What question did this study set out to answer?

The research explores how colonial forest regulations in Malabar reshaped indigenous life and landscapes.

May 24, 2026Open Access

Scientific Forestry, State Conservancy, and Indigenous Dispossession: Colonial Forest Policies in Malabar

Key Points

The research explores how colonial forest regulations in Malabar reshaped indigenous life and landscapes.
Analysis of colonial forest regulations including the Forest Charter of 1855 and Indian Forest Acts of 1865, 1878, and 1927.
Evaluation of the impact of these policies on indigenous communities and forest landscapes in Malabar.
Examination of the policies' shift from revenue generation to state control.
Forest regulations were transformed into state property, limiting traditional rights of indigenous communities.
Forest-dependent communities were marginalized as conservation rhetoric merged with commercial extraction.
Implementation of policies in Malabar was notably stricter than in neighboring regions like Travancore and Cochin.

Abstract

This article examines how colonial forest regulations transformed the landscapes of Malabar and reconfigured indigenous life under the Madras Presidency. It argues that forest conservancy evolved from a revenue-oriented concern into a doctrine of centralized state necessity articulated through scientific forestry. Successive measures the Forest Charter of 1855, the Indian Forest Acts of 1865 and 1878, the Madras Forest Act of 1882, the National Forest Policy of 1894, and the Indian Forest Act of 1927 redefined forests as state property, formalized bureaucratic control, and curtailed customary rights. In Malabar, where British administration was direct (unlike in Travancore and Cochin), these policies were implemented with particular rigor. The article demonstrates how conservation rhetoric and commercial extraction converged to marginalize forest-dependent communities and recast lived landscapes into regulated reserves.

KI fragen

Bookmark

View Full Paper