Class IX – Forest Society and Colonialism

Ans. Deforestation is the disappearance of forests or felling of trees for various needs and reasons.

Ans. (i) To encourage the production of commercial crops like sugar and jute.

(ii) To get more revenue and enhance their income.

Ans. Spread of railways created a new demand because sleepers were required for laying the tracks.

Ans. German expert Dietrich Brandis

Ans. The Imperial Forest Research Institute was set up at Dehradun in 1906.

Ans. Under scientific forestry, one type of trees is planted in straight rows.

Ans. Forest Act was enacted in 1865. It was amended twice, in 1878 and in 1927

Ans. (i) Villagers wanted forests to satisfy their needs – fuel, fodder, leaves.

(ii) They needed herbs for preparation of medicines.

Ans. Under the Act, all everyday practices – cutting wood for their houses, grazing their cattle, collecting fruits and roots, hunting and fishing became illegal.

Ans. Bastar is located in the southernmost part of Chhattisgarh and borders Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Maharashtra.

Ans. Java is now famous as a rice-producing island in Indonesia.

Ans. The Kalangs of Java were a community of skilled forest cutters and shifting cultivators.

Ans. (i) Wood could only be cut for specified purposes like making river boats or constructing houses.

(ii) Wood could only be cut from specified forests under close supervision.

Ans. Around 1890 Samin of Randullatung village questioned the state ownership of the forest arguing that the state had not created the wind, water, earth and wood, so it could not own it.

Ans. Dutch exempted payment of rents on land being cultivated in the forests, if the workers collectively provided free labour and buffaloes for cutting and transporting timber.

Ans. The Dutch followed ‘a scorched earth’ policy, destroying sawmills, and burning huge piles of giant teak logs so that they would not fall into Japanese hands.

Ans. Santhals and Oraons from Jharkhand were recruited to work on plantations in Assam faced the problem of low wages and bad conditions of work.

Ans. (i) Forests provide bamboo, wood for fuel, grass, charcoal, packaging, fruits, flowers, animals, birds and many things. Many things such as paper, species, bidi, gum, honey, coffee etc., come from forests.

(ii) Many herbs and roots are used for medicinal purposes.

(iii) Oil in chocolates comes from Sal seeds. Thus, forests are very useful for human beings.

Ans. (a) Between 1700 and 1995 the period of industrialization, 13.9 million sq km. of forest or 9.3 percent of the world’s total area was cleared.

(b) The forest area was cleared as given below:

(i) Industrial uses

(ii) Cultivation

(iii) Pastures

(iv) Fuelwood

Ans. Railways was essential for colonial trade and for the movement of imperial troops. Wood was required for the railways as mentioned below:

(i) To run locomotives wood needed as fuel

(ii) To lay railway lines sleepers were essential to hold the tracks together.

(iii) Each mile of railway track required between 1760 and 2000 sleepers.

(iv) By 1890, about 25000 km of track had been laid

(v) As early as 1850s in Madras Presidency alone 35000 trees were being cut annually for sleepers and forests around the railway tracks fast started disappearing.

Ans. (i) In scientific forestry, natural forests which had lot of different types of trees were cut down.

(ii) In their place, one types of tree were planted in straight rows. This is called plantation.

(iii) Forest officials surveyed the forests and planned how much of the plantation area to be cut every year. The area was cut then to be replanted so that it was ready to be cut again in some years.

Ans. (i) Forest Act was enacted in 1865 and was amended twice once in 1878 and then in 1927.

(ii) The 1878 Act divided forests into three categories –reserved, protected and village forests.

(iii) The best forests were called ‘reserved forests’. Villagers could not take anything from these forests, even for their own use. For house building or fuel they could take wood from village forests or protected forests.

Ans. (i) People use forest products – roots, leaves, fruits. Fruits and tubers are nutritious to eat.

(ii) Herbs are used for medicines, wood for agricultural implements like yokes. Bamboo makes excellent fences and used to make baskets etc.

(iii) Thus, everything found in the forest can be used to make one product or the other.

Ans. The Forest Act created hardships for the villagers in the following ways:

(i) Cutting wood for their houses, grazing their cattle, collecting fruits and roots, hunting and fishing became illegal.

(ii) People were now forced to steal wood from the forests, and if they were caught, they were at the mercy of the forest guards who would take bribes from them. It was common for police constables and forest guards to harass people by demanded free food from them.

(iii) Due to the banning of shifting cultivation, many communities were forcibly displaced from their homes in the forest.

Ans. (i) In shifting cultivators, parts of the forest are cut and burnt in rotation.

(ii) Seeds are sown in the ashes after the first monsoon rains.

(iii) The crop is harvested by October-November

(iv) Such plots are cultivated for a number of years and then left fallow for 12 to 18 years for the forest to grow back.

(v) A mixture of crops is grown on these plots.

(vi) In central India and Africa, it could be millets, in Brazil manioc, and in other parts of Latin America maize and beans.

(vii) It has many local names such as lading in South East Asia, milpa in Central America, tavy in Africa and chena in Sri Lanka. In India dhya, penda, bewar, nevad, jhum, podu, khandad and kumri and local names.

Ans. During the colonial rule the effects of expansion of cultivation were as mentioned below:

(i) The rural landscape was radically transformed.

(ii) As the cultivation expanded, the area under forests and pastures declined.

(iii) Peasants and pastoralists found the access to forests and grazing lands increasingly restricted by rules and regulations.

(iv) They struggled to meet pressures of revenue demand made by the government.

(v) The rural India began to produce a range of crops for the world market; such as jute, cotton and wheat.

Ans. (a) The British gave rewards for the killing of tigers, wolves and other large animals on the grounds that they posed a threat to cultivators.

(b) Result – (i) Over 80,000 tigers, 150,000 leopards and 200,000 wolves were killed for reward in the period 1875-1925.

(ii) Gradually the tiger came to be seen as a sporting trophy

(iii) Maharaja of Sarguja alone shot 1157 tigers and 2000 leopards upto 1957.

(iv) A British administrator, George Yule, killed 400 tigers.

(v) Initially certain areas of forests were reserved for hunting. Only much later did environmentalists and conservators begin to argue that all these species of animals needed to be protected and not killed.

Ans. (i) Since 1980s, the governments in Asia and Africa have realised that scientific foretry and the policy of keeping forest communities away from forests has resulted in many conflicts. So, conservation of forests has become an important goal. Thus, the governments are following the policy of involving the people who live near the forests.

(ii) In many cases, across India, from Mizoram to Kerala, dense forests have survived only because villages protected them in sacred groves known as sarnas, deevarakudu, kan, rai etc. Some villages have been patrolling their own forests.