Dietrich Brandis
Encyclopedia
Sir Dietrich Brandis, KCIE
, FRS (March 31, 1824 – May 29, 1907, Bonn
) was a German
forester
who worked in India
. He is considered the father of tropical
forestry
.
, the son of Dr Christian Brandis, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bonn
. He studied at the universities of Copenhagen, Göttingen, Nancy and Bonn. In 1849 he took up a post of a lecturer in botany at Bonn. His interest in forest management was initially from a botanical perspective. He got married to Rachel Marshman in 1854, a sister of the wife of General Havelock, a friend of Lord Dalhousie
. It was this connection that brought him to Burma and eventually India.
and the felling of trees was unregulated and between 1847 and 1850 it was realized that the forests were being lost. In 1850, the British Association in Edinburgh formed a committee to study forest destruction at the behest of Dr. Hugh Cleghorn
. In 1855, Lord Dalhousie
, the Governor-General of India
issued a Memorandum of the Government of India dated 3-8-1855. This was based on reports submitted by John McClelland, then Superintendent of Forests in Burma (then part of the Indian Empire). This was a time when the need for forest management was felt.
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 was initially interested in botany. His herbarium and botanical library which he shipped from Calcutta to Rangoon were lost when the boat carrying it capsized. This loss led him to shift his focus from botanical studies to forestry.
Brandis' work included determination of teak volume, rate of growth, identifying rate of harvest, developing forest protection plans against 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. After seven years in Burma, Brandis became Inspector General of Forests in India, a position he served in 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. Brandis was created a Companion of the Indian Empire in 1878.
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.
Brandis was also involved in forestry education in England at Coopers' Hill and here he also influenced and mentored many like Berthold 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. His influence was so great that President Roosevelt
, sent him a photograph in 1896 with the inscription "To Sir Dietrich Brandis, in high appreciation of his services to forestry in the United States. From Theodore Roosevelt."
He also took an interest in the forest flora of northwest and central India and Indian trees. Even 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 4400 species. It was first published in 1906 and re-issued several times afterwards, the last time in 1971. He was posted at Balaghat in M.P as a principal of forester training institute for a long time in his service period.
Many species of plants are named after him:
Order of the Indian Empire
The Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1878. The Order includes members of three classes:#Knight Grand Commander #Knight Commander #Companion...
, FRS (March 31, 1824 – May 29, 1907, Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
) was a German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
forester
Forester
250px|thumb|right|Foresters of [[Southern University of Chile|UACh]] in the [[Valdivian forest]]s of San Pablo de Tregua, ChileA forester is a person who practices forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests. Foresters engage in a broad range of activities including timber...
who worked in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
. He is considered the father of tropical
Tropics
The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...
forestry
Forestry
Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...
.
Early life
Dietrich Brandis was born in BonnBonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, the son of Dr Christian Brandis, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bonn
University of Bonn
The University of Bonn is a public research university located in Bonn, Germany. Founded in its present form in 1818, as the linear successor of earlier academic institutions, the University of Bonn is today one of the leading universities in Germany. The University of Bonn offers a large number...
. He studied at the universities of Copenhagen, Göttingen, Nancy and Bonn. In 1849 he took up a post of a lecturer in botany at Bonn. His interest in forest management was initially from a botanical perspective. He got married to Rachel Marshman in 1854, a sister of the wife of General Havelock, a friend of Lord Dalhousie
James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie
James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie KT, PC was a Scottish statesman, and a colonial administrator in British India....
. It was this connection that brought him to Burma and eventually India.
India
The British government in India was interested in the use of forest produceForest produce
Forest Produce is defined under section 2 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927. Its legal definition includes timber, charcoal, caoutchouc, catechu, wood-oil, resin, natural varnish, bark, lac, myrobalans, mahua flowers , trees and leaves, flowers and fruit, plants , wild animals, skins, tusks,...
and the felling of trees was unregulated and between 1847 and 1850 it was realized that the forests were being lost. In 1850, the British Association in Edinburgh formed a committee to study forest destruction at the behest of Dr. Hugh Cleghorn
Hugh Francis Cleghorn
Hugh Francis Clarke Cleghorn of Stravithie was a pioneering Scottish physician, botanist and forester who worked in India...
. In 1855, Lord Dalhousie
James Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie
James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie KT, PC was a Scottish statesman, and a colonial administrator in British India....
, the Governor-General of India
Governor-General of India
The Governor-General of India was the head of the British administration in India, and later, after Indian independence, the representative of the monarch and de facto head of state. The office was created in 1773, with the title of Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William...
issued a Memorandum of the Government of India dated 3-8-1855. This was based on reports submitted by John McClelland, then Superintendent of Forests in Burma (then part of the Indian Empire). This was a time when the need for forest management was felt.
Brandis joined the British service in 1856 as superintendent of the teak forests of Pegu division in eastern Burma
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
. During that time Burma's teak
Teak
Teak is the common name for the tropical hardwood tree species Tectona grandis and its wood products. Tectona grandis is native to south and southeast Asia, mainly India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Burma, but is naturalized and cultivated in many countries, including those in Africa and the...
forests were controlled by militant Karen
Karen people
The Karen or Kayin people , are a Sino-Tibetan language speaking ethnic group which resides primarily in southern and southeastern Burma . The Karen make up approximately 7 percent of the total Burmese population of approximately 50 million people...
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 was initially interested in botany. His herbarium and botanical library which he shipped from Calcutta to Rangoon were lost when the boat carrying it capsized. This loss led him to shift his focus from botanical studies to forestry.
Brandis' work included determination of teak volume, rate of growth, identifying rate of harvest, developing forest protection plans against 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. After seven years in Burma, Brandis became Inspector General of Forests in India, a position he served in 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. Brandis was created a Companion of the Indian Empire in 1878.
Brandis documented the sacred groves in Rajputana and Kans (woodlands) of Mysore, the Garo and Khasia hills which he visited in 1879, the Devarakadus
Sacred grove
A sacred grove is a grove of trees of special religious importance to a particular culture. Sacred groves were most prominent in the Ancient Near East and prehistoric Europe, but feature in various cultures throughout the world...
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
Javadi Hills
The Javadi Hills are a range of hills, one of the largest in the Eastern Ghats, in Vellore District, in the northern part of the state of Tamil Nadu in southeastern India. About 50 miles wide and 20 miles long, they are bisected into eastern and western sections by the Cheyyar and Agaram rivers,...
and several sacred forests on the Shevaroys. He was among the earliest in India to formally link forest protection with local peoples.
Brandis was also involved in forestry education in England at Coopers' Hill and here he also influenced and mentored many like Berthold Ribbentrop
Berthold Ribbentrop
Berthold Ribbentrop was a pioneering forester from Germany who worked in India with Sir Dietrich Brandis and others. He is said to have inspired Rudyard Kipling's character of Muller in In the Rukh , one of the earliest of his Jungle Book stories....
, W. Schlich and C.A. Schenck
Carl A. Schenck
Carl Alwyn Schenck was a pioneering forestry educator in North America, known for his contributions as the forester for George W. Vanderbilt's Biltmore Estate, and the founder of the Biltmore Forest School in 1898, near Asheville, NC....
of Germany, and Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot
Gifford Pinchot was the first Chief of the United States Forest Service and the 28th Governor of Pennsylvania...
and Henry Graves
Henry S. Graves
Henry Solon Graves was a forest administrator in the United States. He founded the Yale School of Forestry in 1900, the oldest continuous forestry school in the United States...
(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. His influence was so great that President Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, sent him a photograph in 1896 with the inscription "To Sir Dietrich Brandis, in high appreciation of his services to forestry in the United States. From Theodore Roosevelt."
He also took an interest in the forest flora of northwest and central India and Indian trees. Even 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 4400 species. It was first published in 1906 and re-issued several times afterwards, the last time in 1971. He was posted at Balaghat in M.P as a principal of forester training institute for a long time in his service period.
Many species of plants are named after him:
- Dendrocalamus brandisii Kz.
- Diospyros brandisiana Kz
- Ochlandra brandisii Gamble
- Macaranga brandisii King
- Millettia brandisiana Kz
- Orophea brandisii Hk f & Th
- Pedicularis brandisii Benth
- Quercus brandisiana Kz
- Ardisia brandisiana Kz
- Iodes brandisii Kz
- Ixora brandisiana Kz
- Loranthus brandisanus Kz
- The genus Brandisia Hk f. & Th. is also named after him.