Smallholder Tree Growing in South and Southeast Asia - Smallholder Tree Growing for Rural Development and Environmental Services - page 24

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Appendix: Development of Concepts on Smallholder
Tree Growing in Various Countries in South
and Southeast Asia
India
People in India have been practicing tree growing spontaneously for thousands of
years (Puri and Nair 2004), both on farms and around houses for subsistence and, later
on, also marketing purposes. Trees played a special role in their daily lives, as they still
do today, with various species being valued as sacred trees. At a national level, the
management of tree and forest resources was primarily aimed at the production of
commercial products such as teak. As early as in 1805, the British government
requested the British East India Company to investigate the availability of teak in
Madras to meet the needs of British shipbuilding during the Napoleonic war (Barton
2000). Environmental concerns about deforestation (Weil 2006) and a critical timber
shortage already by the 1840s (Barton 2000) promoted the establishment of a Forest
Department in 1855 by the governor general of India, i.e., Lord Dalhousie. Large areas
with forests, the latter being property of the British government in India, were now
declared protected areas (Barton 2000). Some considered the annexation of areas for
state forest conservation as a way of concealing the real considerations of the British
government, i.e., the need for raw materials and the justification of forest expropriation
from “traditional” forest users in order to more fully exploit forests resources (Weil
2006). The Indian Forest Act of 1878 subsequently gave the state greater control over
forest management.
Nowadays, teak is mainly planted outside forests and still plays a significant role as
timber producer (Pandey and Brown 2000). Likewise, there are many other trees outside
forests that are crucial in generating fruits and vegetable products but foremost they are
important as a main source of fuelwood. In Kerala for example, the most densely popu-
lated state of India, trees outside forests account for about 90 percent of the state's