Table Of ContentSeema Purushothaman
Rosa Abraham Editors
Livelihood
Strategies in
Southern India
Conservation and Poverty Reduction
in Forest Fringes
Livelihood Strategies in Southern India
Seema Purushothaman (cid:129) Rosa Abraham
Editors
Livelihood Strategies
in Southern India
Conservation and Poverty
Reduction in Forest Fringes
Editors
Seema Purushothaman Rosa Abraham
Azim Premji University, Bangalore, India Institute for Social and Economic Change
Bangalore, India
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and
the Environment Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology
Bangalore , India and the Environment
Bangalore, India
ISBN 978-81-322-1625-4 ISBN 978-81-322-1626-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-81-322-1626-1
Springer New Delhi Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013955021
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Foreword
This book on Livelihood Strategies in Southern India addresses the important issue
of the impact of land-use change on the livelihoods of rural communities living in
the margins of forests. The setting is the Western Ghats, one of the global biodiver-
sity hotspots along the west coast of India, a landscape of immense importance for
conservation of biodiversity and the economic well-being of a myriad of ethnic
communities. Living on the margins of forests, often with uncertain land tenure,
literally squeezed between natural, largely forested, habitats, and areas of extensive
agriculture, these communities feel the brunt of protectionist conservation mea-
sures, without the benefi ts of agrarian polices, and subsidies that apply to revenue–
generating agricultural lands with secure tenure, and access to markets.
The economic well-being of rural communities living at the margins of forests as
well as the sustainable use of land and natural resources they utilize is critical for con-
serving biodiversity and sustaining ecosystem services the surrounding natural ecosys-
tems provide. Thus, understanding the way these communities use natural resources
and how these uses are impacted by forces extrinsic to the area is an important issue for
the whole society. It is only through such an understanding we can bring about neces-
sary changes in policies and governance affecting the use of land and natural resources.
The ten case studies presented in this volume from one, but very heterogeneous,
landscape provide a wealth of information, but no generalizations. Land-use change
is so rapid that most communities appear to be in transition. Typically, and tradition-
ally, communities at the margin of forests used, and still use, a combination of
ecosystem goods and services: small-scale agricultural lands for subsistence level
agriculture, and adjoining forest ecosystems for fodder, fuelwood, fi ber, construc-
tion and materials, and a wide variety of non-timber forest products for their own
use, and for earning cash income.
However, the communities described in various chapters of the book, because of
environmental and economic changes, seem to have their patterns of livelihoods
changing fast. Some are into cash crops (Chap. 2 ), and others into ecotourism
(Chap. 5 ). Still others are involved in new entrepreneurial activities, based on crafts
from the Lantana weed (Chap. 4 ). In other cases, urbanization is opening up new
possibilities and creating additional livelihood options (Chap. 3 ).
v
vi Foreword
More important, the economic impact of rapid changes in landscape, driven
largely by economic and land-use policies on local communities, is not clear.
Although most authors seem to imply that changes have a negative impact—and
this might very well be the case—it would have been nice to see some data on
changes in people’s incomes or some other measure of well-being, as a result of
ecological or economic changes.
Thus, in the ever-changing landscape, which, to begin with, is very heteroge-
neous, one wonders to what extent the neat distinction of forest dependent commu-
nities into three types by Fisher et al. 1997, to which reference is made in the fi rst
chapter on page 1 of the Introduction, still holds. If the goal is to really understand
the livelihood dynamics of communities that are partly dependent on forests and
partly on agriculture, then we need data on contributions of these two sectors on
rural incomes, and how these contributions are changing our time. More critically,
we need to understand how both the forest as well as agricultural policies are affect-
ing these contributions, the way the land is used, and how such usage is impacting
forest resources, including ecosystem services.
Therefore the data on livelihoods presented by these chapters are important, and
clearly point out huge gaps in our knowledge. The main issue is the small size of the
land holding, and in many cases uncertain tenure over the holding, though few
chapters in the volume make an explicit reference to these two parameters. The land
holding in most cases is not large enough to provide even subsistence level outputs.
Thus surrounding ecosystems, generally forests, are an important source of prod-
ucts and services for consumption and sale. Developmental challenge is how to
generate a rich and diversifi ed portfolio of services and goods from agriculture and
local ecosystems, and how to sustain their fl ows.
Indeed, institutions and policies are needed, as also repeatedly mentioned in the
last set of chapters in the volume. The targets of these polices must be the well-being
of people living in and around forests—people that have been neglected for too long,
along with the special landscapes they occupy. The policies cannot address land use,
forest conservation, non-timber forest species extraction, agriculture, or ecotourism—
to cite just a few examples—in isolation. It is the socio-ecological systems, with all
their diverse uses of natural resources, that ought to be the center of attention.
Clearly the book addresses a set of critical and pressing needs, and makes an
admirable effort to draw attention to the plight of small landholders living in forest
landscapes. Policy makers should realize that millions of farmers with small
holdings in biodiversity rich areas offer the potential to make gains in conservation,
food security and poverty alleviation.
University of Massachusetts, Boston, USA Kamaljit S. Bawa
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology
and the Environment, Bangalore, India
www.kbawa.com
June 2013
Acknowledgements
The editors are grateful to Prof. Kamaljit S. Bawa for writing the foreword.
We gratefully acknowledge Ms. Sheetal Patil, Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology
and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore, India, for her support and help in com-
piling and coordinating the chapters. We are also grateful to all authors for their
valuable contribution, and also thank anonymous reviewers for their feedback. We
thank ATREE for hosting the research that contributed to most of the chapters and
Azim Premji University for its support and encouragement.
vviiii
Contents
1 Reconciling Conservation and Livelihoods
in the Forest Fringes: An Introduction ................................................. 1
Seema Purushothaman and Rosa Abraham
2 Changing Livelihood Strategies: The Experience
of the Valaiyars of Karandhai Malai, Tamil Nadu ............................... 19
Kanmani Venkateswaran, Siddhartha Krishnan,
Poosanavel Saravanan, M.C. Kiran, and S.C. Gladwin Joseph
3 Distinct Livelihood Patterns Among Communities:
The Case of Kanakapura, Karnataka ................................................... 33
A. Kavitha, S.C. Gladwin Joseph, Nitin D. Rai, and Rosa Abraham
4 Diversity as a Livelihood Strategy Near
Mudumalai, Tamil Nadu: An Inquiry ................................................... 49
Tarsh Thekaekara, Nishita Vasanth, and Thomas F. Thornton
5 Community-Driven Ecotourism Near Bangalore:
Adapting to Change ................................................................................ 71
Priya Gupta, Seema Purushothaman, Benson Issac, and Akai Mao
6 Conservation and Coffee Production:
Creating Synergies in Kodagu, Karnataka ........................................... 89
Rosa Abraham, Seema Purushothaman, and Soubadra Devy
7 Rural Collectives for Livelihoods and Conservation:
Lessons from Malè Mahadeswara Hills, Karnataka ........................... 109
B. Dhanya, Seema Purushothaman, and Sheetal Patil
8 Village Commons, Livelihoods and Governance:
An Assessment of Karnataka’s Experience .......................................... 135
Sharachchandra Lele, Seema Purushothaman,
and Sham Kashyap
ix
