FORESTRY IN ASSAM

Abstract

ASSAM is still one of the most undeveloped provinces of India, in spite of the long period it has been under British Administration. This is in the main due to the considerable area occupied by the hill districts inhabited by various tribes whose chief method of livelihood is by the practice of shifting cultivation, that most wasteful of agricultural methods. The backward condition of these peoples must be attributed to the guiding rule of British administration that the customs of the people should not be interfered with, once tribal warfare and other practices incompatible with modern ideas had been stopped. The consequence is that, in spite of the lapse of well over half a century since forest conservation began to be introduced into parts of Assam, forest reservation has made little progress in the hill districts. Even in the Lushai Hills, we read in the “Report of Forest Administration in the Province of Assam for the year 1940-41”, by C. Mackarness, Senior Conservator of Forests (Shillong, Assam Govt. Press, 1941) “A Forest Regulation has been proposed and a draft submitted to Government which in a modified form has been forwarded to the Governor-General in Council for assent.” The report on this subject continues: “The hill districts of Assam possess an inadequate proportion of Reserved or Protected forests which provides one reason for erosion and flood damage.” It may be asked, it is being asked with increasing pertinence, when will the Governments of the British Commonwealth of Nations-for the matter is equally urgent in many of them-face up to this question of the enormous damage and waste which is increasing annually through deforestation erosion and flood damage. It may be that the War may prove the salvation of these Assam hill districts, since it would seem apparent that for military purposes communications are being opened up in what has heretofore been a wild mass of more or less inaccessible hill tracts.