Forest Society and Colonialism

1. Why forests disappeared (Deforestation)

Between 1700 and 1995, about 13.9 million sq km of forest – roughly 9.3% of the world's total area – was cleared for industry, cultivation, pasture and fuel-wood. The British saw forests as “unproductive” wilderness. They wanted it turned into farmland that would grow crops and pay revenue. The colonial state also believed that bringing more land under the plough was a sign of progress and civilisation.

Causes of deforestation: (a) Land to be improved – the population was growing and the demand for food rose, so peasants extended the boundaries of cultivation. Between 1880 and 1920, cultivated area rose by 6.7 million hectares. (b) Sleepers on the tracks – the spread of railways from the 1850s needed wood for fuel to run locomotives and for railway sleepers (the wooden beams that hold tracks together). Each mile of track needed roughly 1,760 to 2,000 sleepers. Forests around the railway tracks began to disappear fast. (c) Commercial crops & plantations – natural forests were cleared to grow tea, coffee and rubber to meet European demand. (d) Shipbuilding – the Royal Navy needed strong timber (oak) for ships; as English forests ran out, Indian timber was exported.

2. The rise of commercial forestry

Worried that reckless cutting would destroy the timber supply, the British invited a German expert, Dietrich Brandis, who became the first Inspector General of Forests in India. He set up the Indian Forest Service in 1864 and helped pass the Indian Forest Act of 1865. He started the Imperial Forest Research Institute at Dehradun in 1906, where the system called “scientific forestry” was taught.

In scientific forestry, natural forests with many different species were cut down. In their place, one fast-growing, commercially useful tree (like teak or sal) was planted in straight rows. This is called a plantation. Forest officials decided how much could be cut each year and re-planted the same area – the goal was a steady future supply of timber, not the survival of the natural forest.

3. The Forest Acts and how life changed

The Forest Act was amended in 1878 and again in 1927. The 1878 Act divided forests into three categories: Reserved forests (the best forests – villagers could take nothing from here), Protected forests and Village forests. After the Act, the everyday activities of forest dwellers – cutting wood for houses, grazing cattle, collecting fruits and roots, hunting and fishing – all became illegal. People were forced to steal wood from the forests, and if caught, were at the mercy of forest guards who took bribes. Women who collected fuel-wood were especially harassed.

4. How cultivators were affected (Shifting cultivation)

Shifting (or swidden) cultivation is a traditional method – parts of the forest are cut and burnt in rotation, seeds are sown in the ash, and the patch is cultivated for a couple of years before being left fallow. It has many local names: lading in Southeast Asia, milpa in Central America, chitemene or tavy in Africa, and dhya, penda, bewar, nevad, jhum, podu, khandad and kumri in India. European foresters hated it because burnt patches could not grow timber, the fires were dangerous, and it was hard to calculate revenue from it. So the government banned shifting cultivation. Many communities were forcibly displaced; some had to change jobs, while some resisted.

5. Who could hunt – and who could not

Before the Forest Acts, forest people hunted deer, partridges and small animals for food. The new laws made this hunting illegal and a person caught poaching was punished. At the very same time, hunting big game became a sport for kings and the British. Killing tigers, leopards and wolves was seen as wiping out “wild” and dangerous beasts to civilise the land. The Maharaja of Sarguja alone shot 1,157 tigers and 2,000 leopards by 1957. A British official, George Yule, killed 400 tigers. Only much later did people realise these species needed protection.

6. New trades, new workers, new losses

While some lost out, the forest opened new trades for big firms. The trade in forest products was not new – from medieval times traders sold elephants, hides, horns, silk cocoons, ivory, bamboo, spices, gums and resins. But under the British, trade was completely controlled by the government, which gave large European companies the sole right to trade in particular products. Many pastoralist and nomadic communities (like the Korava, Karacha and Yerukula of the Madras Presidency) lost their livelihoods and were even branded “criminal tribes”, forced to work in factories, mines and plantations under government watch.

7. Rebellion in the forest – Bastar (India)

The people of Bastar (in present-day Chhattisgarh) believed the Earth was their Mother and each village owed the spirits a duty to protect its land. When the colonial government reserved two-thirds of the forest in 1905 and stopped shifting cultivation, hunting and collection, people were furious. Rents rose and villagers were forced to work for free (begar). In 1910, mango boughs, a clod of earth, chillies and arrows began circulating between villages as a secret call to rebel. Led by figures associated with the Dhurwas, people looted bazaars, burnt schools and police stations, and attacked officials. The British sent troops; rebel villages were burnt and many were flogged or killed. It took three months to crush the revolt, but reservation work was suspended for a time and the reserved area was reduced.

8. Forest transformations in Java (Indonesia)

The same story played out under the Dutch in Java, Indonesia. The skilled forest cutters were the Kalangs, so valuable that in 1755 the Mataram kingdom was split and 6,000 Kalang families were divided between the two rulers. When the Dutch tried to make the Kalangs work under them in 1770, they rebelled, but were defeated. The Dutch passed forest laws, restricting villagers' access to forests; wood could only be cut for special purposes like building boats or houses, under strict supervision. The Dutch used the “blandongdiensten” system – first villagers were taxed; then certain villages were exempted from tax if they cut timber and transported it for free (forced labour). A man named Surontiko Samin of Randublatung village questioned state ownership of the forest and began a widespread movement of peaceful protest by 1907, with about 3,000 families following his ideas; some refused to pay taxes or do forced labour.

9. Forests and the World Wars

The First and Second World Wars had a big impact on forests. In India, the Forest Department cut trees freely to meet British war needs. In Java, just before the Japanese occupied the region, the Dutch followed a “scorched earth” policy, destroying sawmills and burning huge piles of teak so the enemy could not use them. The Japanese then exploited the forests recklessly for their own war industries, forcing villagers to cut down forests. Many villagers used this chance to expand cultivation. After the war, it was hard for the Indonesian forest service to get this land back.

10. New developments in forestry

Since the 1980s, governments across Asia and Africa have realised that scientific forestry and keeping people away has caused conflict. Now the thinking has changed: in many cases, local forest communities and conservation experts are working together. Local people who depend on the forest are seen as the best guardians of it. Examples like the sacred groves (sarnas, devarakudu, kan, rai) preserved by communities show that people have protected forests for generations on their own.