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AN EXPERIMENT RELATING TO THE PARTICIPATION BY AND PARTNERSHIPS BETWEEN PEOPLE IN A TIGER RESERVE IN INDIA
By S. John Joseph
The World Bank launched an experiment relating to participation by and partnerships between people under an international initiative termed FREEP (Forestry Research and Education Extension Project) on the premise that forest protection and management are increasingly the product of negotiation, partnership and joint action by government, NGOs, research organisations and forest-dependent communities and people on a realistic multi-stakeholders basis.
The Kalakad-Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) is the 17th Tiger Reserve established in the Western Ghats of India. Its vast array of biodiversity and the threat it faces has earned it the label of biodiversity hotspot. From the KMTR boundary, a 5 km-wide belt was identified as the eco-development project zone, which covers 46,000 ha consisting of 42 revenue villages and 163 hamlets. This vast wilderness was becoming increasingly difficult to protect against the numerous surrounding villages and their forest dependent inhabitants, particularly with an understaffed and under-equipped Forest Department.
The forested area of the KMTR forms the catchment of the hydrological system of the area, charging the 14 rivers and streams and six reservoirs that are located in the KMTR. This watershed provides drinking and irrigation water to all the communities living in the villages besides meeting their livelihood needs from the forest resources.
Eco-development concept
and evolution
The project document defines Eco-Development as '….. a strategy for protecting
ecologically valuable areas from unsustainable or otherwise unacceptable pressures
resulting from the needs and activities of people living in and around such
areas.' In pursuance of this definition, the activities envisaged initially
were:
The Eco-Development team comprised employees from the Forest Department who were totally divorced from their regular territorial policing duties, but had received high motivational training in securing peoples' participation.
To bring about a radical change in approaches and ensure people's active participation, Village Forest Committees (VFCs) were set up in the villages and hamlets. These had 100 to 300 members. The NGOs became instrumental in bridging the gap between the Forest Department and villagers and in bringing about a total change in the mind-set of the villagers. VFCs were formed in 113 villages and hamlets involving more than 13,000 families in their interventions. They were identified at the stage of preparation of the Micro plan, a strategic local level plan of operations evolved for the purpose of solving the problems of individual villages. The Micro plan had three major components:
Project implementation included rapport building, awareness programmes, participatory rural appraisal and the formation of VFCs.
Awareness programmes in the form of traditional folk theatre and street plays were planned simultaneously and the task was assigned to the Arumbugal Trust, an NGO from Tirunelveli. This NGO with other NGOs operating locally made a deep impact on the minds of local people thanks to their acceptability to local people and the effective use of traditional media to mould the thoughts and attitudes of people and rekindle the dormant conservation ethos.
Positive project impacts
The Eco-Development Project has brought about a drastic change in the lives
of the villagers and has improved their livelihood security. More than 2.000
woodcutters who were dependent on the forest for their livelihood have changed
to alternate occupations. Grazing within the KMTR has been reduced by more than
50%.
A high percentage of loan recoveries have been recorded, enabling the VFCs to provide assistance to 500 additional forest dependents. Various self-help groups, expert groups and village community funds have emerged to cope with new challenges of micro plan implementation. Most of them are now endowed with sustainable livelihoods.
The project has increased the confidence of the local people, converted erstwhile hostilities into camaraderie and forged a collaborative social bond between the Forest Department, NGOs and participating villagers to conserve the biodiversity in the KMTR and improve the grassroots economy.
Lessons learnt
It has clearly been demonstrated that it is essential that the NGOs need to
mediate effectively between the villagers and the Forest Department. It also
became clear that NGOs are required in order to secure the participation of
women and to develop organisational and financial skills within the VFCs. The
project made it clear that good personal relations are crucial - this requires
getting close to the villagers and making them feel that there was no distance
or difference between the project implementers and themselves.
The project also showed that while policing and the use of force may have an immediate restraining effect, they will only be temporary and counterproductive and will generate dislike, rancour and vindictiveness.
This effective interactive approach has meant that people have switched from a practice of destruction and degradation of the environment to one of understanding, appreciation and promotion of objectives of sanctuary protection and management, anchored on their livelihood security mediation. The local grass-level NGOs joined together in this unique and innovative experiment and contributed to its successful acceptance and responses.
The lessons drawn and learnt and the conditions for effective multi-scale partnership have been used by World Bank to design and evolve refined and upgraded projects in seven other sites in India to meet forest-related livelihood and poverty alleviation challenges while embarking on a conservation and sustainable forest management programme.
Further information:
Dr S. John Joseph
M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation
3rd Cross, Taramani Complex
Chennai - 600113
India
E-mail: biodiversity@mssrf.res.in