Abstract

Forest management has gone through different phases in Kerala from conservation of marketable produces and defence supplies to active conversion of forests to export crops, agriculture and government plantations of a variety of crops. Forest management was institutionalised in the colonial model with forest reserves which collapsed during the second world war. The emerging national industrial elite gradually gained ascendency and after a brief period of provincial control forestry was re-established with the central government assuming absolute control. The prospects of a coservation oriented forest management in a situation of concentration of power is also briefly touched upon