Dietrich Brandis

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Dietrich Brandis FRS (March 31, 1824 - May 29, 1907) is considered the father of tropical forestry. He worked with the British government in India and introduced scientific forest management.

German foresters were hired by the British government in the late nineteenth century to train forestry students who were candidates for the Indian Forest Service.

Brandis joined the British service in 1856 as superintendent of the teak forests of Pegu division in eastern Burma. During that time Burma's teak forests were controlled by militant Karen tribals. He introduced the "taungya" system (King KFS (1968). Agro-silviculture (the taungya system). University of Ibadan / Dept. of Forestry, Bulletin no. 1, 109pp.), in which Karen villagers provided labour for clearing, planting and weeding teak plantations. In return they were allowed to plant crops for the first few years between the trees. As the teak trees grew, villagers were moved to new land and the process was repeated. As a result of this process, many villagers became dependent on the state forestry service and local resistance to the state takeover of forests became increasingly difficult.

Brandis' work included determination of teak volume, rate of growth, identifying rate of harvest, developing forest protection plans againsts pests and fire. He also introduced timber purchase rules, clearing rules and the establishment of managed teak areas called conservancies with officers who were appointed as Conservators.

Brandis documented the sacred groves in Rajputana and Kans (woodlands) of Mysore, the Garo and Khasia hills which he visited in 1879, the Devarakadus of Coorg in 1868, and the hill ranges of the Salem district in the Madras Presidency in 1882, the Swami Shola on the Yelagiris, the sacred grove at Pudur on the Javadis and several sacred forests on the Shevaroys. He was among the earliest in India to formally link forest protection with local peoples.

After seven years in Burma, Brandis became Inspector General of Forests in India, a position he served for 20 years. He formulated new forest legislations and helped establish research and training institutions. The Indian Forest College at Dehra Dun was founded by him. He also took to writing of Forest flora of northwest and central India and Indian trees. After retirement Brandis continued to work on Indian forestry and at the age of 75 he started his principal botanical work, Indian trees, dealing with 4 400 species. It was first published in 1906 and re-issued several times afterwards, the last time in 1971. He also mentored many foresters such as B. Ribbentrop, W. Schlich and C.A. Schenck of Germany, and Gifford Pinchot and Henry Graves (the first and second chiefs of the USDA Forest Service) of the United States. He influenced the forestry movement in the United States by mentoring Pinchot, Graves, and others who came to study with him in Germany, and through his voluminous correspondence with many other men such as Charles Sprague Sargent and Franklin Hough involved in establishing the U.S. national forest system. Pinchot relied heavily upon Brandis' advice for introducing professional forest management in the U.S. and on how to structure the Forest Service when Pinchot established it in 1905.

[edit] References

Herbert Hesmer. Leben und Werk von Dietrich Brandis. Begründer der tropischen Forstwirtschaft, Förderer der forstlichen Entwicklung in den U.S.A., Botaniker und Ökologe. Abstracts of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vol. 58. XXIII u. 476. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, 1975.