|
|
|
conservation, exploitation, and cultural CHANGE IN THE INDIAN FOREST SERVICE, 1875–1927
BENJAMIN WEIL
ABSTRACT
Although the Indian Forest Service was founded on conservationist principles, by the twentieth century it had become almost exclusively devoted to profitable exploitation of the forests it managed. Quantitative content analysis of the service's primary voice, The Indian Forester, correlates the transition from conservation to extraction to shifts from the dominance of generalists to that of bureaucratic specialists, and from ad-hoc holism to reductionism. Growing emphasis on reductionist science reinforced a mental framework inimical to conservationist arguments based on indirect benefits and appeals to precaution. In the broader culture, these arguments resurfaced in reaction to periodic famines, but by the beginning of the twentieth century, they had lost respectability within the Forest Service.
| INDIA TODAY FACES the interrelated problems of Himalayan deforestation, soil erosion and salinity, dam siltation, flash floods, and biodiversity loss. The government agencies responsible for solving these problems—and, as some would argue, for causing them—are the direct descendants of the environmental management agencies that came into being under British rule. Chief among these agencies is the Indian Forest Service. Since most of India's environmental problems are far worse now than they were a century and a half ago, it seems logical to seek the roots of the current crisis in the development of the Forest Service. The history of the Forest Service resonates globally because the forest bureaucracies of the rest of the former British Empire and much of the anglophone world have their roots in India. |
1
|
|
This essay traces the trajectory of several self-reinforcing transitions in the culture of the Forest Service: from a conservationist to an extractive focus, from a dominance by generalists to that of bureaucratic specialists, and from an ad hoc holism to reductionism. I am not concerned with "ideas of nature" per se. Rather, I focus on ideas and cultural attitudes toward science and technology, and more specifically toward scientists and engineers. Certainly all ideas about science and technology reveal attitudes toward nature, but it was not on the basis of wilderness values that the conservationists of the mid-nineteenth century British Raj made their case. |
2
|
|
The environmental managers of British India created a bureaucratic and segmented mental landscape and they set about restructuring the physical landscape to match it. This progressed slowly but inexorably, as a new generation of specialists replaced an older generation of generalists, as a narrow reductionist scientific approach pushed aside local, qualitative, experienced knowledge, and as an extraction and engineering mentality replaced conservationism as a mode for managing the colonial South Asian environment. The philosophical perspectives that informed the conservationist arguments of the mid-nineteenth century included the Utilitarian idea that the commons must be maintained to benefit the greatest number of people over the longest period of time while minimizing the harms of forest exploitation to people downstream, the precautionary principle, and an emotional and aesthetic appreciation and respect for "nature."1 However, the arguments based on these philosophical perspectives declined in effectiveness and respectability as an engineering paradigm ascended within the culture of the Forest Service. This trend coincided with a shift in departmental purpose away from conservation-oriented activity to extractive and commercial activity. |
. . . |
There are about 11381 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
