India Forest Act 1878
- This act repealed Indian forest act of 1865.
- The 1878 Act divided forests into three categories.
- Reserved forest
- Protected forest
- Village forests.
- The best forests were called ‘reserved forests’. Villagers could not take anything from these forests, even for their own use.
- For house building or fuel, they could take wood from protected or village forests.
- The basic aim of the act was to remove local rights in the reserved forest and keep them exclusively as Government reserves .
- Protected forests were those forests areas where it was not possible to reduce local use ,while village forests were to be assigned to fulfill subsistence needs.
- The village forests were to be created from parts of the reserve forests to meet the needs of the local communities and were to be managed by these communities under the supervision of the forest department .
- This act was an extension of the government policy of establishing control over forests.
- It also made several provisions for the imposition of duties on timber.
- This duty later became one of the major sources of government revenue.