Choose the given statement as true/false:

Deforestation increased under the colonial rule because forests were cleared to meet the increasing demand for land.

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False

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Detailed Solution

The above statement is true.
In India, agriculture covered around a sixth of the country's area in 1600. This percentage is now somewhere around 50%. Over time, peasants increased the area under agriculture by clearing more land and thinning forests as people increased and there was a greater demand for food. Throughout the colonial era, agriculture expanded fast for a variety of reasons. First, the British deliberately encouraged industrial crops like cotton, sugar, wheat, and jute. The demand for these crops increased in nineteenth-century Europe due to the need for food grains to feed the growing urban population and raw materials for industrial manufacture. Second, colonial officials considered timber unproductive in the nineteenth century.
Deforestation increased under colonial rule due to the following reasons:

Forests were cleared to meet the increasing demand for land

Foreign or colonial rulers considered forests unproductive and cleared them for agricultural use.

Most of the woods were cleared to set up industries

Forest was also cleared to acquire valuable timber for building railway tracks.

Forests were cleared to develop roads and railways.

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