In this chapter, we will look at how lives of forest dwellers and pastoralists changed in the modern world and how they played a part in shaping these changes. To modern eyes, lives of pastoralists and forest dwellers, shifting cultivators, and food gatherers often seem to be stuck in the past. These communities are very much part of the modern world and we need to know how they organize their world and operate their economies. We will see use of forests in a variety of ways, colonial control over forests, expansion of agriculture, decline of grazing fields, and how these developments affected the lives of those local communities who used forest resources. In this chapter, we will track patterns of their movements, their relationships with other communities, and the way they adjust to changing situations.

Forest Society and Colonialism

Storehouse of Resources: Things such as paper, furniture, dyes, spices, tendu leaf in bidis, gum, honey, coffee, tea, rubber, oil from sal seeds, the tannin used to convert skins and hides into leather, or herbs and roots used for medicinal purposes all comes from forest. 

• • They also provide bamboo, wood for fuel, grass, charcoal, packaging, fruits, flowers, animals, birds, and many other things. 
• Under Threat: As many as 500 different plant species in one forest patch can be found in Amazon forests or the Western Ghats but are fast disappearing.
• Industrialization’s Toll: Between the period of industrialization (1700 – 1995), 13.9 million sq km of forest, or 9.3% of the world’s total area was cleared for industrial uses, cultivation, pastures, and fuelwood.

Why Deforestation? 

The disappearance of forests is referred to as deforestation.

The problem of deforestation began many centuries ago, but under colonial rule, it became more systematic and extensive. Some of the causes of deforestation in India are as follows: 

Land to be Improved

• Population Increase:  Because of it demand for food went up, and peasants extended boundaries of cultivation, clearing forests, and breaking new land. 
  • In 1600, approximately 1/6th of India’s landmass was under cultivation. Now it has gone up to about half. 
• In the colonial era, cultivation expanded rapidly for a variety of reasons: 
• • Production of Commercial Crops: Demand for crops like jute, sugar, wheat, and cotton increased in 19th-century Europe where food grains were needed to feed the growing urban population and raw materials were required for industrial production. 
  • Increasing Area under Cultivation: In early nineteenth century, forests were considered unproductive and had to be brought under cultivation so that land could yield agricultural products and revenue, and enhance the income of the state. 
    • As a result, between 1880 and 1920, cultivated area rose by 6.7 million hectares.

Sleepers on the Tracks

• Timber Crisis: By early 19th century, disappearing oak forests in England created a problem of timber supply for the Royal Navy. 
• India’s Forest Resource: By 1820s, search parties were sent to explore forest resources of India.
  • Trees were being felled on a massive scale and vast quantities of timber were being exported from India.
• Boom in the Railway Sector: Railways were essential for colonial trade and for movement of imperial troops. 
  • To run locomotives, wood was needed as fuel, and to lay railway lines sleepers were essential to hold the tracks together. 
  • Spread of railways from the 1850s created a new demand as each mile of railway track required 1,760 – 2,000 sleepers (Refer to Figure 7.1). 
  • From the 1860s, the railway network expanded rapidly. By 1946, length of the tracks had increased to over 765,000 km from 25,500 in 1890. 
• Unsustainable Timber Harvesting: In Madras Presidency alone, 35,000 trees were being cut annually for sleepers. 
  • Government gave out contracts to individuals to supply required quantities which led to the disappearance of forests around railway tracks.

Plantations 

• The colonial government took over forests and gave vast areas to European planters at cheap rates for tea, coffee, and rubber plantations.

Rise of Commercial Forestry

Depletion of Forests: British were worried that use of forests by local people and reckless felling of trees by traders would destroy forests. 

• • They invited a German expert, Dietrich Brandis, for advice, and made him the first Inspector General of Forests in India. 
• British Response: Brandis realized that a proper system had to be introduced to manage forests and people had to be trained in science of conservation. 
  • Rules about use of forest resources had to be framed and felling of trees and grazing had to be restricted to preserve forest for timber production. 
  • Also, anybody who cut trees without following the system had to be punished. 
  • So he set up the Indian Forest Service in 1864 and helped formulate the Indian Forest Act of 1865. 
• Imperial Forest Research Institute: It was set up at Dehradun in 1906. They taught the system called ‘scientific forestry’ (Refer to Figure 7.2). 
  • Many people now, including ecologists, criticized this system as not being scientific at all. 
• Scientific Forestry: Natural forests were cut down and in their place, one type of tree was planted in straight rows which is called a plantation. 
  • Forest officials surveyed forests, estimated areas under different types of trees, and made working plans for forest management. 
  • They planned how much of the plantation area to cut every year and then replanted so that it was ready to be cut again in some years. 
• Forest Amendment Act 1878: It divided forests into three categories: reserved, protected, and village forests. 
  • The ‘reserved forests’ were the best. Villagers could not take anything from these forests, even for their use. 
  • For house building or fuel, villagers could take wood from protected or village forests. 

Effects on The Lives of People

Conflicting Visions of the Forest: Villagers wanted forests with a mixture of species to satisfy different needs – fuel, fodder, and leaves.

• •  whereas forest department wanted trees that could provide hardwood, and were tall and straight (like teak and sal) which were suitable for building ships or railways. 
• Forest as a Resource for Village: In forest areas, people use forest products – roots, leaves, fruits, and tubers – for many things. 
  • Ex: Fruits and tubers are nutritious to eat, especially during monsoons; Herbs are used for medicine; wood for agricultural implements like yokes and plows; bamboo to make fences, baskets, and umbrellas; a dried scooped-out gourd can be used as a portable water bottle; leaves can be stitched together to make disposable plates and cups.
  • Siadi (Bauhinia vahlii) creeper can be used to make ropes; thorny bark of semur (silk-cotton) tree is used to grate vegetables.
  • Oil for cooking and light lamps can be pressed from the fruit of the mahua tree. 
• Forest Act: It impacted everyday practices of villagers like cutting wood, grazing their cattle, collecting fruits and roots, and hunting and fishing became illegal. 

Conclusion

After British intervention and enactment of Forest Acts people across the country were now forced to steal wood from the forests, and if they were caught, they were at mercy of forest guards who would take bribes from them. Women who collected fuelwood were especially worried. The police constables and forest guards harassed people by demanding free food from them.

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