in Madras advising the Government regarding its future forest policy, recommended that conservancy in this taluk should be abandoned unless Government was prepared to introduce the Forest Act and to sanction the reservation of large compact blocks, capable of subsequent extension, and stated that it was the unanimous opinion of the local officers that grazing, fires, indiscriminate cutting and the clearings made by the hill men for their shifting cultivation were ruining the forests.
The Government accordingly directed Mr. J. S. Gamble, the Conservator of the Northern Division, to inspect the taluk and report on Sir Dietrich Brandis' proposals, and his detailed account of the forests1[1] finally dispelled any doubt as to their importance. Mr. Gamble rearranged Mr. Boileau's reserves and proposed new ones which brought up the forest area to 530 square miles. Most of this tract was notified under the Forest Act between 1889 and 1891; but the large Rékapalle hills reserve of 93,500 acres was not notified till 1896.
Reservation was soon begun in other taluks also. By 1893 large areas had been notified in the Peddápuram taluk and Yellavaram division, but the major portion of the large Pólavaram forests were not reserved till 1899, and it was not until 1901 that the forests of the district as a whole attained their present proportions.
The marginal figures show in square miles the area of the reserves and reserved land in each taluk or division and in the district as a whole. They do not include Rampa, which though containing large areas of jungle, has for political reasons been excluded from the operations, and yet it will be noticed that 737 square miles of the total of 942 square miles is situated in the agency divisions.
| Amalápuram | 13 |
| Bhadráchalam | 460 |
| Cocanada | 86 |
| Peddápuram | 72 |
| Pólavaram | 111 |
| Rajahmundry | 34 |
| Yellavaram | 166 |
| Total Gódávari district | 942 |
The rights of Government over the forests in the Agency have been established in different ways in different tracts. In Rampa, the muttadars at one time claimed the right to lease out the forests, and large quantities of timber were removed by the lessees they appointed. But it was eventually ruled that Government stood in the exact place of the former mansabdar of Rampa and that consequently neither the muttadars nor the mokhásadars had any right to lease out the jungle or fell timber for sale, and that the Rampa forests were
- ↑ 1 Printed in B.P. No. 1992 (Forest No, 372), dated 7th July 1885.
