Recent Progress in Indian Forest Technology

Abstract

THE excellence of the work of any public department depends on the character and ability of the men who direct it, and the Indian Forest Department was singularly fortunate in its first Inspector-General, the late Sir Dietrich Brandis, K.C.I.E., F.R.S. He secured State ownership and State management for the forests both in British India and in the native States, and also a trained staff of forest officers. He placed Indian forest law on a firm basis by selecting as Conservator of Forests, Mr. B. H. Baden-Powell, C.S.I., a member of the Punjab Civil Service, who, after working for a decade of his life in the forest service, became presiding judge of the chief court at Lahore. Baden-Powell drafted the Indian Forest Acts, models of forest law that are followed by all colonial legislators, and his “Manual of Forest Jurisprudence “is the only English book on the subject. No mere forester could have drafted those laws successfully, nor could any mere lawyer, but Baden-Powell was both lawyer and forester.