Question

Between 1880 and 1920, forest cover in the Indian subcontinent declined by 9.7 million hectares, from 108.6 million hectares to 98.9 million hectares. Discuss the role of the following factors in this decline:

Tea/Coffee plantations

Answer 1

Tea/Coffee plantations: They hired displaced village community members on low wages. The forest tribes no longer lived where they had been located for generations. Shifting cultivators would sow seeds in burnt-out forest land and re-grow trees. When they were gone, there was no one left to tend to the forests, something they had done naturally in their home villages.