera ), and in 1936 finally supervisor of forestry ( Hoofd van the Dienst van het Boschwezen ) appointed.

This gave him responsibility for a department that was important for the colony, but also very problematic. The vast teak forests on Java were of great importance to Dutch shipbuilding , especially in the 17th and 18th centuries. Since the middle of the 19th century, the colonial power tried to organize the use of the forests better: a scientifically based, sustainable forest management based on the German model should be introduced. The concerns of the domestic population were often affected, especially in densely populated Java. Residents invoked old customary laws, a movement like the Saminists (named after the founder Surontiko Samin) did not recognize the “theft” of wood and other forest products, which is defined as such. The protective forests, which are important in connection with the water balance and protection against erosion , were increasingly placed under supervision. This represented a further interference in the living environment of the population; Conflicts were inevitable. There were repeated discussions among the forest officials and in public as to how this problem, which is not only economically, but also socially and culturally significant, could best be addressed. Sustainable forest management was hardly called into question , under the strict supervision of the authority. It was the pride of the foresters and stood for progress. However, different emphases were possible: One could emphasize the service to the common good, a goal given by the authorities ( ethical politiek ), or more strongly emphasize the profit from wood export (mainly teak).

The Becking brothers were proponents of a middle line: on the one hand, in their opinion, at least in some areas, market economy should also be considered, on the other hand, one should not overdo it. In a lecture published in 1926, De houtvoorziening van de inlandsche bevolking , Becking describes how he tried to better meet domestic needs in what was then the very wooded district of Blora by making thin teak wood available at low prices for building houses . He recommended restraint in using the hated boschpolitie (forest police). The conflicts could be defused with such measures, but not fundamentally resolved. In some ways they persisted in the Republic of Indonesia even after the war . The forestry laws of the Dutch, translated into Indonesian, were largely adopted by the new rulers.

Occupation (1942–1945)

During the Japanese occupation (March 1942 to August 1945) Becking, like many high-ranking officials, was to be available to the newly appointed authorities as a consultant without authority. The increasing hectic pace during the war was reflected in the rapid succession of reorganizations: the forest management ( Ringyo Tyuoo Zimusyo ), then the industrial authority ( Sangyobu ), the shipping authority ( Zoosenkyoku ) and finally the war authority ( Gunzyuseisanbu ) were responsible for forest management. The until then sustainable management of the forests was converted to the needs of the war, the domestic population obliged to labor service ( romuscha ). Becking's personal situation was precarious. His eldest son, Rudolf Willem, was interned , the younger, Jan-Hendrik, was also imprisoned towards the end of the occupation. The family eventually got away with their lives.

After the departure of the Japanese, Becking wrote a detailed report: De nieopbouw van den dienst van het boschwezen in Indonesië In it he described the consequences of the war economy and outlined possible strategies for reconstruction. What is remarkable in the mostly technical article is his assessment of the political situation: “As far as the domestic wood supply is concerned, it will by no means be possible to restore the old conditions, even if wood production should return to the pre-war level. The self-confidence of the Indonesian people awakened by the war has both national and social components. A return to the pre-war situation is neither possible nor desirable. It is essential to strive for a significant increase in the standard of living. The goal can only be achieved through more or less forced industrialization. However, the development of Java into an industrialized country will cause the demand for wood to rise again considerably. "

The separation of Indonesia from the former motherland dragged on until 1949; sometimes the Dutch waged a bloody colonial war, euphemistically indicated as Politionele Acties ("police actions"), with several thousand deaths on the Dutch side, and an estimated 150,000 deaths among the Indonesians.

Professor in Wageningen

Rudolf Willem and Johannes Hendrikus Becking inspecting a piece of forest near Elsbeek (NL), August 1956

Becking went to the Netherlands in 1946, probably because he saw no future for himself and his family in Indonesia. He was appointed to the chair of a professor for forest science (focus on tropical forest management and management: koloniale houtteelt, bosbedrijfsregeling en boseconomie ) at the Landbouwhogeschool Wageningen. As part of his work, he continued to study the tropics and had several opportunities to travel to tropical areas. In the 1955/56 academic year Becking was Rector Magnificus .

Noteworthy are three related articles in which Becking tried to establish the term Culturele Bosbouw . In economically highly developed countries like the Netherlands, the idea is that calculating the profitability of a piece of forest makes only limited sense, because the value of the forest as a place of recreation is possibly much higher than the profit from selling wood. In this way, a monotonous production forest with a nominally positive profit statement could in the end look bad compared to a beautiful, loss-managed forest. The idea that nature conservation often pays off on closer inspection was still relatively new in 1966 and was by no means consistently applied in the Netherlands.

botany

In addition to his main activity as a forest official and scientist, Becking liked to deal with botany; he was particularly interested in mangrove forests . He collected materials and a. in Bali , W- Borneo and Java , which are now housed in the herbaria in Bogor and Wageningen. The Agathis beckingi (Meijer Drees) was named after him.

Publications

• with LG den Berger, HW Meindersma: Vloed-of mangrove-bosschen in Ned. In the. In: Tectona, 15, 1922, pp. 561-611.
• with W. Becking: Railbaanaanbouw en onderhoud: knopte handleiding voor den aanleg en het onderhoud van railbanen. Albrecht, Weltevreden 1924.
• De houtvoorziening van de inlandsche bevolking. In: Tectona, 19, 1926, pp. 904-913.
• De djaticultuur op Java: een vergelijkend onderzoek naar de uitkomsten van verschillende verjongingsformen van den djati op Java. Veenman, Wageningen 1929. (Proefschrift Wageningen, 1929 online )
• De ontwikkeling van de Dienst der Wildhoutbosschen op Java gedurende de laatscht vijf jaren. In: Tectona, 28, 1935, pp. 343-433.
• (Ed.): Verslag van den Dienst van het Boschwezen in Nederlandsch-Indië over het Jaar 1937. Buitenzorg 1938.
• (Ed.): Verslag van den Dienst van het Boschwezen in Nederlandsch-Indië over het Jaar 1938. Buitenzorg 1939.
• De omloopstijd voor de djati-bosschen op Java. In: Tectona, 34 (7), 1941, pp. 507-514.
• De neither opbouw van den dienst van het Boswezen in Indonesie. In: Tectona, 36 (1946), pp. 86-161.
• De bedrijfsgedachte in de bosbouw. Veenman, Wageningen 1947. (Inaugurale speech.)
• Massatafels voor de bepaling van de houtmassa van opacity van de Douglasden (Pseudotsuga taxifolia Britt) in Nederland. In: Mededelingen van de Landbouwhogeschool te Wageningen, Tl. 50, negotiating 1, 1950.
• De douglasbossen van de Pacific North West. Wageningen 1950. / In: Nederlandsch boschbouw tijdschrift. 23 (1950) 2, pp. 35-50 and 7/8, pp. 193-209.
• Forestry technique in the teak forests of Java. In: UN Scientific Conference on the Conservation and Utilization of Resources. Lake Success, 1949. Proceedings. New York 1951, pp. 106-114.
• The economy of heavy thinning in Douglas-fir plantations. In: Nederlands Boschbouw Tijdschrift, 24, 10 (1952), pp. 257-269.
• with G. Minderhoud, AEHR Boonstra (Red.): Veenman's agrarian Winkler Prins: encyclopedie voor landbouw, tuinbouw en bosbouw. (3 parts) Veenman, Wageningen 1954–1957.
• with A. van Maaren: Verslag over een onderzoek naar de economische aspecten van de opvoering van de papierhoutproductie door dunning van densely planned populationslanen in de Noord-Oost-Polder. LH, Wageningen 1954.
• Aspects of the bosbouw en de bosbouw study. Veenman, Wageningen 1956. (Wageningen speech, March 9, 1956.)
• Het studiejaar 1955 - 1956. Veenman, Wageningen 1956. (Wageningen speech, September 17, 1956.)
• PG de Vries: Richtlijnen voor de bedrijfsregeling van bosbezit in Nederland: seed gesteld door de commissie bosbedrijfsregeling van de Nederlandsche Boschbouwvereeniging, ingesteld op 7 januari 1954. Wageningen 1959.
• with G. Hellinga, JF Kools: Beschouwingen over de ontwikkeling van de bosbouw in Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea. Verslag van het bezoek aan Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea van 9 januari - 2 maart 1960. Wageningen 1960.
• Report over het gedurende de maanden july en augustus 1961 in Suriname en de Nederlandse Antilles ten behoeve van het tien jaren plan perform onderzoek op het gebied van de bosbouw. Wageningen 1962.
• De ontwikkeling van het bosbeheer in Suriname. In: Nederlands bosbouw tijdschrift, 36 (1964) 7, pp. 192-209.
• Problems of the modern culture of Bosbouw. In: Tijdschrift der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij, 77 (1966) 6, pp. 251-258.
• Is voor Nederland culturele bosbouw noodzakelijk en mogelijk? In: Tijdschrift der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij, 77 (1966) 9, pp. 321–331.
• Particulier bosbezit, een strijd om het behoud van nationale cultuurmonumenten. In: Tijdschrift der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij, 78 (June 1967), pp. 208-222.
• Het huidige insult inzake de bosbouw in Nederland. In: Tijdschrift der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij, Feb. 1969, pp. 56–65.
• Het huidige staatsbeleid inzake de bosbouw in Nederland II. In: Tijdschrift der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Heidemaatschappij, Sept. 1969, pp. 304-307.

literature

• Nancy Lee Peluso: Rich Forests, Poor People: Resource Control and Resistance in Java. UCP, Berkeley 1972.
• H. Benda, L. Castles: The Samin movement. In: Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, 125 No. 2 (1969), Leiden, pp. 207–240. ( Online )
• CP van Goor, Muklar Effendi, Junus Kartasubrata: Indonesian forestry abstracts: Dutch literature until about 1960. Center for Agricultural Publishing and Documentation, 1982.
• Tectona: boschbouwkundig tijdschrift, Jrg. 1-43, 1908-1955. Weltevreden etc.: Vereeniging van Ambtenaren bij het Boschwezen in Nederlandsch Oost-Indie.
• Lukas Jan van Dijk: Landschapsbedrijven as Middel tot Opheffing van onontwikkelde Streken in Nederlandsch-Indië. Proefschrift Wageningen, 1942.
• MJ van Steenis-Kruseman: Flora Malesiana (ser. 1, 1: Cyclopaedia of collectors; ser. 1, 8: Cyclopaedia of collectors, Supplement II). On-line

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peluso, pp. 69 ff .; Benda 1969.
2. ^ Tectona, 1926; Peluso, p. 73.
3. ↑ Peluso pp. 44, 78, 97, 156.
4. ↑ Peluso, p. 95.
5. ^ Tectona, 1946.
6. ↑ In the original: Wat de binnenlandsche houtvoorziening concerned, zullen de vooroorlogsche verhoudingen, ook al komt de houtproductie weer op het vroegere peil, geenszins kunnen have been produced. Het door den oorlog ontwaakte zelfbewustzijn van het Indonesische Volk heeft naast een national grondslag ongetwijfeld also een sociale tendency. Een terugkeer tot de vooroorlogse toestanden is geheel onmogelijk en ongewenscht te pay attention. Een belangrijke Verhoging van den levensstandaard van het Indonesische Volk zal onvermijdelijk zijn. Deze verbetering zal bad door een snel doorgevoerde industrialisatie bereikbaar zijn. De ontwikkeling van Java as an industrial country zal real de houtbehoefte strong doen toenemen. In: Tectona, 1946, p. 89.
7. ↑ s. Publications.
8. ↑ English: multiple use forestry . Becking refers to: RE Mc. Ardle: The concept of multiple use of forest ... In: Fifth World Forestry Congress, 1960, Vol. I, p. 143 ff.
9. ↑ Problems van de modern culturele bosbouw (1966) and the following article.
10. ^ S. Tectona, 1922.
11. ↑ s. Flora Malesiana: Cyclopaedia of collectors.