THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

was no reason why SEADD (who liked to feel they controlled things in
Nepal, he explained to me) should have known who I was, or what I was
doing. It seemed that before I had even reached Nepal, influential
people on both Atkins' staff and the staff of the ODA's SEADD office in
Bangkok viewed my work with h~stility,~,
In March 1988 Sean Conlin decided that in view of the visa problems
I was facing as an independent researcher, the hostility from SEADD and,
to a certain extent, W S Atkins, it was better for me to 'cut my losses'
and switch to another project. The ODA were formulating a new project
to counteract some of the less desirable environmental and social
consequences of the Mahaweli water catchment scheme in Sri Lanka. This
project was to include a social forestry component and already had
provision for a student researcher written into the project proposal. I
went along with this profound change in geographical direction at first,
as, I felt, any applied anthropologist had to be prepared to do.
However, on further reflection I had increasing misgivings about the
new course of action being proposed, I had already completed two terms
of Nepali language learning at the School of Oriental and African
Studies in London, and while I did not feel terribly proficient, a
glance at some Sinhala language books and the new script and vocabulary
I would have to master made me realise how far I had progressed and how
reluctant I would be to start all over again. I had been to Sri Lanka
several times before and the country had less immediate appeal for me as
a fieldwork destination than the less familiar (but mentally prepared
for) Nepa 1. Furthermore, knowledge of the ODA and other organisa t ions
involved with the 'Third World' had alerted me to the cultural
propensity within them to present tentative plans as near certainties.