The man who saved the western ghats

by Deepa Kandaswamy

Conservation and climate change have become hot topics in the past 30
years—we observe World Environment Day and Earth Day each year. However,
in 1916, exactly a century ago, a Scotsman realized the importance of
conservation and preservation of biodiversity and spent his entire life
towards achieving this goal.
But for Hugo Francis Andrew Wood, the lush green Western Ghats today,
especially the Anamalai range (Anai means elephant and malai means
mountain) that runs through Tamil Nadu and Kerala would have become like
the dry Eastern Ghats, doomed by British exploitation.
The Western Ghats begin in Gujarat in the north-west and span over
1,600km to the south of India. To their west lies a narrow plain
bordering the Arabian Sea, while in the east, they merge with the Deccan
plateau. It would not be an exaggeration to say it determines the
climate of India.
It stands directly in the path of the south-west monsoon and creates
heavy rainfall on the narrow coastal plains on the west and dry regions
on the eastern side. This is also the reason why the Western Ghats'
biodiversity in flora and fauna is unparalleled in the world and is a
Unesco World Heritage site.
Creation of Topslip
As I drove up the Anamalai hills, it was sunny until I entered the
mountainous road amid thick forest canopy filled with towering trees of
all kinds. Wherever the trees were broken by elephants, light shone
through upon signs like "Don't stop anywhere" and "Don't use horn".
It's exhilarating to drive amid dense jungles wondering if you are going
to encounter wild elephants—Anamalai, as the name suggests, is elephant
territory. Finally, reaching the Anamalai Tiger Reserve located on
Topslip, you see little sign of civilization until a checkpoint.
Until 200 years ago, only tribals lived in the Anamalai range, which has
the highest peak of the Western Ghats at 2,695m. Francis Buchanan
mentioned of Indian teak and other trees he came across in the Anamalai
of Madras Presidency in his travelogue A Journey from Madras through the
Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar (Volume 3) published in 1807.
The British had the Anamalai range surveyed in 1820. Both the East India
Company and the British government were thrilled when they found jungles
on the Anamalai range, which spanned several mountains in Madras
Presidency (Kerala and Tamil Nadu), were filled with giant teak trees.
They decided to harvest the timber but found that they couldn't
transport the trees down to the plains as they were too large. So, they
came up with a novel method—they cut the trees and pushed the timber
down through the slope to the river downhill. Hence the name Topslip.
In 1850, a road from Topslip to Valparai was built by Captain James
Michael of the Madras Infantry, and in 1856, Captain George Gosling, who
was also a geologist, built a road from Topslip to Parambikulam (now in
Kerala), so they could exploit the jungles in the entire range; the
timber was carried to Topslip using elephants.
When I visited the area—I travelled more than 50km inside the Anamalai
range, in the region permitted by the forest departments of both
states—I could find just one teak tree that had survived the
exploitation and is 460 years old. It's called the Kannimara Teak and is
now a tourist attraction on the Parambikulam side. (Interestingly
enough, the tree has also been awarded the Mahavriksha Puraskar,
normally given individuals or organizations for protecting certain
species of trees.)
Scientific forestry
Many people don't understand why the great Indian Railways was built or
the importance of the Indian forests to the British—or, for that matter,
the connection between the two.
In the early 19th century, the colonial powers were vying for naval
supremacy. The oak forests of Britain vanished due to irresponsible
felling of trees to make ships. The Royal Navy needed timber for new
ships, to retain its supremacy.
The British needed the railways for administration and trade. Apart from
cargo and transportation, they needed the railways to move troops
quickly to places of rebellion after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 challenged
their imperial supremacy. For each mile of railway track, around 2,000
wooden planks or railway ties/sleepers were needed to hold the track in
position.
Apart from this, wood was needed to fuel the steam locomotives. The
British government decided to expand their railway network rapidly after
1857; so, even more wood was needed.
For these purposes, they needed massive amounts of teak. So, this
species was needed to be grown and other species of trees were cut down.
They called it "scientific forestry". The British kept cutting off teak
in Anamalai and shipping them off to Tiruchirappalli (aka Trichy) or
Bombay (now Mumbai). In Trichy, it was used for building tracks across
the subcontinent.
Teaks shipped to Bombay were used to build Royal Navy ships in the
Bombay shipyard. Indeed, Indian teak contributed in making Britain a
superpower.
Roughly 40,000 trees were felled each year in government forests in
Madras Presidency alone for the railways, according to Forestination in
Madras Presidency by Dietrich Brandis (1883). This doesn't include other
species of trees that were exploited for other purposes like fuel.
In the name of civilization
Anamalai also became a political showcase of how the British were
civilizing Indians. The British believed that killing wildlife and
clearing forests for cultivation was a sign of civilization. They truly
believed they were helping Indians leave their "natural savagery" behind
by deforestation while using our timber to retain their imperial power
status.
The British accomplished this in a systematic manner. First, they
enacted the Indian Forest Act in 1865. As per this Act, they divided the
forests into three categories—reserved, protected and village.
The Anamalai forests came under the reserved category, which meant local
tribes couldn't even take twigs to use as fuel or hunt small animals for
food. They banned cattle grazing. Collecting vegetables or fruits could
land one in prison.
Before the Act, people who lived in or near the forest got their food
and fuel by hunting and the felling of branches, which had been their
traditional right for centuries. Adivasi communities were banned from
trading jungle products like tiger teeth, ivory, hides and skins,
bamboo, spices, gums, resins, medicinal herbs, etc.
British companies were instead given the trading rights. Indian
aristocrats and the British were allowed hunting licences to kill at
will wild animals that caught their fancy, especially tigers. They were,
in fact, paid for killing them. According to Indian Wildlife History: An
Introduction by Mahesh Rangarajan, over 80,000 tigers, 150,000 leopards
and 200,000 wolves were killed for rewards between 1875-1925 all over
India. Since British kept records of only the money paid out, the actual
number may be more.
Many Adivasis, on the other hand, were forced to vacate their ancient
homelands and work in British plantations for free.
To carry the huge trees, they created an elephant training camp, which
exists even today. Tribals who lived in the Anamalai area of Western
Ghats domesticated some elephants to become kumki elephants. They were
used to drive away wild elephants to the mountain range and also carry
the trees.
This went on until most of the Anamalai range was cleared up. Between
1885 and 1915, several forest officers and conservators tried to
regenerate the area but were unsuccessful. This was when an officer
named Hugo Wood decided to put a stop to the unchecked destruction of
indigenous forests.
Birth and life
On 12 June 1870, Wood was born to Elizabeth Maria Louisa and Thomas
William Wood at Byculla in Bombay Presidency. He was their second son.
He studied at the Royal Indian Engineering College, Cooper's Hill, in
1890-93. He passed the Indian Public Service tests and chose forestry.
He returned to India in 1893. He worked on regenerating the Ajmer
forests of Rajasthan. His ability in this regard was noticed by the
British government and he was later sent to Godavari and Kurnool in
Madras Presidency, where he served in various capacities as assistant
conservator of forests and deputy conservator of forests.
Wood was asked to replicate his Ajmer work in the Anamalai range in
1915. The next year, he was posted to the South Coimbatore Division (a
region that included parts of present-day Tamil Nadu and Kerala) by the
time the Anamalai range was left with almost no trees.
Wood never married. He dedicated his life to conservation and didn't
care about race, religion, ethnicity, language or nationality. He was
finally made conservator of forests in 1918, a post he held till 1926,
when he retired to Coonoor after suffering from tuberculosis, according
to a Tamil Nadu forest department booklet.
Forestry and conservation
The continued practices of scientific forestry and poaching across the
world have led to disastrous consequences. Many of the Earth's resources
are non-renewable—once depleted, they are gone for good. Environmental
pollution, species extinction and global climate change are all results
of human mismanagement of the Earth's resources, endangering our
survival.
Wood knew this a 100 years ago. He understood the importance of the
Western Ghats to the Indian climate, as well as the dangers of
deforestation and importance of conservation.
In 1915, Wood drew up a working plan for regenerating the forests of the
Western Ghats, especially in Anamalai and the surrounding areas. First,
he talked to the tribals, the British government and other interested
parties and made them agree on chopping trees and hunting wildlife.
Second, he admonished the British for uprooting trees and introduced
coppicing. This is a method of forest management which takes advantage
of the fact that many trees will rapidly regrow in the spring if they
are cut down up to the stump during the winter. It is friendly to
wildlife and other flora and fauna.
Wood befriended the tribals and many who were displaced were brought
back. He restored the customary rights of those who lived near the
forests in the Anamalai range.
Finally, he marked out areas where no felling or coppicing was allowed
for 25 years. The British government agreed to this plan as they had
unsuccessfully tried regenerating the Anamalai range for 30 years. (Wood
also refused to provide to the British during World War I.)
In 1916, Wood, living in a bamboo hut in Mount Stuart, began the
regeneration of the Anamalai range. He cooked his own food and lived
alone.
First, he analysed why the teak trees were not growing back and
discovered that it was due to the presence of Lantana camara, a
flowering shrub which is actually a weed; an invasive species introduced
in the plantations for ornamental effect, it had spread quickly all over
the range. Wood made sure to get rid of it all.
Despite the fear of cholera and malaria due to the climate in the
region, he worked in earnest. He would go on daily walks into the
deforested land 4km away, pockets filled with teak seeds.
He would dig holes a foot deep with his silver-tipped walking stick and
plant the seeds in. He did this at 15ft intervals. Once his pockets were
emptied, he would go back for more seeds and start again from where he
left off.
In 1916, he started small, targeting an area of 25 acres; by his death,
it had spread to an area of 650 sq. km.
Death and legacy
On 13 December 1933, the first motor vehicle that drove up Anamalai's
mountainous road to Topslip was a small lorry carrying the body of Hugo
Wood. It was followed by 11 cars with British officials.
Wood had died in Coonoor on 12 December at the age of 63. However, a few
months earlier, sensing his approaching death, he drew a will asking to
be buried in Mount Stuart in the Western Ghats and also sent the money
needed for the tomb to the chief conservator of Madras Presidency.
He now lies buried among the teak trees and his legacy. The inscription
on the tomb reads "Si monumentum requiris circumspice", Latin for "If
you are looking for my monuments, look around".
Deepa Kandaswamy is an award-winning freelance writer and author based
in India.
Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com

--
http://www.fastmail.com - The professional email service