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Conserving Eden: The (European) East India Companies and their Environmental Policies on St. Helena, Mauritius, and in Western India, 1660 to 1854

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Richard Grove
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

Extract

The history of tropical forest change over the last millennium is difficult to chart with any confident degree of accuracy. Indeed, systematic attempts even for the last hundred years have been made only recently. In general, more is known at present about the history of tropical forests in Asia and Southeast Asia than forests in Africa or South America. This lack of knowledge is partly due to the fact that the causal factors behind the erosion of tropical forests area are particularly difficult to disentangle. However, important connections can be made between European expansion, the penetration of capitalist economic forces, and the transformation of tropical environments.Above all, the spread of market relations in the tropics has served to encourage the rapid clearance of forests for agriculture. The history of global deforestation has probably been closely associated at many of its fastest stages with the dynamics of the forces of industrialisation and the expansion of a European-centered world-system.

Type
Environmental Planning
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1993

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References

I have benefited greatly in writing this paper from suggestions by William Beinart, Vinita Damodaran, Mariodi Gregorio, and Quentin Cronk. The research for it was generously supported by the Royal Society; Clare Hall, Cambridge; the British Academy, and the estate of J. C. Smuts.

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2 For some initial attempts in this direction, see Wallerstein, I., The Modern World System (Academic Press, New York, 1974)Google Scholar. There remain, of course, some major problems to be encountered in equating any expansion of the “European world system” with processes of ecological change. It is now well established that the activities of indigenous peoples in Australia and East Africa, for example, caused widespread ecological change long before the advent of the European. The same was true in many Pacific islands; see the chapter on Easter Island in Clive Ponting's A Green History of the World (London: Sinclair Stevenson, 1991)Google Scholar.

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4 See Grove, R. H., “Conservation and Colonial Expansion: The Development of Environmental Attitudes and Conservation Policies on St. Helena, Mauritius, and in Western India” (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, United Kingdom)Google Scholar; and “The Origins of Environmentalism,” Nature, 05 23, 1990Google Scholar.

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7 See Grove, R. H., “Early Themes in African Conservation; The Cape in the Nineteenth Century,” in D. Anderson and R. H. Grove, Conservation in Africa; People, Policies and Practice (Cambridge, 1987), 2247Google Scholar.

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10 E.g., Worster, Nature's economy; Hays, S., Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency; The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1880–1920 (Cambridge, Mass., 1959)Google Scholar; Lowenthal, D., George Perkins Marsh, Versatile Vermonter (New York, 1958)Google Scholar.

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14 Marsh was well aware of the deforestation history of St. Helena and early attempts to control the process. He was largely unaware, however, of the history of Indian conservation with which he became acquainted only through correspondence with Dr. Hugh Cleghorn during the late 1860s. See Cleghorn/Marsh correspondence (Marsh Papers, Archives Department of Vermont, Burlington, Vt., 1865–82).

15 For an extended introduction to the evolution of Hippocratic environmental psychology see Glacken, Clarence, Traces on the Rhodian Shore (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969)Google Scholar.

16 See Grove, R. H., “Conservation and Colonial Expansion,” (PhD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1988, Ch. 5)Google Scholar. It has to be said that the more Utopian and transcendental elements in conservationism during the period were partly suppressed, for fairly obvious reasons. Nevertheless a careful inspection of the writings of Hugh Cleghorn in particular indicates similar underlying preoccupations, reinforced by the Humboldtian antecedents of much of early conservation thinking in colonial India.

17 For a specific characterisation of this genre of science, see Cunningham, A. and Jardine, N., eds., Romanticism and the Sciences (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

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20 See Perlin, J., A Forest Journey; The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization (New York: Norton, 1989) 35145Google Scholar.

21 Hughes, J. D., “Theophrastus as Ecologist,” Environmental Review, 4 (1985), 291307Google Scholar. See also remarks on Theophrastus in Glacken, , Traces on the Rhodian Shore (Berkeley, 1967)Google Scholar; and Rubner, H., “Greek Thought and Forest Science,” Environmental Review, 4 (1985), 277–96Google Scholar.

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23 Semple, Ellen C., The Geography of the Ancient Mediterranean (London, 1932)Google Scholar.

24 For a wider discussion of these matters, see Lane, F. C., Venetian Ships, Shipbuilders and the Renaissance (Baltimore: University of Baltimore, 1934)Google Scholar.

25 See Venice Archives (Arsenale); basta 8, fl./9/10

26 The Venetian records show that local peasant opposition to state conservation, featuring even active sabotage and incendiarism, contributed to this policy. The phenomenon of popular resistance to colonial forest policy was repeated over and over again in the context of much later colonial conservation policy, especially in Africa and India. See Grove, Richard, “Colonial Conservation, Ecological Hegemony and Popular Resistance,” 1557Google Scholar.

27 Bryans, R., Madeira, Pearl of Atlantic (London, 1954), 30Google Scholar; and Watson, A. M., Agricultural Irrigation in the Early Islamic World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar.

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29 Thompson, K., “Forests and Climatic Change in America; Some Early Views,” Climatic Change, 3 (1983), 4764Google Scholar.

30 For a detailed discussion of this, see Bloch, Ernst, “Geographical Utopias,” ch. 2 of The Principle of Hope (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986)Google Scholar.

31 See Keymer, A., “Plant Imagery in Dante,” (M.Phil, dissert., Faculty of Modem Languages, University of Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar.

32 Prestt, J., The Garden of Eden; The Botanic Garden and the Recreation of Paradise (New Haven, 1981)Google Scholar.

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35 This stood in stark contrast to the official response developing outside the European domain, particularly in Japan. Here, as Conrad Totman has recently revealed, rapid population increases, urban growth, and fuelwood demand had led to a widespread ecological crisis by the mid-seventeenth century. The Tokugawa Shogunate responded by initiating an elaborate forest conservation and reafforestation programme designed both to safeguard timber reserves and prevent soil erosion. These measures do, however, not appear to have become known to European contemporaries. See C. Totman, The Green Archipelago.

36 See Grove, , “Early Themes in African Conservation,” 2139Google Scholar.

37 For an overall historical treatment, see Gosse, P., St. Helena, 1502–1938 (London, 1938)Google Scholar.

38 For a detailed compilation of the St. Helena records, see Janisch, H. R., ed., Extracts from the St. Helena Records (Jamestown, St. Helena: Government Printer, 1908)Google Scholar.

39 For a detailed account, see Grove, “Conservation and Colonial Expansion,” ch. 3; see also Cronk, Q.C.B., “The Historical and Evolutionary Development of the Plant Life of St. Helena,” (PhD thesis, no. 13567, Cambridge University, 1985, 5388.)Google Scholar

40 “Letter,” St. Helena Council to Court of Directors, dated 19 Feb., 1715, in Janisch, , St. Helena Records, p. 113Google Scholar.

41 Council to Court of Directors, dated November 1708, in Janisch, , St. Helena Records, p. 85Google Scholar.

42 Ibid., 88.

43 St. Helena Council Diary, dated Oct. 23, 1745, in Janisch, , St. Helena Records, p. 183Google Scholar.

44 Ibid., 105–6.

45 Sir Joseph Banks, diary entry, dt May 1771 in Beaglehole, J. C., ed., The “Endeavour Journal” of Sir Joseph Banks, 1768–1771, vol. 6 (Sydney: Sydney University Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

46 Probably the East India Company's earliest formal scientific appointment was that of Dr. Johann Koenig as “Company Naturalist” at Madras in 1778. Koenig had earlier held a post as “Naturalist” to the Nawab of Arcot. The much earlier instance of patronage by the Company represented by the sponsorship of Edmund Halley on his St. Helena expedition in 1676 should perhaps be discounted for this purpose.

47 Thirsk, J., ed., Agricultural History of England and Wales, vol. 5, 375–6 of (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

48 Brown, John Croumbie, The French Forest Ordinance of 1669 (Edinburgh, 1876)Google Scholar.

49 Wacquet, Jean-Claude, Les Grandes maitres des eaux et forêts de France de 1689 a la Revolution (Paris: Librarie Droz, 1978)Google Scholar.

50 Brouard, J. R., The Woods and Forests of Mauritius (St. Louis, Mauritius: Government Printer, 1963), 112Google Scholar.

51 Sim, T. R., The Forests and Forest Flora of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope (Edinburgh, 1907), 7680Google Scholar.

52 For an overall literature survey, see Boomgard, P., “Forests and Forestry on Java. 1677–1941,” in Dargavel, J., ed., Changing Tropical Forests, Historical Perspectives on Today's Challenges, (Canberra: Australian National University, Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies Special Publication, 1989)Google Scholar. Far more detailed accounts are contained in numerous articles by E.H.B. Brascamp. in particular “Hourlevanties onder de O. I. Compagnie, De Aate van 21 Juin desor de soeshanan aan de O. I. Compagnie verleend tot het Kappen van hout-weiken in de bosschen van blora [uit het koloniaal Archief No. XLX11]”, Tijdschrift voor Indische taal, land en Volkenkunde van het Koninklijke Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kusten en Wettenschappen, 52 (1932), 108–12Google Scholar.

53 See Albion, R. C., Forests and Sea-Power; The Timber Problem of the Royal Navy, 1652–1862 (Harvard, 1926)Google Scholar.

54 The dynamics of French naval timber demand are dealt with in Bamford, P. W., Forests and French Sea-Power, 1660–1789 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1956), 88102Google Scholar.

55 Some idea of the early stages of this process is contained in Das, Diprakanjan, Economic History of the Deccan (Delhi: Munshiram, 1976), 105115Google Scholar.

56 Report of the Bombay Forest Commission, 1887, Vols. 1 and 2 (Bombay: Government Press, 1887)Google Scholar. The taxation features of Maratha forest policy are an unexplored field in research terms; however, for a cursory survey, see Vashishta, H. B., Land Revenue and Public Finance in Maratha Administration, (Delhi, 1975, 138–46)Google Scholar.

57 Until the end of the eighteenth century, the forests of Cochin were under the control of the feudal chiefs of Nadivazlis, who owed allegiance to the Rajah of Cochin. In 1813 a forest department was set up under a Mellei Melvicharappan [Mountain Superintendent]; see Viswanath, H., ed., Working Plan for Chakakuan (Trivandrum: Forest Department, 1958), pp. 1213 [Ref. Trav. 0. 3, Indian Institute, University of Oxford])Google Scholar. For details of the Travancore timber monopolies and early forest conservancy, see Bourdillon, F., ed., Report on Travancore Forests (Trivandrum: Government Printer, 1886), 1516Google Scholar.

58 A short account of these is given by Lambrick, H. T. in Sir Charles Napier and Sind (Oxford: Clarendon, 1952), 2224, 192–3Google Scholar.

59 E.g., see Gibson, Alexander, “Description of the System Adapted for the Forest Conservancy of the Bombay Presidency,” in Gibson, A., ed., A Handbook for the Forests of the Bombay Presidency, (Byculla: Government Printer, 1863)Google Scholar. Gibson states, for example, that “Teak and “Junglewood” have been carefully preserved ever since this tract of country came under the rule of the Angria, and even, I think, dates from the taking of Sevendroog by Admiral Watkins.”

60 A detailed account of the impact of new naval demand is found in Wadia, R. A., The Bombay Dockyard and the Wadia Master Builders (Bombay, 1957)Google Scholar.

61 Brouard, , Woods and Forests of Mauritius, 12Google Scholar.

62 Toussaint, R., ed., Dictionary of Mauritian Biography, 154Google Scholar. See also; Grove, , “Conservation and Colonial Expansion,” 88102Google Scholar.

63 R. Kyd to Company Board, Fort William, Madras, dated 15 April 1786, quoted in “Proceedings of the Supreme Council relative to the establishment of a botanic garden at Mackwa Tannah,” Calcutta, in India Office Library, Home Miscellaneous, No. 799, pp. 1–207.

64 Higgs, H., The Physiocrats, Six Lectures on the French Economistes of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1897)Google Scholar.

65 For biographical details of Poivre, see Malleret, L., Pierre Poivre (Paris: L'Ecole Francais D'Extreme Orient, 1974)Google Scholar.

66 These journeys are detailed in Ly-Tio-Fane, Madeleine, Mauritius and the Spice Trade: The Odyssey of Pierre Poivre (Port Louis: Mauritius Archives Publication Fund, 1958)Google Scholar; and “Pierre Poivre et l'expansion français dans l'lndo-Pacifiques,” Bulletin de l'Ecole Français d'Extreme Orient (Paris, 1967) [Extrait du Tome LI 11 Fasc. n. 2]Google Scholar.

67 Poivre, Pierre, Travels of a Philosopher; or Observations on the Manners of the Various Nations in Africa and Asia (Dublin, 1770)Google Scholar.

68 On the value of empirical observations of the Orient, see Poivre, P., “Utilite d'un voyage dans l'Orient,” in Poivre, Citoyen du Monde; ou lettres d' un philosophe à ses amis dans l'Orient (Amsterdam, 1763), 172Google Scholar.

69 Malleret, L., ed., Un manuscrit de Pierre Poivre; les memoires d'un voyageur, (Paris: Ecole Francais d'Extreme Orient, 1968), 113–4Google Scholar.

70 Poivre, P., D'Amerique et des Americains (Berlin, 1771)Google Scholar.

71 Poivre's seminal metropolitan interlude is covered in Laissus, Y., “Note sur les manuscrits de Pierre Poivre (1719–1786) conserves a la bibliotheque centrale du Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle,” in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Arts and Sciences of Mauritius, vol. 4, Pt 2, (1973), p. 37 and p. 37, n. 2Google Scholar.

72 Higgs, H., The Physiocrats, 78Google Scholar.

73 Brouard, R., Woods and Forests of Mauritius, 10Google Scholar.

74 Discours prononces par M. Poivre, Commissaire du Roi, l'un a l'assemblee generate des habitans de l'Isle de France tors de son arrivee dans la colonie, l'autre a la premiere assemblee publique du Conseil Superieur nouvellement etablie dans l'isle (Imprimerie Royale, Port Louis. 1768, 50 pp)Google Scholar. [This publication is very rare, but a copy is at the Auguste Brunet Library, Toulon.]

75 See Salles, J., ed., Oeuvres completes de Pierre Poivre (Paris, 1797)Google Scholar; A copy of this book is held at the University Library, Cambridge, United Kingdom.

76 The separate articles are compiled in (Anon.) Reglement economique sur le défrichement des terres et la conservation des bois de l'Isle de France (Imprimerie Royale, Port Louis, 1769)Google Scholar; [Auguste Brunet Library, Toulon.] The rules were signed by Governor Desroches as well as Poivre himself.

77 Details of this transference are found, for example, in Government of Natal, Report of the Committee Enquiring into the Extent and Condition of the Forest Lands of the Colony (Pietermaritzburg: Government Printer, 1880)Google Scholar [held at Natal Provincial Archives, Pietermaritzburg, Natal, South Africa] regulations into India as early as 1844 is provided in Sleeman, W. H., Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official (London: J. Hatchard, 1844), 450Google Scholar.

78 A certificate releasing Commerson to the service of Poivre's administration was delivered to him by Bougainville on 15 November 1768. For details, see Series designated ‘Col-E.’, Commerson's File, Fl., Archives Nationales, Paris.

79 See Bernardin de Saint Pierre, J. H., Voyage a l'Isle de France (Paris, 1773)Google Scholar. I have referred to the edition published in London in 1800 as A Voyage to the Isle of France.

80 This was probably Dalbergia latifolia.

81 This valuing was of a very personal kind on Commerson's part: “My plants,” he wrote, “my beloved plants have consoled me for everything; I found in them, Nepenthes, curare, dulce” (Pasfield-Oliver, S., The Life of Philibert Commerson [London, 1909], 202Google Scholar).

82 For details of Rousseau's botanical enthusiasms, see Rousseau, J. J., Letters on the Elements of Botany Addressed to a Lady, Martyn, T., trans. (London, 1782)Google Scholar.

83 See Grove, , “Conservation and Colonial Expansion,” 154–82Google Scholar.

84 See de Saint Pierre, B., Studies of Nature, 5 vols. (London, 1796)Google Scholar; Harmonies of Nature, 3 vols (London, 1815)Google Scholar; Paul et Virginie (London, 1841)Google Scholar; La Chaumiere Indienne (Calcutta, 1866)Google Scholar.

85 For specific details of the links between Poivre's conservation policy on Mauritius and the environmental philosophy of Edward Balfour, the original proponent of forest protection in the Madras presidency, see IOL, V/27/568/107 [Correspondence files on trees and the incidence of rainfall].

86 The main articles were Arrete of the 13th Messidor, Art. 111 (July 1795); and Arrete of the 14th Vendemiaire, Art XI11 (October 1804). It was this last law which the British incorporated on their annexation of the island in 1810.

87 Ly-Tio-Fane, M., “Notice historique” (Port Louis, Mauritius: Royal Society of Arts and Sciences of Mauritius, 150th Anniversary. Commemorative Publication, 1986)Google Scholar.

88 Bouton's conservation ideas were put forward in such publications as: “Sur le decroissement des forets a l'lle Maurice,” Le Cernien, 04 1214, 1838Google Scholar; “Note sur le decroissement des forets,” in Rapports de la societé d'histoire naturelle de l'lle Maurice (1846), 10Google Scholar. For Balfour's views, see Balfour, E. G., “Notes on the Influence Exercised by Trees in Inducing Rain and Preserving Moisture,” Madras Journal of Science and Literature, 25 (1849), 402–48Google Scholar. Balfour had been stimulated in his advocacy of forest protection by his observations of the efficiency of the Mauritius conservation ordinances and by his readings of the works of Joseph Priestley on the water-holding dynamics of the atmosphere (see IOL V27/560/107, pp. 1–11).

89 Beatson, A., “Account of Mauritius,” (unpublished ms, British Museum, BM13868. London, 1784)Google Scholar.

90 Letter, EIC Court of Directors to Governor, St. Helena, dated Jan 23, 1794, in Janisch, H. R., Extracts from the St. Helena Records and Chronicles of Cape Commanders (Jamestown, St. Helena, 1908)Google Scholar.

91 IOL, Home Misc., no. 799, letters on pp. 1–201.

92 Beatson, A., Tracts Relative to the Island of St. Helena, Written during a Residency of Five Years (London, 1816)Google Scholar.

93 For details of J. D. Hooker's visit to Ascension island, see Duffey, E., “The Terrestrial Ecology of Ascension Island,” Journal of Applied Ecology, I (1967), 219–36Google Scholar. A brief discussion of earlier afforestation programmes under the East India Company and the impact of tree-planting on rainfall in Helena, St. is found in the St. Helena Almanac, vol. 1. (1848), 24Google Scholar.

94 Hove, A. P., “Tours for Scientific and Economical Research Made in Guzerat, Kattiawar and the Conkans in 1787–1788,” Bombay Selections (Bombay: Government Printer, 1855), vol. XVI, 50185Google Scholar.

95 For biographical information on the surgeons employed by the EIC, see Crawford, D. G., The Roll of the Indian Medical Service (Calcutta, 1930)Google Scholar.

96 Spry, H. H., Modern India (London, 1837), 55–8Google Scholar.

97 See Burkill, I. H., Chapters in the History of Indian Botany (Calcutta, 1965)Google Scholar.

98 N. Wallich, Evidence to Select Committee 1831–1832, British Parliamentary Papers, Colonies, East India, (1831), vol. 10, Col. 735.

99 Heber, R., Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India from Calcutta to Bombay, 1824–5 (London, 1828), 274Google Scholar.

100 In that year the Court of Directors had warned the island Council that “we are of the opinion that encouraging the growth of wood is of utmost consequence to this Island not only from the advantages to be derived from it as a fuel, but because it is well known that trees have an attractive power on the clouds, especially when they pass over hills so high as those on your island and we are inclined to believe that the misfortunes the island has been subject to from drought may in some measure have been averted had the growth of wood been properly attended to,” (my emphasis).

101 Martin, R., The Sanitary Condition of Calcutta (Calcutta. 1836)Google Scholar.

102 See discussion of Martin's campaigns in Crawford, D. G., A History of the Indian Medical Service, vol. 2, ch. 2Google Scholar. Further medico-topographical reports were compiled for Dacca (1840), Kumaon (1840), Jessore (1837), Assam (1837). Sora (1839).

103 Butter, D., Outlines of the Topography and Statistics of the Southern Districts ofOudh and the Cantonment of Sultanpur, Oudh (Benares, 1839)Google Scholar.

104 See especially Boussingault, J. B., “Memoir Concerning the Effect which the Clearing of Land Has in Diminishing the Quantity of Water in the Streams of a District,” Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, 24 (1838), 88106Google Scholar; and passages in Humboldt, 's Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, 1799–1804, Williams, H. M., trans, vol. 4: 134–9 (London, 1838)Google Scholar.

105 Stebbing, E. P.. The Forests of India, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1922), 7281Google Scholar.

106 See, for example, Thomas, J. E., “Notes on Ryotwar or Permanent Money Rents in S. India, and on the Duty of Government in Periods of Famine,” Madras Journal of Literature andScience (1838), 5378, 200–21Google Scholar; and Grove, , “Conservation and Colonial Expansion,” 258329Google Scholar. The remainder of this paper is based heavily on the latter pages, which should be referred to for more detailed primary sources.

107 Balfour, E. G., “Notes on the Influence Exercised by Trees in Inducing Rain and Preserving Moisture,” Madras Journal of Literature and Science, 25 (1849), 402–8Google Scholar. See also IOL V/27/560/107 for details of the correspondence between Balfour and Gibson.

108 See (Anon.), Obituary of Gibson, Alexander in the Proceedings of the Linnaean Society (1867), p. 33Google Scholar. See also entry on Gibson in Crawford, D. G., The Roll of the Indian Medical Service (Calcutta, 1930)Google Scholar.

109 Letter, Alexander Gibson to J. D. Hooker, dated 1 March 1841, Letter no. 21, India letters, Kew Archives, Richmond, Surrey. This correspondence records the first direct involvement of Hooker in the tropical deforestation issue, a role subsequently reinforced by his visits to Ascension Island and St. Helena in 1843, and India in 1847–50. Hooker's simultaneous involvement in early conservation in the Cape Colony is outlined in Grove, R., “Early Themes in African Conservation,” 2234Google Scholar.

110 “Timber Monopoly in Malabar and Canara”; entry dated 26 11 1822, in Minutes of Sir Thomas Munro, (Bombay: Government Printer, 1881), 178–87Google Scholar.

111 Tucker, Richard, “Forest Management and Imperial Politics, Thana District, Bombay,” Indian Economic and Social History Review, 16 (1979), 27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

112 This incident was recounted by Gibson, in the Bombay Forest Report (1856) (Bombay: Government Printer), 13, par. 78Google Scholar.

113 Stebbing, , Forests of India, 120Google Scholar.

114 Ibid., 111.

115 Ibid., 118.

116 MS Letter, written to Gibson from Mahabaleshwar (IOL V/27/560/107).

117 Gibson, A., “Report on Deforestation in South Conkan.” Transactions of the Bombay Medical and Physical Society, 37 (1846), 1122Google Scholar.

118 Despatch no. 21, Court of Directors, EIC, to Government of India, dated 7 July, 1847, quoted in Balfour papers, V/27/560/107. Azimghur was a district mentioned specifically by Donald Butter in his Topography of Awadh. The Court had clearly referred to the work.

119 For a fuller outline of the philosophy involved, see Gibson, A.. “A Description of the System Adopted for the Forest Conservancy of the Bombay Presidency,” in Gibson, A., ed., A Handbook to the Forests of the Bombay Presidency (Byculla: Government Printer, 1863), 53114Google Scholar.

120 “Minute by the most noble the Lord Dalhousie,” read to the Agri-Horticultural Society of the Punjab on 20 February 1851, reproduced in Henderson, G., ed., Select Papers of the Agro- Horticultural Society of the Punjab (Lahore: Lahore United Press, 1868)Google Scholar.

121 For detailed references to the correspondence on forest conservation carried on between Dalhousie and Hooker, see Huxley, L., The Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, vol. I (London: John Murray, 1918)Google Scholar.

122 Sind File, (Political 201), Napier to Lord Ellenborough, 29 May 1843, Ellenborough Papers, Public Record Office, Kew. For details of the pre-colonial forest system of Sind and its later adaptation, see Scott, W., Report on the Management of Canals and Forests in Scinde (Bombay: Government Printer, 1853)Google Scholar.

123 Accounts of pre-colonial evictions and fuelwood fees are in Eastwick, E. B., Dry Leaves from Young Egypt, James Madden (London, 1849), 24Google Scholar, and in Outram, J., The Conquest of Scinde—a Commentary (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1846)Google Scholar.

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125 Both of the new Presidency's Forestry Departments were run according to management methods based on the Sindhi, French, and Scottish models with which their medical founders were familiar. Additionally, Hugh Cleghorn was particularly interested in the history of Venetian attempts to control deforestation and soil erosion. In contrast the introduction of German forestry concepts constituted a much later development, and it was not until after 1878 that they were widely applied in India.

126 The appointment was made jointly with Dietrich Brandis, a German botanist.

127 An account of Cleghorn's activities in the early years of the Madras Forest Department is in Cleghorn, H.'s The Forests and Gardens of South India (Edinburgh, 1861)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

128 Cleghorn, in “Discussion,” following on the presentation of a paper by Bidie, George, “On the Effects of Forest Destruction in Coorg,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (1869), 7475Google Scholar.

129 Cleghorn, H., Royle, F., Baird-Smith, R. and Strachey, R., “Report on the Committee Appointed by the British Association to Investigate the Probable Effects in an Economic and Physical Point of View of the Destruction of Tropical Forests,” Report of the Proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Transactions (1852), 82100Google Scholar. See also Cleghorn, H., “On the Distribution of the Principal Forest Trees in India, and the Progress of Forest Conservancy,” Report of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1868), 9194Google Scholar.