Nature, Politics and Conservation

This is an interesting and valuable book, though the choice of the word nationalism seems a little loose. I suspect the word “national- isms” for a decade and more, has had such currency, that people are unwilling to let go of it, even though globalization has undercut the view on nationalism more severely than one had imagined. Kathleen Morrison analyses the relationship between the tribals as foragers and the spice trade  for the Western Ghats. This becomes an enquiry into the relationship of entrepot cities as centers of consumption and export. Historical records show the increase in the consumption of pepper in the 16th century as doubling. Pepper production is presumed to have jumped 200 to 275 percent according to the Indian authors she consults. In a foot-note on Ralph Fitch (the English traveller to Cochin in 1589) she quotes him,   “Heere groweth the pepper; and it springeth up by a tree or a pole, and is like our ivy berry…..much of it doth grow in the fields among the bushes without any labour, and when it is ripe they go and gather it…” She shows us that foragers of wild pepper and cardamom,