Abstract
A
From a historical perspective, this book provides a detailed analysis of forests and wildlife in Assam and the systematic commercial exploitation of these resources apart from how the peasants were excluded from the early nineteenth century onwards. It is an important contribution to understand the forest and wild life history of the north-eastern region that has been left unexplored so far. The author has narrated how the locals as well as travellers held the magnificence of the verdant forests and how the imperial forest professionals have meticulously documented their commercial value. After the British control over the region in mid nineteenth century, timber trade came to be regulated and conservation initiatives were experimented. While introducing reserve forests, they have engaged the peasants and strengthened the trade network, administration as well as the methods of survey carried out to identify commercial value of forest resources have been provided in detail.
An attempt has been made to map the whole gamut of problems encountered while notifying the reserve forests, especially from tea planters, since the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Apart from this, how provincial politics and peasants played a significant role in de-notifying the forest reserves, including unclassified state forests, for railways, plantation and peasant settlements has been well documented. To attract labourers for commercial exploitation, the forest department introduced forest villages, contiguous to the reserve forests, along with certain privileges. Further, he has captured how the community rights initiatives remain unrealistic till recently. Precisely, the role of political economy in reserving the forest land, the negotiation process to declare the land and evolution of institutional control and governance in this region has been dealt with in detail.
The origin and development of the Forest Department and its inability to exercise control over the vast tracts of forests in the formative years has resulted in large-scale encroachment by planters and private individuals. Initially, the national level forest acts and later on the forest regulation and its amendments, have been helpful in defining the rights over the forest and helped strengthen the mechanism of governance. After the conservation initiatives, the plethora of problems encountered by the department internally and also from planters, railway companies and common people have brought upon several changes in recognising forest rights. And, it was the imperial forestry programme that has laid down the contours of dealing with the plantations as well as agrarian practices.
It is interesting to note that commercial exploitation was the prime reason for the foresters to carry out a systematic survey for codification and valuation. Yet, despite the regulation in force, timber trade had flourished with private traders making huge profits during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. To facilitate further commercialisation, communication network like trams and railways made inroads into the reserve forests. Sustainable supply with an optimal volume was factored into the working of the schemes as well as mechanisms for the reserved forests since the last decade of the nineteenth century. Both major and minor forest produce were extracted accordingly while the former provided uninterrupted supply for the institutional customers like railways and tea industries. Similar strategies adopted for certain products like rubber has been accounted for. From the early twentieth century, the demand for other forest resources like soft wood extraction has also gained importance fuelling its promotion during the post-independence period as well.
Planning for systematic extraction necessitated scientific forestry management, conservation and regeneration since the late nineteenth century. Initially, scientific forestry regeneration experiments were mostly confined to regular plantations while the traditional method of spreading seeds in larger areas was followed to reduce the cost. At the same time, certain pro-active measures were brought to control natural damages like fire. Along with shifting cultivation other alternative methods were experimented to strengthen efforts towards conservation.
Initially, the hunt for forest resources for export, sports and livelihood needs, coupled with the expansion of agriculture, was seen as a threat to the wildlife, witnessing a focus on its preservation as a prime agenda. Since mid nineteenth century, the colonial government has initiated several measures to protect the elephant and from early twentieth century, hunting endangered animals like rhino was a prohibited game in the reserve forests. Since the early twentieth century legislations were enacted to protect the wildlife and the awareness about protecting them also has increased among the people. Hence, hunting was confined to the game reserve and later on through establishment of wildlife-parks and sanctuaries. The peasants’ customary rights were not only curtailed but also brought under the new legal framework. However, in the face of protests from the peasants, some privileges were restored along with forest land. Since the 1940s, landless people’s demand for land supported by movements and provincial politics has led to de-reservation, relegating conservation as secondary till the 1980s.
Raising an important question as to what might befall the forests, considering the political complexities and the attendant conflicts the author foresees the emergence of a holistic vision shaping up in the future. The book is largely confined to late nineteenth to early twentieth century and little attention has been given to the early nineteenth and late twentieth century. The post-independent forest history was largely borrowed from the national level policies with a bird-eye view reflection on the study region. The reference style in notes should have been followed uniformly. And, more importantly, works referred to in the text do not figure in the references and the spelling mistake of reviewer’s name could have been avoided. Despite this lacuna, it is a significant contribution to the scholarship of the ecology of Assam benefiting readers and researchers from various disciplines.