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Answer -
(a) Shifting cultivators
The colonial government put a ban on shifting cultivation as it was regarded as harmful for forests. Because of this, tribal communities were forced to leave their homes. Many had to change their occupations. There were some who took to protest the policies of colonial masters.
(b) Nomadic and Pastoralist Communities
In the process, many pastoralists and nomadic communities like the Korava, Karacha, and Yerukula of the Madras Presidency lost their livelihood. Some of them were dubbed as criminal tribes. They were forced to work in factories and plantations.
(c) Firms trading in timber/forest produce
In India trade in forest products was not new. We have records that show that Adivasi communities trading in goods like hides, horns, silk cocoons, ivory, bamboo, spices fibres, grasses, gums, and rising through nomadic communities like the banjaras. After the coming of the British, trade was completely controlled by the government. The British government gave the European companies the sole right to trade in the forest products.
(d) Plantation owners
In Assam, both men and women from forest communities like Santhals and Oraons from Jharkhand and Gonds from Chhattisgarh were recruited to work on tea plantations. Their wages were low and the condition of work was not good. They could not return easily to their home villages, from where they were recruited.
(e) Kings/British officials engaged in shikar
While the forest laws deprived people of their rights to hunt, hunting of big game became a sport. In India, it was the court’s culture to hunt tigers and other animals. However, under colonial rule, hunting increased to such an extent that many species became extinct. The British saw big animals as a sign of primitive society. They believed that by killing big animals, the British would civilise India. Tigers, wolves, and leopards were killed because they posed a threat to cultivators. A British administrator George Yule killed 400 tigers. Only after a long time environmentalists and conservators began to argue that these animals had to be protected.