Question

What was done in scientific forestry?

Answer 1

Hint: Scientific Forestry deals with the study and science of managing trees and their plantations. Forestry has done with applying techniques and management and where trees were cut down in forests based on many factors like species, harvesting, etc. It also deals with the management of forest area by deciding how much plants to be planted and to be cut each year.

Complete answer:
India is one of the ten forest-rich countries of the world. It consists of 20877 sq. km. of Tropical thorn forests, 313617 sq. km. of Tropical deciduous forests, 5596 sq. km. of Swamp forests among many other types.
In terms of geographical area, Mizoram covers 85 per cent of total Indian forest area, Arunachal Pradesh 79 per cent, Manipur, Meghalaya and Nagaland 75 per cent each.
Back in 1850, when the need for natural resources started increasing gradually with the advent of urbanisation, the British States started to opt for a monopolistic approach in terms of the plantation of trees. The British Government and many landowners did not feel the necessity to increase timber production and introduce modern formalised forestry practices from the continent because the British had direct access to the large timber reserves of their Empire, of Scandinavia and the Baltic states.
Coming to the meaning of scientific forestry, it was a practice where trees were cut down in forests and based on species, silviculture, system of tending, harvesting and regeneration, trees were grown in a way that forest resources can be utilized in perpetuity with a sustainable harvest. Trees were grown in a row.
At first, this was done only for timber species but as the technique gained popularity, the same was practised in many wildlife sanctuaries, National parks, Biosphere reserves, tiger reserves and other protected areas of the bulk plantation.

Note: The Scientific Forestry mainly focuses on planting a single species of trees by cutting down other species planted there. It also includes cutting down forests from their natural form and to replant them in a managed way. Sir Dietrich Brandis introduced the concept of managing forests by scientific methods.