A Brief History of Forestry.: In Europe, the United States and Other CountriesFernow, B. E. (Bernhard Eduard)
History
A Brief History of Forestry.: In Europe, the United States and Other Countries
Fernow, B. E. (Bernhard Eduard)
Forests and forestry -- History
In spite of the many difficulties, a poor market (no market at all for a
large number of woods), wild, unsurveyed, and practically unknown
woodlands, requiring unusual and costly methods of organization and
protection, the forestry department has succeeded, without curtailing
the timber output of India, in so regulating forest exploitation as to
insure not only a permanence in the output, but also to improve the
woodlands by favoring the valuable species. It has prepared for an
increase of output for the future, and at the same time has yielded the
Government a steadily growing revenue, which bids fair to rank before
long among the important sources of income.
In 1865 the net revenue was only $360,000, it had about doubled by 1875,
and more than trebled by 1885, and since then has more than quadrupled.
While in the period of 1870 to 1874 the expense of the administration
was still 70 per cent. of the gross income, it has gradually been
reduced to near 45 per cent., while the outturn in material has in the
last five years increased by 35% over the preceding quinquennium.
At first, the department and its operations as well as its finances were
Imperial, the local governments having no control over its officers or
over the revenue derived, but, in 1882, decentralization was effected,
the local governments obtaining a direct interest in the revenues. As a
result the financial interest overruled the conservative policy, and
over-cutting was the consequence. In 1884, the general government
recognized the need of a change. After some struggle, the Imperial
department was placed at least in charge of preparing the working plans,
and pressure for their execution if not direct enforcement can be
brought through appeal to the general government by the
Inspector-General, which, however, has never been necessary to use.
The organization of the forest service passed through various stages,
and the arrangement in the different provinces is even now not quite
uniform.
The forest service, then, is peculiarly organized as regards division of
responsibilities and relationships between the imperial and the
provincial governments, the autonomy of the latter being jealously
guarded. It is divided into the Imperial and the Provincial Service, the
former consisting of the higher grade officials entirely recruited from
England, the latter, the executive service, being in administrative
functions independent of the former.
An Inspector-General, directly under the Secretary of Revenue and
Agriculture, (for some time under the Home Department) is the head of
the service, and acts as professional adviser both of the Imperial and
the Provincial Governments. But this head of the service is shorn of
most of executive functions, all administrative matters being reserved
to the provincial authorities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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