Trailblazers of British
India’s Forestry
The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific and religious freedom have always been nonconformists- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Prelude
It has been quite some months since my last posting in www.wildcries.com. Not that there were paucity of engaging themes but other personal engagements put off my desire to pen my thoughts. It is heartening though to notice that my previous posts have touched about 85000 views world over so far.
On a morning a fortnight ago, I opened the WhatsApp message box from one of my retired IFS colleagues from Tamil Nadu, India Thiru V.Ganesan who has recollected the 205th birth anniversary of an outstanding British forester who served the Madras Presidency among his several other positions he held in the British Empire forest service. The date was 9th August that happened to be the birth day of Dr.H.F.C.Cleghorn in 1820. Reminiscing on the message and as a professional deeply interested in the forest history of India, I thought of collating information on the progress of modern scientific forestry in the country under the stewardship and guidance of few of the illustrious foresters of the British Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. Most names are familiar to foresters but I thought a chronological narration will provide a broader perspective on the subject to common readers.
A brief introduction about the forestry happenings in the first half of the 19th century in the country is relevant to connect the threads in the development of forestry science and management in its second half. Compared with forests in Indian subcontinent, the European forests were subjected to intensive use for centuries. For instance only about twelve percent of forest was left in England by the end of seventeenth century. The country was almost stripped of woods capable of supplying the Navy with the requisite large timber at the end of its seven year war between 1756 and 1763 against France. The British decided to look for suitable alternate timber from foreign lands under their dominion, including India. Several species were experimented for ship building and eventually Tectona grandis, the teak of India, was found to be the best substitute for oak in size, shape, weight, texture, and rate of growth. Teak was distributed widely throughout India.
Forestry under East India Company
East India Company’s (EIC) outlook at India’s forests was more with commercial intent, which considered them as veritable timber mines. The EIC brought in fundamental changes in the exploitation of forest resources to serve the expansionist propensity of the British Empire. The best quality timber was exported from India for maritime expansion. At the time of EIC, there existed no forest organization and forests were under the control of Revenue department. In the Malabar, they were owned, protected and managed by the Rajahs and temple devassoms. Since these forests contained teak trees, EIC acquired about 32500 acre (130 sq.km) of forest area on lease in and around Nilambur from Tricaloor devassom on mortgage, besides renting extensive forest land from the Rajah of Zamorin. The EIC formed a timber syndicate through contractors and lessees in Malabar in 1796 to exploit the timber wealth there. Records show that during 1799, about 10,000 teak trees were extracted from the Malabar forests alone and shipped to England as well as Bombay for the Royal Navy.
A semblance of forest administration was witnessed for the first time in India with the appointment of Captain Watson of the Police as the first Conservator of Malabar on 10th November 1806 to supervise forestry operations including preservation and improvement of teak and other timber suitable for ship building from the Malabar and Travancore provinces. A proclamation was made in April 1807 asserting the sovereign rights of the Company over the Malabar and Travancore forests. This proclamation, which formed the basis of the Conservator’s authority, however contained no definition of the term ‘sovereignty’, nor had specified the extent of forests over which the sovereignty extended. Armed with extraordinary powers, the Conservator not only appropriated the use of private forest but also trees growing on cultivated land and succeeded in establishing a monopoly of all the timber of these two provinces in a short time. Colonial government’s assertion of full right and power over itself without any interference from outside sources found ample expression in that the proprietor of the land himself, unless expressly permitted by the Conservator was prevented from cutting a piece of wood on his own property. For the first time, the peasantry was deprived of the privilege of cutting wood for fuel and other ordinary purposes, a privilege which they had enjoyed from time immemorial. The resultant all around simmering discontent led to the abolition of the office of the Conservator in the 16thyear of its existence by the Governor Thomas Munro who acknowledged in his minute of the 26th of November 1822 that ‘The system [of forest conservancy] we are following and now seeking to legalise… is worthy only of the times of the Norman Conquest’.
The East India Company continued to exercise its sovereignty over the forests by various sporadic proclamations and regulatory rules till 1850s. Under the circumstances of extensive exploitation, other areas of the country too met with denudation. It’s worth mentioning that no silvicultural principles, whatsoever were applied in working the forests bearing teak trees.
Henry Valentine Conolly, the indomitable Principal Collector of Malabar (1842-1855)
When rapid progress of deterioration of Malabar forest was reported by many, the Court of Directors in 1842 considered that some teak plantations of limited extent might be established to safeguard the future. Henry Valentine Conolly, the Collector of Malabar succeeded in creating a small local Forest department with separate staff for forestry works and framed simple local rules. Considered as a path finder of forest plantation, he undoubtedly laid the foundation for the famous Nilambur teak plantations along the banks of Chaliyar river with the able support of one of his revenue staff, Chathu Menon in 1842. Teak plantations of Nilambur owe chiefly to his contribution as Collector till 1855.
Stebbing in his book ‘Forests of India’ described ‘The Nilambur teak plantations are the magnificent monument erected by these two men and by which they will be long remembered ….’. Dr.Cleghorn, Conservator of Madras after a visit to Nilambur plantations in 1857 recorded thus: ‘the flourishing and satisfactory state of plantation promises apparently certain ultimate success and reflects great credit to both upon the judgement of the zealous originator Mr.Conolly and Chatter Menon, the sub-conservator… The rows grow with singular regularity and mathematical exactness’. Hamilton, one of the IGFs in his report of 1948 noted that ‘Nilambur plantations with about 7700 acres at that time can be stated to be the cradle of teak plantations technique’. The magnificent 1846 Nilambur teak plantation, retained as a Permanent Preservation Plot stands today as a glorious testimony to the pioneering spirit of this indomitable administrator.
Conolly's Teak Permanent Preservation Plot
In the Bombay Presidency, Dr. Alexander Gibson was appointed as part-time Conservator in 1847 in connection with the superintendence and amelioration of forests themselves rather than merely a commercial timber exploiter. Apart from South India, Burma too was seen as a major source for teak to meet the insatiable hunger for the timber in Britain. With the annexation of its provinces- Tenasserim in 1826 and Pegu in 1852- all the forests of Burma, which were made part of British India colony, were proclaimed to be ‘property of the Government’ and the areas worked intensively for export of teak to England.
Birth of Forest Conservancy in British India
A Committee formed by the British Association in Edinburgh in 1850 to consider the destruction of tropical forests in India demanded that all forests be taken over for management by the Government. Dr. McClleland, the Superintendent of Burma’s Pegu forests after extensive scrutiny of forests submitted his report to the Government in 1854, in which he suggested for bringing in certain restrictions to the unchecked exploitation by private groups and individuals. D. Brandis who succeeded McClleland with the added areas of Tenasserim and Martaban prescribed reforestation of denuded teak forests and suggested for the first time the idea of reserving the forests and strictly regulating the access to forest resources. All these reports led to the memorandum of August 3, 1855 by the Governor General Lord Dalhousie, which is called the ‘Charter of the Indian Forests’. This set the tone for bringing all the forests of India under complete control of the Government. The ruling principle enunciated by Dalhousie for the management of forests was that the timber standing in them was state property to which individuals or communities had no right. It outlined for the first time, a permanent policy for forest conservancy in British India.
In retrospect, it can be seen that the major intention for reserving the forests to Government was to obtain uninterrupted supply of wood for the many requirements of the Empire. Introduction of the railways in 1853 escalated the already existing demand for timber as well as fuel wood for sleepers and for powering the locomotives, respectively. Many individuals contributed for the evolution and growth of scientific forestry in the British Empire during the following decades. I shall attempt to recapitulate the most significant of them in this episode.
Dr.Hugh Francis Clarke Cleghorn, Founder of Forest Conservancy in India (1842-1870)
Though born in Madras in 1820, Hugh F.C.Cleghorn was sent to United Kingdom (UK) for schooling, where he learnt French and German. This helped him to read the forestry books while at Madras, which were mostly in these languages. His exploration of the extensive grounds with woodland, stream and pond in the UK helped him to develop an interest in natural forestry setting, collection of plants, discovering their local names and uses. Graduated in medicine with botany as a subject at Edinburgh, he was passionate about botany classes that he attended at the Royal Botanical Garden there. Despite not possessing a formal forestry education and training, his interest in medical botany and penchant for observation of Nature brought him all the professional glory that would come in his way in the later years. He joined Military Medical Service of EIC at Madras in 1842. Even in his posting as Assistant Surgeon in Shimoga, his eyes were on the tropical forests of the region.
Cleghorn’s efforts in catalysing a halt to the shifting or slash and burn cultivation (kumari cultivation), a pernicious cropping practice, followed extensively in the Mysore Province is worth recollection. Stationed as an Assistant Surgeon at Shimoga in the Nugger division of Mysore in 1847, he remarked on the wholesale destruction of forests in that district, chiefly through kumari cultivation. His representation to Sir Mark Cubbon, the Commissioner of Mysore on the matter drew Government’s attention to the necessity of Forest Conservancy. In consequence of his report on the conservation of forests, kumari cultivation was stopped in the greater part of Mysore and Coorg. Recollecting Dr. Cleghorn’s services to Indian Forestry, D.Brandis the first Inspector General of Forests (IGF) of Indian Government remarked in a note of 1888 thus: ‘..while on a tour of inspection through these districts (sic.Mysore and Coorg), writer of this note had the satisfaction of seeing large tracts of country clothed with well stocked young forests, which had grown upon the old kumari clearings’.
Hugh Cleghorn
British Association for the Advancement of Science in its meeting at Edinburgh in 1850 appointed a Committee to consider the probable effects- in an economical and physical point of view- of the destruction of tropical forests. Dr. Cleghorn drew the report along with three other members which gave an exhaustive review of the questions as far as it related to India. This report was given to the Association that deliberated the points at its Ipswich meeting in 1851. In Brandis’s assessment ‘this report contributed much to induce influential members of Government in India and at home, to seriously consider the necessity of organizing systematic measures of Forest Conservancy in India’.
Upon instructions from the Governor of Madras Lord Harris, Dr. Cleghorn submitted a report to the Government of Madras containing proposals for establishing Forest Conservancy. Dr.Cleghorn was appointed as Conservator of Forests in the Presidency of Madras, the first full time Conservator in the Empire, on 19th December 1856. Persistently representing on the need to protect the forests of the Madras Presidency from the chief sources of injury, indiscriminate cutting, fires and kumri cultivation, he was able to secure an order from the Government of Madras in 1860 that prohibited kumri cultivation in Government forests.
In the Presidency, Dr.Cleghorn arranged for the supply of timber, charcoal, and firewood and paid great attention to a proper arrangement of cuttings so as to secure and promote the natural reproduction of forests. His observations on timber working in the Presidency was sharp and acute. Noting that axe cutting of teak trees at three to four feet height above ground level led to considerable wastage of timber, he ordered to cut the tree at one and half feet from ground. At his instance, drag holes in timber logs too were prohibited to reduce wastage. Under his directions, numerous new plantations were established while the existing ones were maintained and extended. Local rules were issued by the Government on his recommendations.
During his service in Madras, he laid more stress for the organization of staff for protection in all districts and fuel supplies for important centers. As a medical man, his name was widely known and he acquired much influence among the native people. He was known to be a true friend of the natives; he entertained feelings of warm sympathy towards them and had made himself familiar with their mode of life and system of husbandry. An account of Cleghorn’s work during the first five years of his tenure as the Conservator of Madras Presidency were published in 1861 as a book titled, ‘Forest and Gardens of South India’ when he was in sick leave in Britain. This book had done much to promote forest conservancy in India. He justly laid great stress upon the necessity of acquiring a good knowledge of the principal trees and shrubs, as well as of the climate, soil and forest growth in different forest tracts.
On Council’s order, Cleghorn proceeded from Madras to Punjab in 1861 in order to examine the timber resources in the forests of the Western Himalaya and to institute a systematic plan of conservancy and management. Two years of his hard labour resulted “Report on the Forests of the Punjab and the Western Himalaya” in 1864. His work facilitated the organization of forest administration in that province and the native states of the Western Himalaya. His work earned great praise from the Lieutenant Governor Punjab, which further received concurrence from the Governor General in Council.
Cleghorn was associated with Brandis during 1864-1865 to advise the Government of India (GoI) in the general organization of forest business. For about a year from April 1866 to April 1867, Cleghorn officiated as Inspector General of Forests when Brandis was on leave in Europe, when the thanks of the GoI was conveyed to Dr.Cleghorn for his long and successful labours in the progress of forest conservancy in India. A public resolution by the GoI of 10th Janurary 1865 justly designated him as ‘the founder of Forest Conservancy in India’ and added “His long services from the first organisation of forest management in Madras have without question greatly conduced to the public good in this branch of the administration and in the Punjab also Dr.Cleghorn’s labours have prepared the way for the establishment of an efficient system of conservancy and working the forests of that Province’. On his return to Madras 1867 till his retirement from service in 1870, he resumed his work in that Presidency with his former zeal and industry. Since his superannuation, he had been employed at the India office as a confidential adviser to assist the Secretary of State of India in the selection of candidates for the Indian Forest Service.
Back at home post retirement, Cleghorn did much for the promotion of forestry in Great Britain, particularly through the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society of which he was President for two terms 1872-74 and 1883-86.
Sir Dietrich Brandis, Father of Indian Forestry (1856-1887)
Dietrich Brandis was a German botanist, fully qualified, scientifically trained Forester who received his training in Germany, at that time considered as one of the finest training grounds in the world, its only rival being France. He worked with British Imperial Forest Service in colonial India for nearly 30 years. He joined the British civil service in Burma in 1856 and shortly afterwards became head of imperial forest administration in all of Burma. Brandis as the Superintendent of Forests was responsible for carrying out over a wide area a series of linear enumerations on which he based his scheme of management for a sustained yield. He also introduced some measures of protection and improvement, and for control of timber in transit. Some small regular teak plantations were also commenced at this time by introducing the ‘taungya system’ involving the local villagers.
Sir Dietrich Brandis
D. Brandis was placed on special duty with the GoI in 1862 to assist in organizing forest administration in different provinces of the country. Later on he was appointed to act as adviser to the GoI with the designation of Inspector General of Forests (IGF) in April 1864. This was considered as the break day for the forest administration in India. Both Brandis and Cleghorn were appointed as Commissioners of Forests to assist the GoI and local Governments in the first organization and further development of a methodical system of forest management. Both of them together set the lines upon which a uniform system of forest organization was introduced throughout India. With forest departments already existing in Bombay, Madras, United Burma, Central, Oudh provinces, creation of forest departments occurred in other provinces in the following order: Punjab, Coorg and Bengal (1864), Assam, Berar and North Western (1868).
It became obvious to both the Commissioners that little systematic progress could be made in the absence of some recognized law, which afforded protection to the forests as a whole and gave the officers of the new Forest department sufficient authority to carry out the prescriptions laid down for their management. Brandis gave effect to this recognition by drafting and promulgation of the first Indian Forest Act in 1865.
As the 1865 Act was found to be very defective on many counts, a revised Bill and a memorandum explaining the necessity for a new legislation were submitted to Government of India by D. Brandis in 1868, which was improved upon by Baden Powell in 1874 (officiating at that time as Inspector General of forests). This was passed as the Indian Forest Act 1878. Finding the Indian Forest Acts 1865 and 1878 unsuitable from administrative and legal points of view, Madras Government preferred to legislate locally. D. Brandis was deputed to draft a bill for Madras Government in October 1881 and after an extensive tour of the Presidency, his team prepared the Madras Forest bill, which was passed as Madras Forest Act No V of 1882 and given effect from 1st January 1883.
Upon recommendation from Brandis, the country’s forest service was set up in 1867. It was to Brandis’s credit that he obtained the services of two fully trained forest probationers from Germany W. Schlich and B.Ribbontrop in the superior grade, who commenced their career in Burma and Punjab, respectively. Thus, began the India’s Forest Service. The first graded list of controlling staff under GoI, namely, Conservators, Deputy Conservators and Assistant Conservators was published in 1869 when the staff comprised of 57 officers. Around the time when Brandis laid down his office as IGF in 1883, number of officers in the controlling grade rose to 100. Officers were selected largely from among men with aptitude for forest work from other public services like the army, Public Works and the Survey departments, as no forestry trained officers were available. The first forest school was started in Dehra Dun in 1878 for giving training in forestry to men selected for appointment as Forest Rangers.
Recognising his primary contributions in initiating forest organizations in all provinces, establishing Indian Forest Service, drafting forest legislations, promoting scientific forestry and establishing research and training institutions in British India, he is rightly considered as the ‘Father of Tropical forestry’. He was conferred the title ‘Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire’ (KCIE) in 1887. Returned to Europe, he dedicated himself to scholarly botanical work resulting in the book ‘Indian Trees’, his magnum opus. Dealing with 4400 species, it was first published in 1906 and reissued several times afterwards.
Sir William Schlich, Doyen of British Empire Forestry (1867 - 1885)
Possessing a doctoral degree in forestry from University of Glessen, Germany he joined his first posting in Burma in the Superior Forest Service in 1867 along with Ribbontrop. He was first among the professionally trained foresters to serve the British India. When Schlich was transferred to Sind in 1870, he took keen interest to draw up a regular plan of operations for its forests. This was a time when there existed no prescribed or systematic plan for forest working. The situation there was easy because the forests were well demarcated and with no possibility of rights being claimed, but the demand for timber and fuel was keen. These plans of operations, generally annual and subject to a check on each item at the close of the year, became the order of the day. They led on to the much more elaborate working plans, as more professionally trained officers became available and the collection of data more systematic, chiefly at first in the United Provinces (then the North West Provinces), Burma and the Punjab.
Sir William Schlich
Towards the end of 1872, Schlich was sent to Bengal as Conservator, at which point of time forest organization didn’t exist there. Before Schlich left Bengal, he had placed forest administration on a firm footing. He developed forest management and education programmes and spent 19 years in India. He helped establish the forest school in Dehra Dun in 1877-78. Closely connected with the school was the departmental but unofficial monthly magazine ‘the Indian Forester’, which saw the light in 1875 with Schlich as its first editor. Produced under the pressure of other work, this publication has both brought out articles of scientific and historical value and also maintained a freshness of outlook and expressed contemporary opinion in a way which might not otherwise have been possible under a bureaucratic regime. The Indian Forester, a peer reviewed forestry journal celebrated its 150th year in by bringing out a commemorative issue on Evolution of Forest Management in India in July 2024.
He was elevated to the rank of IGF in 1883 succeeding his mentor D. Brandis. Schlich, who had just become Inspector General, proposed to centralize the control of the preparation of regular working plans and of future management under them in the Governor of India i.e., the Inspector General, with a special branch under a Superintendent of working plans. This important proposal was sanctioned in 1884. His major work was a five volume ‘Manual of Forestry’ (1889-96), which became the standard and enduring textbook on silviculture, forest management, forest protection and utilisation for forestry students.
On his retirement in 1885, Schlich moved on to England to take up the pioneering post of Professor of Forestry at the Royal Engineering College at Cooper’s Hill. As a Professor in Cooper’s Hill, he influenced colonial forestry across the British colonies. He moved to Oxford in 1905 to found Oxford’s forestry programme from where he retired in 1920. He was awarded the Knight Commander of the Indian Empire in 1909. Stebbing while mourning the demise of Sir William Schlich in 1925 described him as ‘the doyen of the British Empire forestry’.
James Sykes Gamble, a botanist par excellence (1869 - 1899)
James Sykes Gamble was an English botanist who gained an appointment to the Indian Forest department from the Indian Civil Service examination which he sat in 1868. Selected by the Secretary of State in 1869 to undergo training on the Continent for the Indian Forest Service, Gamble was deputed to the Nancy Forest School in France. When he sailed to Calcutta on completion of his training in 1871, he carried with him some Wardian cases of Ipecacuanha for the Botanic Gardens. It Gamble’s botanical interest took him to Kew where under the guidance of Sir Joseph Hooker, he paid his first visit to the Gardens and Herbarium, thus starting an association with the Gardens which was to continue in later years and to last until his death.
James Sykes Gamble
After a short stay in Burma, Gamble received orders to report in Bengal in August 1872, where Schlich joined as Conservator towards the end of the year. It was here the friendship between him and Schlich commenced which was to last through life. Gamble followed the work of Schlich in Bengal and also the editorship of the Indian Forester.
Gamble was deputed in 1890 to the North Western provinces as the Director of Imperial Forest School at Dehra Dun and Conservator of the School Circle comprising of three forest divisions, which formed a fine training ground between November and June each year. Gamble proved himself as one of the best directors the School has ever had, where he planted a small arboretum. He founded the Forest School Herbarium that year. Gamble retired from service in 1899. Recorded as a thoroughly efficient forest officer, an indefatigable researcher and a patient cataloguer, Gamble accomplished a score of valuable botanical works such as trees, shrubs and climbers of Darjeeling district, Flora of Madras Presidency, Bambuseae of British India. During the years 1915-1924, he published six parts of ‘the Flora of the Madras Presidency’.
Very many new species that came to light during his work on the Flora of Madras’ and of the Malayan Peninsula (after his retirement) appeared in numerous short papers scattered throughout the Kew Bulletin during the first two decades of the twentieth century. Post retirement, he helped founding the Forestry School at Oxford and gifted his collection of nearly 50,000 plants to the Kew.
In an obituary reference, E.P.Stebbing who was in his own right a great forest historian on Indian Forestry, referred to the loss of two early foresters in Indian Forestry in close sequence during 1925. He recorded thus, “ Following shortly on the death of his friend Sir W. Schlich, the Indian Service has now lost another great forester in the person of James Sykes Gamble, who, on his departure from India in 1899, left a great reputation behind him both as a scientific forester of the first calibre, an educationist and a great botanist. Gamble went out to India when the botany of the forest was imperfectly known for the practical forester’s purpose and the Indian timbers were quite unknown. Before he left the country he placed in the hands of the Indian forester a manual the value of which received immediate recognition”. His treatise named ‘A Manual of Indian Timbers’ that appeared first in print in 1881 was outcome of hard labour from an avid botanist and forester while he was associated with D.Brandis as Assistant Inspector General of Forests. Went out of print soon, the manual was amplified as second edition in 1902 and later as third edition with further improvements in 1922.
Baden Henry Baden Powell, a luminary of forest law (1860 onwards)
An English civil servant since 1860, he served as a Conservator in Punjab from 1873. He became the Chief Court Judge for Lahore serving until 1889. He wrote on a variety of topics including land tenure, forest conservation and law. Himself a member of the Indian Civil Service, Baden Powell spent the middle years of his service seconded to the Forest Department - fortunately for the latter, for he was a great authority on forest law and land revenue systems who can be said to have placed forest legislation in India on a sound basis.
The first Indian Forest Act was passed in 1865. It was soon found to be deficient, especially as regards the regulation of rights. Its successor was Act VII of 1878. In the words of Baden Powell, written fourteen years after about forest settlements, "it was extremely difficult to get the authorities to agree to a complete measure," and, he adds, "all experience shows that, as time goes on, forest property becomes more valuable... Such property should become more sharply defined. All rational forest management looks to the future."
Baden Powell considered as the chief architect of the 1878 Act, presented a paper entitled ‘On the defects of the existing Forest Law’ in the Conference held at Allahabad in 1874. He remarked that everybody got accustomed to graze and cut in the nearest jungle lands but that did not constitute a strict legal or prescriptive right. While the forests were left open to anyone who chose to use them and were overrun with people cutting and doing what they liked, without any distinct grant of license they were nevertheless in theory, the absolute, unimpaired and unrestricted property of the state. He declared that the colonial state had acquired through conquest sovereign rights over all forests and uncultivated land, and local people’s use of them didn’t signify possession of legal rights but privileges that the state could withdraw at will. Notable among his books was ‘A manual of Jurisprudence for Forest Officers’ published in 1882.
Berthold Ribbontrop (1867-1900)
B. Ribbentrop from Germany was one among the two professionally trained foresters to commence his service in the nascent forest department in India. He served as IGF to the GoI from 1885 for 15 long years. In spite of difficulties and a very small staff in the initial period of forest administration up to say 1886, the foundation of the forest organization was truly laid. The next twenty years, during many of which Ribbentrop was the head of the Department, were years of progressive consolidation and coincided with the arrival of the IFS men trained at Cooper's Hill in the United Kingdom by Schlich and Fisher and other able teachers. The Cooper's Hill motto was mens sana in corpore sano (Healthy Mind in a Healthy Body), which fitted quite well the 162 foresters who went to India between 1887 and 1906. This motto continues in the present day premiere National Forest Academy in Dehra Dun where IFS probationers are trained.
In his treatise published in 1900 ‘Forestry in British India’ he wrote that he was coming to the end of his career and described the lack of forestry expertise among the British administrators in India . In the preface to his book, Ribbontrop wrote ‘The regular forest conservancy was first introduced under the auspices of Sir D.Brandis when it was still quite a small sapling, and I have seen it grow to the mighty tree it is at present under the wide spreading shadow of which I have grown old..’. The book presents a general description of the forests and a resume of the introduction and growth of forestry in the British Indian Empire.
Edward Percy Stebbing (1900 onwards)
A pioneering English forester and a forest entomologist in India, E.P.Stebbing studied in the Royal Engineering College and the Cooper’s Hill College and later at the University of Edinburgh. Stebbing worked as a forest entomologist and zoologist for the Indian Forest Service from 1900-1910, when he returned to the University of Edinburgh as Professor of Forestry.
Among his publications, the Forests of India (3 volumes) between 1922 and 1926 can be considered to be an authority on the Forest history British India Empire that provide an authentic perspective about the genesis and evolution of forest administration and management. All the three volumes run to a total length of over 1386 pages in print. As introduced by the author in his book, ‘this history of the Forests of India and the growth of the Indian Forest Service has been written with the object of tracing the various stages through which the forest have passed during the development of the country under the British rule. The aim is to present a detailed narrative form the progress of forestry in different provinces of the country and the steps by which that progress has been achieved..’
End Note
As a retired forestry professional from Tamil Nadu, India, compilation of this episode has been a more fulfilling experience for me. For the shortage of space, I would have missed few innovators of that period. I hope that readers will gain a perspective of forestry developments in the British India both during the tenure of East India Company and under Her Majesty’s Empire that moved from the stage of intensive exploitation to that of sustainable forestry. Individually, the veteran foresters described in the above narration are frontiersmen in their own right and their assertive recommendations for scientific forest management and their execution on ground resulted in far reaching impacts on the forest resource as a whole, which witnessed evolutionary progress in subsequent decades as India became an Independent republic.
Bibliography
Baden Powell, B. H., & Sykes Gamble, J. S. (eds.) (1874). Report of the proceedings of the forest conference at Allahabad 1874, Calcutta 1874, p. 3–30; 112–113.
Brandis, D. 1888. Dr. Cleghorn’s Services to Indian Forestry. In: Transactions of the Royal Scottish Arboricultural Society 12: 87-93.
Centre for Policy Studies in ‘The Story of Modern Forestry in India’ 2011.
Milward, R.C. The Indian forest service: Its origin and progress. Unasylva Vol 3 (1).
Ribbontrop, B. 1900. Forestry in British India. Central Printing Office, Calcutta, p. 245.
Sekar, T. 2015. Forest management of Tamil Nadu- A historical perspective. Tamil Nadu Forest Department. P.451.
Stebbing, E. P. 1922-1926 . Forests of India, Vol. I, II and III. John Lane the Bodley Head Limited, London, p. 548, p.633 and p.705.
Stebbing, E.P. 1925. Obituary Mr. J. S. Gamble, C.I.E., F.R.S. Nature Vol 116 (2923) pp 684-685. Nature Publishing Group
Subbarayalu. 2014. Dr.H. F.C. Cleghorn-Founder of forest conservancy in India. Notion Press, Chennai p. 292.
Excellent work!
ReplyDeleteWell documented narrative on the British India forest history
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