Colonialism and Green Science: History of Colonial Scientific Forestry in South India, 1820-1920

Major focus has been devoted in the last three decades to administrative and economic aspects of colonial forest policies in south India, but scientific aspects received little attention. Consequently scientific dynamics of British forestry remained a less focused domain in the literature on colonial forest history. By examining the history of forest policies in south India this paper proposes that scientific forestry was even though aimed at harnessing resources for economic exploitation, due attention was paid for the requirements and demands of forest dependent communities. It was this process that facilitated colonial state to perpetuate resource exploitation without serious confrontation with forest dependent communities. This paper suggests that colonial science adopted a pragmatic approach by systematically incorporating the demands of forest dependent communities into policy process.