Review

Reviewed Work(s): Fencing the Forest: Conservation and Ecological Change in India's
Central Provinces, 1860-1914 by Mahesh Rangarajan
Review by: Christopher V. Hill
Source: Environmental History , Oct., 1997, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Oct., 1997), pp. 516-518
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of Forest History Society and
American Society for Environmental History

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516 Environmental History

course about the comuni is original and enriching. Nevertheless, the tendency to
separate the environmental issues from the political, cultural, and social contexts in
which they resonated saps the contribution of some of its value. For example, the
book ascribes the environmental laws to an abstract entity, "the elites." This group is
insufficiently analyzed, and neither the differences between cities or centuries are
properly discussed. Zupko and Laures argue that medieval social classes were not
monolithic, but do not apply this insight to their "elites."
The comunal codes contain norms Zupko and Laures consider to be environ-
mental law. The authors recognize the difficulty of identifying why provisions
were made about the activities of butchers, fishers, tanners, and "polluting" citi-
zens' activities, yet they repeatedly assert that these provisions were "rational re-
sponses" (p. 7) to environmental problems. This view blinkers the authors to economic,
political, and cultural functions of the laws. Prohibitions to process flax aided wool
industries as much as they protected waterways. Obligatory caging of cats and dogs
prevented ostentatious display of expensive animals, consistent with other sumptuary
laws, as much as it controlled street cleanliness, while the "purely environmental
issue" of the location of fresh meat markets may have had political and cultural un-
dercurrents. The regulation of fishing improved citizens' chances of salvation by
making it easier to observe Christian alimentary directives as much as it protected
nature. Much of this "environmental law" was designed to protect the public image
of the cities among foreigners, travellers, and visiting dignitaries. To medieval law-
makers, the honor of the comune-the attempt to impress outsiders with urbanity-
was as relevant as rational environmental policy.
Because Zupko and Laures restrict their investigation to the law codes, they
present only a partial picture of comunal environmental policies. From the laws
alone there comes an overwhelming impression of sameness and repetition, but if
the codes were set in the very distinct ecological and social contexts from which
they emerged, a more nuanced and accurate picture would appear. An interdiscipli-
nary approach to medieval environmental law which incorporated insights from
archaeology, the abundant private writings of contemporaries, and government
records on actual enforcement, together with an anthropologically informed un-
derstanding of "waste" and "pollution" (not self-evident categories) would advance
comprehension of medieval comunal environmentalism. This, as Zupko and Laures
indicate, is an integral part of comunal history. Straws in the Wind thus points the
direction for fruifful future research.

Reviewed by Paolo Squatriti. Mr. Squatriti teaches medieval European history at

the University of Michigan as a VisitingAssistant Professor. His research andpublica-
tions have centered on early medieval culture and environment in Italy.

Fencing the Forest: Conservation and Ecological Change in India's Central Prov-
inces, 186o-g94. By Mahesh Rangarajan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
xii + 2z45 pp. Maps, notes, bibliography, index. $23.00.

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 Book Reviews 517

I picked up Fencing the Forest expecting to be disappointed. After all, the one area of
the environmental history of colonial India that has been studied to death is that of
the impact of forest policy. Indian scholarship has produced enough books on for-
estry to have contributed to the continued deforestation of the subcontinent. I came
away from the book, however, surprised and impressed, for Mahesh Rangarajan has
added a new view of the consequences of colonial forest policy: a province-wide
look at the impact of this policy at the local level.
Rangarajan has chosen the Central Provinces (a group of several distinct areas
which the British combined as one for administrative purposes) as the region of in-
quiry. Within this arena, he has focused on three main issues: forest management,
shifting cultivation, and shikar, or game hunting. In each section he brings to light
important nuances of the effect of forestry laws upon the peasantry of central India.
Before turning to British policy, the author briefly describes forestry regulations in
pre-British India, noting that the Mughals also encouraged clearing in a number of
forests. Rangarajan is one of the few historians who has not polarized the two periods;
instead, he shows how British policy, rather than practice, had such an impact on the
local population. Deforestation was carried out with little regard for the necessities of
the peasantry, for the British concentrated instead on railroads, revenue, and destroy-
ing hideouts for bandits. As a result, the population was seen as a hindrance to
"improvement" and had to be dealt with as such.
The second section of Fencing the Forest is the strongest. Rangarajan notes with
particular insight the clash between the colonial administration and practitioners
of swidden, or shifting, agriculture. Raised in the tradition of private property, the
British could never fathom the concept of nomadic groups (this was true of gypsies
in Europe as well). Tribes that practiced slash and burn agriculture were thus la-
belled "uncivilized," and even dangerous, and were fined or forced to become
settled peasants. Paradoxically, the British depended on these same tribes to help
clear the forests. This aspect gave the cultivators what little power they had; they
could threaten to migrate or refuse to work. Nonetheless, the tribals eventually were
forced to relinquish control of their traditional means of livelihood.
The section on shikar strikes me as preliminary, which would make sense since so
little work has been done on its impact. Rangarajan notes the clash of cultures over
the purpose of game hunting. As George Orwell noted so brilliantly in Burmese
Days (1934), trophy hunting was a symbol of imperial control and European man-
liness. To most Indians, however, hunting meant survival. As such, those whom the
British labelled "poachers" perceived themselves as carrying out a legitimate occu-
pation.
Mahesh Rangarajan has written an important book. He delves into topics which
have been neglected in other studies of the impact of forestry policy in India. As he
notes in his conclusion, "the provincial history of forest policy can help pose afresh
questions of wider significance, including the nature of colonialism and its relation-
ship with rural society" (p. 198). This is what all environmental histories of South Asia
should attempt; it is certainly what Rangarajan has accomplished.

Reviewed by Christopher V. Hill. Mr. Hill is Chair of the Department of History at

the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. His book, River of Sorrow: Environ-

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518 Environmental History

ment and Social Control in Riparian North India, 1770-1994, will appear in the Asso-
ciation for Asian Studies Monograph Series in the fall of 1997.

A New Name For Peace: International Environmentalism, Sustainable Develop-

ment, and Democracy. By Philip Shabecoff. Hanover: University Press of New
England, 1996. xiii + 271 pp. Bibliography, index. $24.95.

The Environment and NAFTA: Understanding and Implementing the New Con-
tinental Law. By Pierre Marc Johnson and Andre Beaulieu. Washington, D.C.:
Island Press, 1996. xvi + 412 pp. Appendixes, bibliography, index. Cloth $50.oo,
paper $30.00.

These two quite different books share a common premise: that the environmental
concems now rooted in the public consciousness present policymakers with ines-
capable choices from which there is (or ought to be) no going back. If green is the
wave of the future, Philip Shabecoff gives us the big picture, using his journalist's eye
for significant detail and narrative to focus on the incidents, strands, and pathways
that have produced environmental consciousness and the promise of a more open,
democratic society. The two attorneys, one of whom, Johnson, is also a law professor
at McGill and a former Premier of Quebec, take as their optic the regional frame-
work under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which implements
this new thinking on the environment. They, too, have produced an important and
accessible book which is also a good read.
Shabecoff's point of departure is the 1992 Earth Summit, the U.N. Conference on
Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and the ambitious, broad-ranging
Agenda 21 recommendations on climate change and biodiversity which issued from
it. Through dialogue stressing cooperation and incremental, not radical, change,
the North-South divide over development and the environment was addressed in
Rio, and in the process Shabecoff had his theme: how to produce sustainable devel-
opment with equity and without ruining the planet. In fact, Maurice Strong, the
Canadian businessman and civil servant who chaired the Earth Summit, asked
Shabecoff to get involved and this book, which is essentially about "the Rio pro-
cess," was begun.
Five years after Rio it is clear that the process was based too much on the willing-
ness of governments to voluntarily set realistic and timely targets for the public good.
American leadership was lacking at the time, but is now engaged. Third World con-
cerns were by no means set to rest, but dialogue has begun. To be sure, implementa-
tion is not Shabecoff's theme; his strength is chronicling the social and ethical
ramifications of the development-environment link.
To this reviewer, his book is especially valuable on the rise of environmental con-
sciousness, with specific attention to the changing role of nongovemmental organi-
zations (NGOs). It was in Rio that NGOs by the hundreds first surfaced as an
international force, a feat since repeated to even more effect at the 1994 Cairo Popu-
lation Conference. Shabecoff has written before on the rise of green power. Here he

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