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
- Part II Scientific Forestry, Forest Management and Environmental Change
- CHAPTER 5 Scientific Forestry and Social Control: Regulating Access to Forests
- CHAPTER 6 The New Forest Regime and Restructuring of the Livestock Economy
- CHAPTER 7 Commercialisation of Forests, Timber Extraction, and Deforestation
- CHAPTER 8 The Myth of Sustainability and the Fate of Forests
- CHAPTER 9 Separating Farms from Forests: Collapsing of the Hill Economy
- CHAPTER 10 Conclusion: Unravelling the Crisis
- Epilogue: From Despair to Hope
- Bibliography
- Index
CHAPTER 7 - Commercialisation of Forests, Timber Extraction, and Deforestation
from Part II - Scientific Forestry, Forest Management and Environmental Change
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
- Part II Scientific Forestry, Forest Management and Environmental Change
- CHAPTER 5 Scientific Forestry and Social Control: Regulating Access to Forests
- CHAPTER 6 The New Forest Regime and Restructuring of the Livestock Economy
- CHAPTER 7 Commercialisation of Forests, Timber Extraction, and Deforestation
- CHAPTER 8 The Myth of Sustainability and the Fate of Forests
- CHAPTER 9 Separating Farms from Forests: Collapsing of the Hill Economy
- CHAPTER 10 Conclusion: Unravelling the Crisis
- Epilogue: From Despair to Hope
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In some regions the finest forests are so remote from roads that their value is much diminished. The object of the survey was to determine the position of all forests, and ascertain what extent existed with reasonable distance of land or water carriage. If the river flowing down the adjoining valley were large enough to float down logs to the plains, it might then be feasible to construct roads or timber slides to transport the logs to the water, as in Switzerland and the Black Forests.
Thomas W. Webber, The Forests of Upper India and Their Inhabitants, Edward Arnold, London, 1902, pp. 42–3. (He surveyed forests in the 1860s.)A very important step had been taken in October, 1913, to create a permanent market for Kumaun's immense stores of chir pine, namely, by setting up factories for antiseptic treatment of railway sleepers where the big rivers of Kumaun reach the plains.
Stebbing, The Forests of India, Vol. III, p. 658.Compared to World War I, India's position as a strategic and supply center was vastly more important. After a hesitant and uncertain beginning, the demand of the Defence Department for timber gradually grew and eventually exceeded what the forest of India could supply. Generally speaking, the normal activities of the Forest Department had to be subordinated to meeting this enormous timber demand without risking the destruction and future welfare of the forests.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Himalayan DegradationColonial Forestry and Environmental Change in India, pp. 189 - 224Publisher: Foundation BooksPrint publication year: 2008