India and Brazil - Comparing Environmental Policies in 16 Countries - page 165

for travelers on how to report scientific observations. Besides maps and
trade items, the explorers brought back plants and animals, some dead
and some alive. The Dutch cultivated exotic plants at their botanical gar-
den in Amsterdam (for a while employing Carolus Linnaeus). In 1778 the
British East India Company appointed a naturalist to reside at Madras.
Company officials were concerned with the frequent famines that plagued
India. One response was to establish a botanical garden in Calcutta to
investigate cultivating new plants for food. Another was the recording
and publication of meteorological observations in Madras, which include
some of the earliest scientific documentation of El Niño on its Asian side.
The company botanist, William Roxburgh, recorded the severe drought
of 1787-91, now recognized to be connected to one of the most extreme
El Niño episodes ever. His curiosity piqued, he examined the chronicles
of the Rajah of Pittenpore, discovering records of a similar drought in
1685-87 and a less severe one in 1737.
Prior to European colonization, Indian princes had regulated forests
preserves for their personal benefit in cutting timber and for hunting.
Once the British East India Company established itself and undermined
the traditional authority, both the British and the locals wanted to exploit
the forests. The British particularly wanted to use the timber for ship-
building. To a large extent, the company assumed control of the princely
preserves and continued to manage them, earning handsome profits.
Beginning in 1810 the company began systematic surveys of the subconti-
nent's forests. Protection was dismantled in 1823, however, and by 1847 the
problems of deforestation were readily apparent. Peasants could not even
find firewood. Colonial officials made the argument that lack of forests led
to lack of water. The Bombay region established the Forest Department,
later followed by a forest department in Madras. In 1878 the British pro-
mulgated a Forest Act that introduced scientific forestry on the European
model, which in practice amounted to maximizing the amount of timber
harvested. Traditional rights of villages to local woods nearly disappeared.
During World War II, the demand for lumber for the British troops in the
Middle East resulted in the greatest exploitation.
The ideas of Mohandas Gandhi, the leader in the campaign for inde-
pendence from Britain, provide a model for sustainable development.
Although Gandhi's direct purpose was not ecological, he strongly opposed
industrialization. In 1928 he wrote “God forbid that India should ever
take to industrialization after the manner of the West.” 1 His vision was a
nation of self-sufficient villages. He often said, “he world has enough for