Grove’s work relies on a mix of primary and secondary sources, including historical documents, scholarly research, journals, as well as archival records, reports, and correspondence. Guha relies on more legislative records and reports, as well as primary source documents such as writings by key figures such as Brandis and Baden-Powell. He also cites earlier research by environmental historians. Overall, both Grove’s and Guha’s sources seem very limited to Eurocentric ideas and information. Grove’s utilization of these sources is aimed at exploring the scientific and medical discourses that shaped early conservation. For Guha, his focus is on forest law and Indian resistance to colonial forestry. In contrast, Sivaramakrishnan focuses more on how past colonial forestry policies continue to influence present-day forest management and Indigenous rights struggles in India, utilizing sources that are more modern and diversified in nature, which makes his argument seem less biased and Eurocentric. I think he also presents a more comprehensive view of how colonial forestry policies represented a complex relationship between colonial politics, scientific inquiry, and concern for the environment. On the other hand, Barton seems to pull from very “Americanized” sources, which makes sense given that his argument centers around the development of forestry in America. Again, this selection makes Barton’s argument seem very Western-centric and pretty much ignores the perspectives of people in India as well as Indigenous peoples in America.
Regarding this week’s questions, I think the history of colonial forestry really emphasizes how biased climate data and modeling can be. For example, Sivaramakrishnan talks about the idea of “scientific forestry,” which was the German-inspired colonial approach to forestry that revolved around maximizing the efficiency of timber production. In this case, the scientific study of forestry and conservation was driven by profit. If climate science and modeling are always carried out with profit and political agendas in mind, can they ever really be accurate? Furthermore, mainstream climate science is dominated by Western epistemologies, which omits a huge cache of Indigenous environmental knowledge. These readings highlight how Indigenous knowledge and relations with the environment were suppressed and severed due to colonial forestry, which reflects the omission of this knowledge in present-day climate studies.