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Commonwealth
Forests | | |
 The start of management of the forest
Forests have been managed sustainably for thousands of years. Early people realised the
importance of forests as the source of their livelihoods and must have acted both to protect
them and to promote the growth of useful trees. For example, Dawkins and Philip (1998)
speculate that wildings of the fruit tree Durian (Durio zibethinus) may have been distributed
and
tended throughout its present range in Malaysia and Indonesia by people, and the same may
be true of other fruit tree species.
The importance of trees to humans has been recognised by many religions. Many sacred
groves, dedicated to ancient deities, are protected to this day. Swamy el al (2003) state
that
an assessment in 1995 found over 13,000 sacred groves in all India. These, and others
elsewhere such as in Africa, are strictly protected and as a result are important for the
conservation of species including medicinal plants. Shyam Sunder (1995) quotes from the two
thousand year-old Ishopanishad: All in this manifested world, consisting of moving and non-moving
are protected by the Lord. Use its resources with restraint. There are many
references to trees in both the Bible and the Koran, with the recognition that they are the gift of
God and that mankind is responsible for their wise stewardship. The earth is the Lord’s, and
everything in it, the world and all who live in it (Psalm 24.1) while in the Koran fuelwood is
recorded as a divine provision: Is it ye who grow the tree which feeds the fire or do We grow it?
(Sura 56:72). More specifically in the Bible, in Nehemiah 2:8, Asaph is described as the
keeper of the king’s forest; he is requested to supply timber for the rebuilding of the temple,
clearly implying management and sustainability of the supply.
In considering more recent times Dawkins and Philip (op. cit.) draw attention to the sad fact
that the development of silvicultural practice was more likely to have followed excessive logging
or forest clearance, and draw attention to the heavy deforestation that occurred along sea trade
routes from the 17th century on. Forest reserves were developed in the 1760s for the Caribbean
islands of St Vincent, Barbados and Tobago, to protect watersheds from clearance for sugar or
cotton plantations. Forest reserves were established in Mauritius (then under French control)
for similar reasons under the Règlement Economique in 1769 and the Botanic Gardens was
established there to evaluate suitable species for reforestation.
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