15 Meeting Forestry 634.9 in the field!

Speaking of old traditional foresters, one of my memorable moments was a visit to the Grey Towers National Historic Site in Milford, PA (www.fs.fed.us/gt, greytowers@fs.fed.us) a couple of years back. This was the home, of course, of America’s founder forester Gifford Pinchot, built by his father James Pinchot in 1886 (according to the brochure).  Two things make this especially close to my heart: one, that Pinchot had a special regard for Dietrich Brandis, who set up Indian forestry during the latter part of the 19^th century, and considered him a teacher. In fact, the nice thing about being the Director-General of the forest ministry in New Delhi is that a bank of crusty old colonial foresters is staring over your shoulder, and Brandis leads the lot (he was Inspector General of Forests from 1864, which makes 2014 the 150^th anniversary).

In the Dewey context, what was nice in this visit was to meet our friend, DDC 634.9, in Pinchot’s library of old books. Of course, I don’t expect many of his volumes to go into 333.75 under the social sciences! I am posting two pictures, one of the library shelf, and another of the grounds. 

The second sentimental link is that Pinchot got into trouble over some frank remarks on the opening up of some Alaskan coal blocks in pristine forest areas, which ended up in an acrimonious fight with the government and Pinchot’s resignation. Diversion of forest areas, especially for coal mining, was the most contentious difficult part of the DG Forests’s responsibilities during my term (2009 to 2012) at the ministry in Delhi; it did not come to resigning in a storm, but there were moments when the balance between the bureaucracy and the political masters was tested.  Later on, Pinchot got his satisfaction by running for the Governor’s post and winning, but of course this is not possible for all civil servants (although more and more retired officials are stepping into the political arena, which may or may not be a sign of Indian democracy maturing).