The Role of Forests in Damodar Valley

Abstract

THE Chota Nagpur plateau lands which form the headwaters of both the Damodar and the Barakar rivers and their tributaries were originally a, forest country with sal as the main species. It was apparently never very good sal, as even the earliest travellers report that the forests consisted of small poles which were cut over so frequently that they seldom had a chance of growing into decent trees. Even at its best one must presume that its quality was never better than third class with a dominant height of 75 to 80 ft., but within this limita-tion of height there is no reason why trees of good timber content could not be produced. The age rotation should be fixed to produce an average girth at breast height of not more than 41 to 5 ft., because beyond that the local sal is apt to be hollow with a centre spoiled by red rot. One finds the same sort of limitation on size in the Dehra Dun forests, where enormous quantities of timber are produced within this limit. If left to grow to a greater girth, almost all the trees have this heart rot which is there called gauj , and appears to be a constant characteristic of the species when growing as coppice on poor thin upland soils with a dry season of forest fires. Unlike Dehra Dun, however, Chota Nagpur sal is never allowed to grow' up, and we are here accustomed to the dismal and constant picture of forests so mutilated that the coppice shoots never even get a chance of growing into poles, but are snatched out while still in the bean-stick size of 8 to 10 ft. in length. The twin demands for fuel and fencing are so great that the Chota Nagpur " Protected Forest ", State-owned in name since 1946, has literally never had a chance to grow up. On the other hand, if you calculate the requirements of wood per household, you will find that even on a very moderateestimate of average household consumption, as fixed by the Settlement records for Ranchi at 11 eft. of timber and 52 cft. fuel, this requires 0'4 acre on a 40-year rotation or 0'01 acre annually;