Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables, Graphs and Maps
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Glossary
- CHAPTER 1 Introduction
- Part I Nature and Culture in the Early Nineteenth Century
- CHAPTER 2 The Context: Society at the Onset of the Colonial Rule
- CHAPTER 3 The Changing Agrarian Environment
- CHAPTER 4 The Changing Attitude of the State towards Forests
- Part II Scientific Forestry, Forest Management and Environmental Change
- Epilogue: From Despair to Hope
- Bibliography
- Index
CHAPTER 3 - The Changing Agrarian Environment
from Part I - Nature and Culture in the Early Nineteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Tables, Graphs and Maps
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Glossary
- CHAPTER 1 Introduction
- Part I Nature and Culture in the Early Nineteenth Century
- CHAPTER 2 The Context: Society at the Onset of the Colonial Rule
- CHAPTER 3 The Changing Agrarian Environment
- CHAPTER 4 The Changing Attitude of the State towards Forests
- Part II Scientific Forestry, Forest Management and Environmental Change
- Epilogue: From Despair to Hope
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In 1840 people generally were poor. There were no roads or markets, and the working classes were only gradually emerging from the state of serfdom in which they had been held by previous Governments. Since then their condition has materially improved, roads have been made, wild beasts have been reduced, extensive clearings have been effected, and all resort freely to the great marts at the foot of the hills at Ramnagar, Kotdwara, Dharon, and Patiya, where they exchange their own surplus produce for the commodities of the plains. During the past settlement every village had the power of increasing cultivation without being liable to extra revenue. They further had the right of pasturage and of using the spontaneous products within their boundaries and considering that every mile in the district, including the snow ranges, is supposed to be included within the boundary of some village; these privileges cannot be lightly estimated. No villages, however, had manorial rights which authorised them to dispose of timber, claim pasturage fee, and exclude their neighbours who from olden time had enjoyed the privilege of grazing their cattle, cutting wood, gathering leaves, &c. This system may be considered one of the chief causes of the increase of cultivation since 1840. Small hamlets have now become large villages, and villages have sprung up where cattle sheds only existed formerly.
J.O'B. Beckett (1864) quoted in Atkinson, Himalayan Districts, Vol. III, part I, p. 297- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Himalayan DegradationColonial Forestry and Environmental Change in India, pp. 51 - 108Publisher: Foundation BooksPrint publication year: 2008