SHORT QUESTIONS AND ANSWER
1. What is meant by ‘deforestation’?
Answer: Cutting down of forests is referred to as deforestation.
2. Which commercial crops were grown by British after deforestation?
Answer:Jute, sugar, wheat and cotton were the commercial crops grown by the British in India to feed the growing population of Europe.
3. Why were forests considered unproductive by the British?
Answer: They considered them to be wild and wasteful. Needs to be ‘brought under cultivation so that the land could yield agricultural products and reverse and enhance the income of the state.
4. How could English ships be built without a regular supply of strong and durable timber?
Answer:(i) Search parties of Great Britain were sent to explore the forest regions of India. (ii) Within a decade, trees were being felled on a massive scale and vast quantities of timber were being exported from India.
5. How spread of railways created a new demand for timber?
Answer: To run locomotives, wood was needed as fuel and to Jay railway lines, sleepers were essential to hold the tracks together. Also, wood was used in the interior of the railway coaches.
6. Who was the first Inspector General of Forests in India?
Answer: A German Forest Expert, Dietrich Brandis was the first Inspector General of Forests in India.
7. Name the forest Institute of Dehradun set up in 1906 by Brandis.
Answer: The Imperial Forest Research Institute.
8. What does ‘Scientific Forestry’ mean?
Answer: (i) Natural Forests which had lots of different types of trees were cut down.
(ii) In their place one type of tree was planted in straight rows, called as plantation. This is known as scientific forestry.
9. Name the three categories of forests as mentioned in the Act of 1878.
Answer: Three categories were: Reserved, Protected and Village Forests.
10 Which species of trees were promoted for the building of ships or railways?
Answer: Teak and Sal species were promoted for the building of ships or railways.
11. From which fruit was oil extracted for cooking and lighting lamps?
Answer: Fruit of the Mahua tree.
12. What was the use of a dried scooped out gourd?
Answer: It was used as portable water bottle.
13. What was the effect of Forest Act on the people living nearby?
Answer: People were now forced to steal wood from the forests, and if they were caught, they were at the mercy of the forest guards who would take bribes from them.
14. What do you mean by Swidden Agriculture?
Answer: (i) It is a traditional agricultural practice in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America. It is also called shifting cultivation.
(ii) A piece of land is cleared and cultivation is practiced. When it lost fertility, they used to shift to the other forest covered area.
15. What kind of mixture of crops were grown in these plots of forests?
Answer: In Central India and Africa it would be millets, in Brazil manioc, and in other parts of Latin America maize and beans.
16. How did new forest laws affect the hunter forest dwellers?
long Questions Answer
1. What was ‘A Scorched Earth Policy’?
Answer: In Java, just before the Japanese occupied the region, the Dutch followed a Scorched Earth Policy, destroying Sawmills and burning huge piles of giant teak logs so that they would not fall into Japanese hands.
2. What are the various uses of forests in our day-to-day lives?
Answer: (i) Paper is used for making books, wood is used for desks and tables, doors and windows, dyes are used for colouring our clothes, we get spices to add to our food, the cellophane wrapper of toffees, tendu leaf in bidis, gum, honey and coffee, tea and rubber. (ii) Oil in chocolates comes from sal seeds, the tannin used to convert skins and hides into leather or the herbs used for medical purposes are all derived from forests.
(iii) Forests also provide bamboo, wood for fuel, grass charcoal, packaging, fruits, flowers, animals, birds, etc.
3. What were the main causes of deforestation in India during the British rule?
Answer: The main causes of deforestation were the following:
(i) The British encouraged the production of commercial crops like jute, sugar, wheat and cotton. The production of food grains was needed to feed the growing urban population and raw material was required for British industries in Britain.
(ii) The British thought that forests were unproductive. They were of the view that space covered with forests could be used for cultivation which could fetch them revenue and enhance the income of the state also.
4. How were forests cleared to expand the railway network in India in the early 19th century?
Answer:(i) The spread of the railways from the 1850s created a new demand for timber. (ii) Railway was needed for the spread of trade in India. To run locomotives, wood was needed as fuel and to lay railway lines, sleepers were required to hold tlie tracks together. (iii) As the railway tracks spread, a large number of trees were felled. The government gave contracts to individuals to supply timber. These contractors began cutting trees indiscriminately.
5. State any three main characteristics of Tropical deciduous forests.
Answer: Main characteristics of Tropical deciduous forests: (i) These are the most wide spread forests in India. (ii) They are also called the monsoon forests and are spread over the region. (iii) They receive rainfall between 200 cm and 70 cm. (iv) Trees shed their leaves for about six to eight weeks in dry summer.
6. How did hunting become a big sport for the Indian people?
Answer: (i) In India, hunting of tigers and other animals had been part of the culture of the court and nobility from centuries.
(ii) Many Mughal paintings show princes and emperors enjoying their hunt.
(iii) Under colonial rule, the scale of hunting increased to such an extent that various species became almost extinct.
7. In what ways did the British regulate forest trade?
Answer: (i) The British government gave many large European trading firms the sole right to trade in the forest products of particular areas.
(ii) Grazing and hunting by the local people were restricted.
(iii) In this process, many pastoralists and nomadic communities lost their livelihoods. Some of them were forced to work in factories, mines and plantations in order to restrict them from entering into forest trade.
8. How did Indian labour suffer at the British hands in the plantations?
Answer: (i) In Assam, both men and women from forest communities like Santhals and Gonds were recruited to work on tea plantations.
(ii) Their wages were low and conditions of work were very bad, rough and tough.
(iii) They could not return easily to their home villages, as they were kept as bonded labourers who were tied to their landlords.
9. How were forest laws enacted in Java?
Answer:(i) The Dutch enacted forest laws in Java to restrict villagers’ access to forests. (ii) Now wood cutting was done only for specific purposes like making boats, constructing houses under close supervision, etc.
(iii) Villagers were punished for grazing cattle, transporting wood without a permit or travelling through forests with horse carts or cattle.
10. What was the effect of laying down of railway lines on forests?
Answer: (i) As early as the 1850s, in the Madras Presidency alone 35,000 trees were being cut annually for sleepers.
(ii) The government gave out contracts to individuals to supply the required quantities. (iii) These contractors began cutting trees indiscriminately. Forests around the railway tracks started disappearing fast.
11. Why did the British appoint the first Inspector General of Forests in India?
Answer: (i) British needed forests in order to build ships and railways.
(ii) They were worried that the use of forests by local people and the reckless felling of trees by traders would destroy forests.
(iii) So, they decided to invite a German expert, Dietrich Brandis, for advice and made him the first Inspector General of Forests in India.
12. How forest dwellers’ lives changed after new forest laws were imposed?
Answer: (i) The new forest laws changed the lives of forest dwellers in yet another way. (ii) Before the forest laws, many people who lived in or near forests had survived by hunting deer, partridges and a variety of small animals.
(iii) This customary practice was prohibited by the forest laws. Those who were caught hunting were now punished for poaching.
13. How were people benefitted with the trade in forest products?
Answer:(i) Many communities left their traditional occupations and started trading in forest products.
(ii) This happened not only in India but across the world. For example, with the growing demand for rubber in the mid-19th century, the Mundurucu people of Brazilian Amazon who lived in villages on high ground, began to collect latex from wild rubber trees for supplying to traders.
(iii) Gradually, they descended to live in trading ports and became completely dependent on traders.
14. Where is Bastar located?
Answer: (i) Bastar is located in the southernmost part of Chhattisgarh and borders Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Maharashtra.
(ii) The central part of Bastar is on a plateau.
(iii) To the north of this plateau is the Chhattisgarh plain and to its south is the Godavari plain. The river Indrawati winds across Bastar east to west.
15. Which tribes live in Bastar?
Answer: (i) A number of different communities live in Bastar such as Maria, Muria Gonds, Dhurwas, Bhatras and Halbas.
(ii) They speak different languages but share common customs and beliefs.
(iii) The people of Bastar believe that each village was given its land by the Earth, and in return they look after the Earth by making some offerings at each agricultural festival.
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