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 4 - The Changing Attitude of the State towards Forests
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
…I may be expected to say something concerning the saul forests still existing in this district. On the one hand a report has gone abroad that a wanton destruction of these forests has been permitted, and that before long a scarcity of timber (especially for public purposes) will be experienced, unless some check to the evil apprehended be enjoined. On the other hand, it has been argued, that the taxation now levied in the form of timber duties, tends to prevent the free resort of wood cutters, and that thus the unhealthy forest is left to encumber the ground which might be more beneficially occupied by agriculture.
Batten, ‘Report on the Bhabar’, 1847, p. 209.The demand for timber in the adjacent Provinces of the Plains has been steadily increasing while the sources of supply have gradually been cut off. The exhaustion of the Deyra Doon and other forests in this part of India is sufficiently shown by the fact that the Roorkee workshop and the Ganges Canal are now almost entirely dependent on the Gurhwal forests for their supply of sal timber of large scantling.
‘Memorandum Regarding the Forests of the Patlee and Kotree Doons in Gurahwal’ by J. Strachey, Senior Assistant Commissioner, Garhwal, dated August 23,1854, Vol. XII, RLI, PMR, Collectorate Pauri Records, RA Dehra Dun.
For quite sometime, historians have debated the nature of control the pre-colonial state exercised over the forests.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Himalayan DegradationColonial Forestry and Environmental Change in India, pp. 109 - 126Publisher: Foundation BooksPrint publication year: 2008