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The impact of the First and Second World War on forests was tremendous. In India, the forest department cut trees freely to meet British war needs. The British needed to strengthen their Navy and timber was needed to build warships.
In Java, the Dutch enforced ‘a scorched earth’ policy. They destroyed sawmills and burnt huge piles of giant teak logs so that the Japanese could not get it, during the war.
The Japanese, who invaded Indonesia exploited the forests for their own war needs. They made forest villagers cut down forests. Many villagers used this opportunity to destroy forests and expand cultivation. When the war was over the Indonesian forest service was unable to get the forest land back from the villagers.