Indigenous ecological knowledge, biodiversity and sustainable ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

94 BIODIVERSITY AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTforem marginalizados por um longo período, elas podem adoptar acções que são detrimentaispara os objectivos da conservação. Capitalizar nas dimensões positivas do cohecimento tradicionale ultrapasar a sua dimensão negativa através de inputs de base científica podem facilitaro processo difícil de garantir a participação da população na conservação ambiental juntamentecom o desenvolvimento sócio-económico das comunidades locais.Key words:Biodiversity, natural resource management, rehabilitation ecology, sustainable livelihood,traditional knowledge and technology.IntroductionThe Himalayan mountain system covers only18% of the geographical area of India, but accountsfor more than 50% of India’s forest cover and for40% of the species endemic to the Indian subcontinent.Himalayan resources and ecosystem servicesare critical, not only for the sustainable livelihoodof 115 million mountain people, but also for amuch larger population inhabiting the adjoiningIndo-Gangetic plains. Depletion of forest cover,biodiversity and terrestrial carbon stock, decliningfarm productivity, increasing hydrological imbalanceand soil erosion are interconnected problemsand the root-causes of the poor economy of the hillpeople and threaten global environmental benefitsfrom the Himalayas (Chipika & Kowero 2000;Hamilton 1987; Hurni 1999; Ives & Messerli 1989;Myers 1990; Ramakrishnan et al. 1996).Until the 1970s, environmental conservationand rural development were, by and large, treatedas independent sectors. The poor results broughtby the sectoral approach catalyzed efforts towardsthe integrated approach, which targets the resolutionof environmental and socio-economic problemssimultaneously. Though knowledge of the principlesand potential advantages of this approach hasimproved considerably in recent years, there aregaps in knowledge and serious problems in puttingthe theory to practice (Antunes & Santos 1999;Bellamy & Johnson 2000; Jenssen & Goldsworthy1996; Lunde & Iremonger 2000).A simplistic view of integrated managementwould be to identify ‘key’ interventions [analogousto the concept of keystone species (Paine 1969;Walker 1991)] enabling environmental and socioeconomicbenefits simultaneously. There are twodivergent approaches to the characterization of theproblem-complex (multiple interlinked problems)or key interventions to overcome the problemcomplex:(a) building on the ways in which nature,resources and livelihood have been viewed by theindigenous/traditional communities, which hasbeen referred to as the ‘internal perspective’ approach(Hurni 2000) or as the indigenous knowledge-basedapproach or the bottom-up approach;and (b) the conventional scientific approach, orglobal economic and environmental world-view,referred to as the ‘external perspective’ approach(Hurni 2000), or top-down approach. Indigenousknowledge is an integral dimension of all societiesbut is more intact in areas, such as high-altituderemote Himalayan villages, where inaccessibilityand isolation have acted as barriers to outsideforces for a long period of time. In this article, wediscuss some aspects of indigenous knowledgebasedresource uses of management practices andchanges therein, and of the scope for integratingindigenous knowledge and conventional ecologicalscience for resolving biodiversity/environmentalconservation-development conflicts, within thecontext of the Himalayan mountain systems.Forest/wild biodiversity: impacts ofinterventionsCrop husbandry, animal husbandry, wild biodiversityand rural economy are subsystems of theintegrated traditional resource management system.On a regional scale, the landscape can be differentiatedinto: i) settled crop-livestock mixed agriculturepatches dispersed in the matrix of forestsand pastures; ii) almost pristine areas (permanentsnow area and adjoining alpine vegetation) practicallyimpossible to access for any consumptive resourceuse; iii) the remaining areas that are used
RAO et al. 95for summer grazing by transhumance communities,the Gaddis and Bakarwals, who bring livestockfrom the distant foothill regions and the Anwals,Tarjias and Dogpas who supervise the livestockof the local hill communities. Traditionalsocio-cultural mechanisms of fostering systematicand regulated use of wild plant resources seem tohave evolved as a necessity to optimize economicoutputs from domesticated biodiversity. All acrossthe region, traditional management systems arecharacterized by practices favouring a balance inutilization and regeneration of the natural resourcebase, equity and social integrity to achievethe ultimate goal of sustainable livelihood withinsmall-scale subsistence economies in highly isolatedand inaccessible mountain settlements. Conventionalapproaches to conservation, i.e., the establishmentof wildlife sanctuaries and nationalparks, have assumed traditional practices to bedetrimental to the conservation of wild biodiversityand the functioning of ecosystems. This assumptionis the root-cause of people-conservation conflicts(Gadgil et al. 1993; Gomez-Pompa & Kaus1992; McNeely 1988). The nature and magnitudeof these restrictions, their impacts on local livelihoodand people’s responses to them may vary dependingupon the ecological and socio-economicand cultural contexts.Traditional forest/wild biodiversitymanagementTraditionally, each village had notional territoriesof forests and alpine meadows and resourceuses within these ‘common lands’ were decided bythe consensus of the communities. Even thoughlocal people were aware of potential economicbenefits from timber, the timber trade was neverpractised because they traditionally viewed theutilization of non-timber forest products and ecosystemservices to be more valuable for sustainablelivelihood than timber. In the traditional system,there was no restriction on the collection ofwild edibles, deadwood and leaf litter (to be usedas a constituent of manure applied to crop fields),partly because these resources were abundant.Lopping, grazing and utilization of forest productssuch as medicinal plants and bamboos (raw materialfor handicrafts) used to be undertaken ingroups during periods fixed by the consensus of thecommunity so as to reduce the risks of overexploitationby individuals. Traditions such as thesocial sanction to market forest resource-basedhandicrafts, medicinal plants and nomadic grazingonly by smallholders and landless people fosteredequity to a significant extent. Villages rich in someresources due to comparative ecological advantages(e.g. villages close to the alpine zone arericher in summer fodder, temperate bamboos andmedicinal plants than those in mid-altitude zonesand those in foothills which are richer in winterfodder) allowed other villages to use their resources,more from the point of achieving socialintegrity than from the point of economic gains(Maikhuri et al. 2000a,b; Rao & Saxena 1996). Localcommunities traditionally allowed grazing oflivestock from outside the region supervised bynomads for three reasons. First, nomads used thearea not grazed by local livestock and hence didnot offer any threat to local livelihood. Second, thepresence of livestock brought by nomads to the areasaround the villages reduced the probability ofdepredation of local livestock. Third, the nomadsbartered essential commodities, which were notavailable locally and brought from the foothillswith local products.Leopards and wolves are the two major predatorsof livestock studied in the region. In highaltituderegions, local people view wolves as amore serious threat than snow leopards becausethe former is a year-round predator on domesticlivestock, whereas the latter attacks mostly duringextreme winters. Estimates on livestock killing bysnow leopards fall within a range of 1% to 12% oftotal stockholding (Fox et al. 1988; Jackson 1991;Mallon 1991; Mishra 1997; Oli et al. 1994; Schalleret al. 1987). The assessment of killings by wolveshas not received as much attention as those bysnow leopards. Precise estimation of predationlosses is difficult because predation as a proximatecause of livestock death is confounded with ultimatecauses such as disease, malnutrition, badweather or accidents. All assessments of livestockdepredation are based on killings reported byfarmers who often deliberately inflate the figures.Livestock are less able to escape predatorsthan wild herbivores (Nowell & Jackson 1996).Local people traditionally accepted depredation asa natural hazard. Several measures are taken tominimize this loss. First, grazing of goats, sheep,donkeys and cows is kept close to permanent settlements.Two families, by rotation in a village,
Page 1: RAO et al. 93Tropical Ecology 44(1)
Page 5 and 6: RAO et al. 97lages did not depend o
Page 7 and 8: RAO et al. 99Traditional agricultur
Page 9 and 10: RAO et al. 101Table 4. People’s p
Page 11 and 12: RAO et al. 103(c) The cultivation o
Page 13 and 14: RAO et al. 105Table 10. Monetary co
Page 15 and 16: RAO et al. 107ConclusionsThough con
Page 17 and 18: RAO et al. 109Rao, K.S., R.K. Maikh
Page 19: RAO et al. 111

Indigenous ecological knowledge, biodiversity and sustainable ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?