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Empire forestry and its failure in the Philippines: 1901–1941

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2015

Brendan Luyt
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Abstract

From the mid-nineteenth century onwards there developed in the British colonies a distinctive set of forestry practices that came to be described as Empire forestry. These practices grew out of the same milieu as imperialism, and had their earliest expression in British India. Gregory Barton argues that Empire forestry also heavily influenced the forestry of the United States and that from there it spread to the Philippines. However, this article argues that the variant of Empire forestry developed in the Philippines was not particularly successful as its proponents failed to adequately adapt it to local social and political conditions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , February 2016 , pp. 66 - 87
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2015 

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References

1 Gregory A. Barton, Empire forestry and the origins of environmentalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 1.

2 Ibid., p. 1.

3 Ibid., p. 72.

4 Ibid., p. 87.

5 Ibid., p. 65.

6 Ibid., pp. 76, 80.

7 Ibid., p. 90.

8 Vandana Shiva, The politics of survival: Conflicts over natural resources in India (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1991).

9 Galudra, G. and Sirait, M., ‘A discourse on Dutch colonial forest policy and science in Indonesia’, International Forestry Review 11, 4 (2009): 524–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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11 Before the advent of the Americans, the Spanish government in the Philippines had its own Inspeccion general de Montes, established in 1863. Perhaps its longest lasting achievement was the entrenchment of the notion that foresters should be in charge of deciding whether land was more valuable for agriculture or forestry, a principle ‘which American foresters gladly inherited later on’ (Dennis Roth, ‘Philippine forests and forestry: 1565–1920’, in Global deforestation and the nineteenth century world economy, ed. Richard Tucker and John F. Richards [Durham, NC: Duke University Press], p. 41). Nano, a forester writing in the 1950s, notes that the Americans also were able to take advantage of experienced forest personnel trained under the Spanish, rehiring them as part of the new Bureau of Forestry in the early years of its existence. He also records that the Spanish forestry regime left few forest maps and no working plans or timber inventories, although the forest laws were found to be ‘excellent’ (Nano, Jose, ‘Brief history of forestry in the Philippines’, Philippine Journal of Forestry 8, 1–4 [1951]: 22–3)Google Scholar, although Roth concludes that ‘historians have found scant evidence that the [Spanish] bureau actually carried out this mandate or had any noticeable effect’ (Roth, ‘Philippine forests and forestry’, p. 41). Potter concurs with Roth's assessment, writing that ‘the Spanish foresters in the Philippines, being largely cut off from ideas on forest management and short of personnel, were unable to evolve a system which combined the commercial needs of the market with their conservation ethic’ (Lesley Potter, ‘Forests versus agriculture: Colonial forest services, environmental ideas and the regulation of land-use change in Southeast Asia’, in The political ecology of forests in southeast Asia: Historical perspectives, ed. L. Tuck-Po, W. de Jong, and A. Kenichi [Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2003], p. 62). A dissenting voice is provided by Bankoff who argues that the destruction of most of the records of the Inspeccion general de Montes in a fire in 1897 has meant that historians have underestimated its capabilities (Bankoff, Gregory, ‘A month in the life of Jose Salud, forester in the Spanish Philippines’, Global Environment 2, 3 [2009]: 28)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Nevertheless, this lack of records effectively meant that there was ‘a silvicultural “tabula rasa” on which the incoming Americans could experiment’ (Potter, Forests versus agriculture, p. 62).

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14 Ibid.: 384.

15 Ibid.: 383.

16 The Bureau's annual reports which are relied on throughout this article provide the only comprehensive source of information on its history — most of its documentation was unfortunately destroyed during the Second World War. Relying mostly on annual reports does open my account to criticism. Although annual reports ostensibly aim to report in as neutral a fashion as possible the activities and state of an institutional entity there are great incentives for their authors to overlook the negative and accentuate the positive. The lopsided coverage would normally be a disadvantage, but in this case it is not. The fact that I am able to develop a sustained negative reading of the Bureau's work despite the positive slant the annual reports were likely aimed at providing readers suggests that my criticism is, if anything, understated.

17 Arthur Fischer, Annual report of the Director of Forestry of the Philippine Islands for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1919 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1920), p. 6.

18 Letter from Arthur Fischer to Senate President Quezon, 22 Apr. 1921, Quezon Papers, Bureau of Forestry file, National Library of the Philippines, Manila (henceforth Quezon Papers).

19 Arthur Fischer, Annual report of the Director of Forestry of the Philippine Islands for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1933 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1934), p. 9.

20 Memorandum from Arthur Fischer to Senator Alegre and Representative Confesor, 7 Sept. 1927, Quezon Papers.

21 Letter from George Ahern to Hon. Manuel Quezon, Philippine Delegate, House of Representatives, 19 Feb. 1913, Quezon Papers.

22 Memorandum from Fischer to Alegre and Confesor, 7 Sept. 1927.

23 Barton, Empire forestry, p. 75.

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30 Ahern, Special report, p. 10.

31 Ibid., pp. 11–12.

32 Ibid., p. 11.

33 Ahern, Opportunities for lumbering, p. 176.

34 W. Sherfesee, Annual report of the Director of Forestry of the Philippine Islands for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1915 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1916), pp. 64–5.

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36 Sherfesee, Annual report 1915, p. 73.

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39 George Ahern, Annual report of the Director of Forestry, fiscal year 1905–06 (Manila: Bureau of Forestry, 1906), pp. 13–14.

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41 Arthur Fischer, Annual report of the Director of Forestry of the Philippine Islands for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1927 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1928), p. 73.

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47 Arthur Fischer, Annual report of the Director of Forestry of the Philippine Islands for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1923 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1924), p. 37.

48 Fischer, Annual report 1927, p. 73.

49 Barton, Empire forestry, p. 81.

50 Ibid., p. 80.

51 Ahern, Annual report 1905–06, p. 10.

52 Sherfesee, Annual report 1915, p. 16.

53 Arthur Fischer, Annual report of the Director of Forestry of the Philippine Islands for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1918 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1919), p. 53.

54 Arthur Fischer, Annual report of the Director of Forestry of the Philippine Islands for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1920 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1921), p. 65.

55 Fischer, Annual report 1919, p. 48.

56 Fischer, Annual report 1916, p. 17.

57 Fischer, Annual report 1921, p. 67.

58 Ibid., p. 65.

59 Arthur Fischer, Annual report of the Director of Forestry of the Philippine Islands for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1931 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1932), p. 654.

60 Sherfesee, Annual report 1915, p. 19.

61 Fischer, Annual report 1916, p. 11.

62 Fischer, Annual report 1917, p. 20.

63 Fischer, Annual report 1922, p. 29.

64 Fischer, Annual report 1924, p. 81.

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69 Schlich quoted in Barton, Empire forestry, p. 81.

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71 Fischer, Annual report 1918, p. 15.

72 Fischer, Annual report 1921, p. 27.

73 Fischer, Annual report 1928, p. 16.

74 Arthur Fischer, Annual report of the Director of Forestry of the Philippine Islands for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1934 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1935), p. 49.

75 Fischer, Annual report 1921, p. 31.

76 Fischer, Annual report 1922, p. 41.

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97 Fischer, Annual report 1923, pp. 30–31.

98 Fischer, Annual report 1927, p. 23.

99 Fischer, Annual report 1931, p. 732.

100 Barton, Empire forestry, p. 90.

101 Merrit and Whitford, A preliminary working plan, p. 40.

102 Ibid., p. 40.

103 Fischer, Annual report 1920, p. 23.

104 Fischer, Annual report 1929, p. 113.

105 Fischer, Annual report 1927, p. 126.

106 Everett and Whitford, A preliminary working plan: Negros Occidental, p. 669.

107 Ibid., p. 668.

108 Sherfesee, Annual report 1915, p. 11.

109 Fischer, Annual report 1917, p. 44.

110 Ibid., p. 44.

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116 Ibid., p. 83.

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118 Ibid., p. 140.

119 Cullinane, Implementing the new order, p. 17.

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124 Filomeno Aguilar, Clash of spirits: The history of power and sugar planter hegemony on a Visayan Island (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila Press, 1998), p. 198; May, Social engineering, pp. 168, 174.

125 Fischer, Annual report 1917, p. 42; Fischer, Annual report 1923, p. 9; Fischer, Annual report 1930, p. 506.

126 Ahern, Opportunities for lumbering, pp. 186–7; George Ahern, A few pertinent facts concerning the Philippine forests and needs of the forest service that should interest every Filipino (Manila: Bureau of Forestry, 1908), p. 8; Anonymous, Useful information concerning public forests and possibilities for their exploitation (Manila: Bureau of Forestry, 1908), p. 3.

127 Fischer, Annual report 1920, p. 8.

128 Fischer, Annual report 1921, p. 7.

129 Fischer, Annual report 1923, p. 8; Fischer, Annual report 1924, p. 7.

130 Fischer, Annual report 1926, p. 8.

131 Fischer, Annual report 1927, p. 8; Fischer, Annual report 1928, p. 7.

132 Nano, ‘Brief history of forestry in the Philippines’: 9–128.

133 Sherfeesee, Annual report 1915, p. 15.

134 Florencio Tamesis, Annual report of the Director of Forestry of the Philippine Islands for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1932 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1933), p. 427.

135 Sherfesee, Annual report 1915, pp. 15–16.

136 Tamesis, Annual report 1932, p. 427.

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143 Moore, Forest problems, p. 80.

144 Fischer, Annual report 1918, p. 17; Fischer, Annual report 1919, p. 33.

145 Fischer, Annual report 1922, p. 19.

146 Fischer, Annual report 1928, p. 39.

147 Fischer, Annual report 1931, p. 654.

148 Fischer, Annual report, 1927, p. 29.

149 Fischer, Annual report, 1934, p. 100.

150 Letter from Juan Canaveral et al. to Senate President Quezon, 24 June 1935, Quezon Papers.

151 Ibid.

152 Letter from Severino Capapas to Senator Quezon, 24 Sept. 1927, Quezon Papers.