The concept of `involving people in conservation and
development planning' is gaining roots today. Terms such as
`participatory rural appraisal' or `joint forest management' have
become the buzzword in the activist and government circles.
However, few have started questioning the `we decide and
implement, you participate' kind of approach often adopted on the
ground by the Government and the NGOs, while dealing with such
issues. This is partly because of the unfortunately dearth of
a good and accessible methodology manual for participatory
approach. Thus, we badly felt the need for such a fieldguide,
when we launched the recent project to document peoples
priorities for biodiversity conservation. By now, our group had
gathered considerable experience of working on similar issues in
the Western Ghats, as a part of the activities of the Center for
Ecological Sciences. This prompted us to synthesize ourselves a
primer on field methodology.
Aquiring people's confidence for obtaining reliable
information is a challenging task. We have advocated here
activities spread over nearly an year for an indepth
understanding. However, several important tips and tools in the
manual could also be of help in rapid rural appraisal. I request
the readers to advise us on improveming the manual, so that the
next version can address those concernss, with due
acknowledgements.
CONTENTS
PART I. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
1.2 Rationale
1.3 Objectives
1.4 Methodology
1.5 Activity chart
1.6 Schedule and organisation
1.7 Outputs and follow-up
1.8 About documenting peoples knowledge
2.0 ABOUT THE MANUAL AND SUPPORT
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Terms and definations
2.3 Support systems
2.4 Support material
2.5 Limitations
3.0 THE TEAM
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Sharing of responsibilities
3.3 Discussions amongst members
4.0 QUALITATIVE DATA COLLECTION
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Data collection and interpretation
4.3 Barriers in data flow and Solutions
4.4 Efforts in data collection
5.0 COMPILATING AND PROCESSING QUALITATIVE DATA
5.1 Introduction
5.2 How to do data reduction
5.3 How to do data compartmentalization
5.4 Data display and interpretation
5.5 Projection and forecasting
6.0 TOOLS
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Interviews
6.3 Field visits
6.4 Group discussions (GD)
6.5 Gram Sabha (or combined group discussion)
6.6 Mapping (habitation and landscape)
6.7 Tips for using tools
PART II. PROJECT ACTIVITIES
7.0 SELECTION OF STUDY AREA
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Selection of study zones
7.3 Selection of study area
8.0 APPROACHING THE VILLAGE AND TRUST BUILDING
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Do's and Don'ts
8.3 Explaining the purpose
8.4 Experience
9.0 PRELIMINARY DATA COLLECTION
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Village profile
9.3 Identification of user groups
9.4 Mapping the habitation and landscape
9.5 Field visits with knowledgable individuals (KI)
9.6 Data recording
9.7 Presentation in Gram Sabha I
10.0 ASSESSING PROTECTION, UTILIZATION AND NUISANCE
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Homework: Biodiversity Dynamics
10.3 Group discussion I
10.4 Homework weighing conservation efforts
11.0 DERIVING LOCAL MANAGEMENT HISTORY AND OPTIONS
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Field visit: Ecological History
11.3 Group Discussion II: Management Options
11.4 Homework
11.5 Group discussion III
11.6 Gram Sabha II
11.7 Gram Sabha III: The Villagers First Agenda
12.0 CONSERVATION VIS A VIS DEVELOPMENT ASPIRATIONS
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Individual interviews: Aspirations
12.3 Homework: Development and Conservation
12.4 Gram sabha III: Finalizing Biodiversity Stratergy
13.0 REPORT WRITING
13.1 Credits and Responsibilites
13.2 Chapterisation
PART III. ANNEXURES
14.0 ANNEXURES
a) Text:
14.1 Summary of case studies in Western Ghats
14.2 A scheme of landscape classification for India
14.3 Exemplary LSE data sheet
14.4 Exemplary species data sheet
14.5 Exlempary time, manpower and financial budget
b) Diagrams:
14.6 Profile diagrams of various natural LSE types
a) Forest vegetation
b) Nonforest vegetation
14.7 Exemplery perception on elphants and conservation
c) Maps:
14.8 Map of the biogeographic zones covered in BCPP
14.9 Depiction of contours in a topographic map
14.10 Field mapping exercise demonstration
a) Historical and current landscape, bioresources flow
b) Mapping of entire locality in phases
I. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND
Biodiversity Conservation Prioritization Project (BCPP) is an Indian, participatory project run by a national steering committee with funds channelized by (World Wide Fund for Nature) W.W.F. - India. The project has been funded by the Biodiversity Support Programme of the (World Wide Fund for Nature) W.W.F. - U.S. The project would result in transparent public documentation of priority areas, species and strategies for biodiversity conservation in India.
One subgroup would work separately on identifying priority sites and species while the other will focus on conservation statergies. The main task of conservation statergies subgroup is to prepare a realistic, objective account of perceptions of various sectors of the society about biodiversity conservation. It will not lead to a rigid set of prescriptions but would present the whole spectrum of viable strategic options under a range of socio-economic, political and ecological conditions. Thus, while the first subgroup would answer `what' and `where' to conserve, the second subgroup would develop an understanding of `how' to conserve.
The Conservation Strategies sub - project would have two main components:
a) Documenting knowledge and perceptions of local people about biodiversity and conservation at the village/ panchayat level using Community Biodiversity Register (CBR) as a methodology.
b) Recording perceptions of Govt. functionaries, NGOs, NGIs, Industries and other cross sections of the society from village Panchayat level to District, State, National level in response to the village panchayat level experience.
1.2 RATIONALE :
The problem of assigning conservation priorities is generally posed as one of deciding upon what biological taxa and what geographical localities to focus on. So we have lists of endangered species and inventories of localities to be incorporated in the system of protected areas. Having answered "what" and "where", it is taken for granted that "how" is a straightforward matter of according protection through state regulation. But it is increasingly evident that this simple answer to the complex problem of how to conserve might be totally misleading. For it implies imposing costs of conservation entirely on the local communities living inside, or on the periphery of protected areas or affected by protected species elsewhere. In an increasingly crowded country where the tribal and rural populations are beginning to assert themselves, such imposition of costs on local communities is being vigorously questioned. Furthermore, commercial interests such as mining are also refusing to keep off these islands of protected areas.
Such a system focusing on a few islands of diversity also means little attention to the entire wealth of biodiversity, such as of medicinal herbs or wild relatives of cultivated plants distributed in a whole range of natural, semi-natural, even heavily human impacted habitats over the rest of the country. It is then imperative that we take a second look at the currently operating paradigm of protecting biodiversity, with guns and guards, in a few selected islands, an approach supported by a relatively narrow, largely urban, elite. In its place we may aim at conserving or more often restoring biodiversity over the entire landscape and waterscape of the country, through support and active participation of broader masses of people.
In this context it is important to stress that human presence, even use can well be compatible with maintenance of high levels of biodiversity. Thus, scientists of the Botanical Survey of India described a few years ago a new species in the first record of a genus of a leguminous climber, Kunstleria in a sacred grove in the thickly settled coastal plains of Kerala. The question, rather is not just of presence or exclusion of people but that of their motivation.
The highest priority in designing our conservation programme cannot then be merely physically listing significant species or localities, but rather in understanding the processes involved in motivating people to conserve, restore or decimate biodiversity. It is only when such an understanding is available, that we would be able to work out a new paradigm for conserving biodiversity : that of motivating people, all over the country to maintain or create an environmental matrix with high levels of biodiversity. It is possible that with this approach no single locality may have as high levels of diversity as some of the isolated pockets of diversity harbour today. But the sum total of countrywide diversity would surely be vastly greater than in a few isolated pockets. Moreover most people would now be in a position to enjoy the experience of such diversity. This will turn out to be a far more sustainable approach.
1.3 OBJECTIVES
To gain an appreciation of :
(a) Ongoing ecological changes and how these changes affect levels of biodiversity.
(b) How people belonging to different socio-economic strata, and with varying roles in the political and administrative system view these changes, and the driving forces behind these changes.
(c) The variety of measures people suggest to encourage biodiversity friendly processes of environmental change, and to discourage forces adverse to maintenance/ restoration of biodiversity.
(d) How measures friendly to biodiversity can be implemented on ground at the village, district, state, national and international levels.
1.4 METHODOLOGY
I. The attempt would be to gain such an understanding through investigations sampling the major environmental regimes of the country in the following regions: (1) Himachal Pradesh (2) Rajasthan (3) Orissa (4) Gangetic tracts of Bihar (5) Karnataka (6) Assam (7) Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
II. The project would involve two major elements:
a) Field surveys in about 10 village clusters in each of these 7 regions.
b) Discussing the insights generated through studies at the village level with other major actors, especially politicians, administrators, technical experts and NGOs successively at three higher spatial scales, namely - district, state and country as a whole.
III. The village clusters in each region would be selected so as to represent the different ecological regimes within the region e.g. Coastal plains, Western Ghats hills, Deccan plateau in Karnataka; different contexts in terms of protected areas eg. tribal hamlets within a National park, villages on the periphery of a wild life sanctuary, villages near extensive tracts of reserve forests, villages away from reserve forest areas, as also villages well connected to markets, villages isolated from markets and so on.
IV. In each village cluster particular care will be taken to understand the perceptions, knowledge. livelihood options, motivations of different communities as well as women and men. Thus extensive interviews will be separately conducted with groups like fisherfolk, nomadic shepherds, basketweavers. landless agricultural labourers, landowners, traders etc., and with the women from these communities.
V. The investigators will focus on the following groups of living organisms, since there is widespread understanding of these groups both amongst lay people and technical experts: economically useful plants, fishes, birds and larger mammals.
1.5 SITE ACTIVITY CHART
1. Selection of study area.
2. Approaching the village community and identifying different user groups in relation to biodiversity.
3. Establishing people's confidence and communication.
4. Initial documentation of village, people, landscape, bioresources and information through primary and secondary sources and the validation of these data.
5. Detailed documentation of utilization and protection of bioresources by each user group.
6. Assessing historical and current trends and likely future course of changes in biodiversity and the forces driving these changes.
7. Identifying management pratices of local people and outsiders and their developmental aspirations vis a vis biodivesity conservation.
8. Identifying management options that would be biodiversity friendly and minimize the conflicts between different sections of villagers and outsiders.
9. Discussing conservation strategies thus derived through dialogue with local communities at successively higher levels, and providing the feedback from these levels to the village communities.
1.6 SCHEDULE AND ORGANISATION
The project duration is from June 1996 to August 1997. The village level studies - stage would be completed in about six months. The second stage - discussions with outsiders are expected to be conducted during the next three months. The last three months would be devoted to report writing. The state nodal agency/ coordinator would provide the necessary guidance to local teams; from time to time. This includes selecting a village identifying social structure of the village, mapping the landscape documenting history of the landscape and species, recording their usage and conservation practices, seeking people's management options, discussing these with outsiders, resolving some of the conflicts between people and or outsiders, report writing and planning. This guidance and monitoring would be ensured through state level training programme as well as co- ordinators periodical visits to all project sites. Representatives from Center for Ecological Sciences would also periodically visit the field sites or conduct training programmes for sharing knowledge, building up methodology, monitoring and so on. State nodal agency will channelise performance based financial installments to the local agencies at the advice of state co-ordinator. This would help the local agencies to appoint an investigator, a few volunteers, a few village assistants and meet the travel, food, secreterial expenses etc., including auditing.
1.7 OUTPUTS AND FOLLOW-UP
The report will be in the local language so that it can benefit local people in their biodiversity management and it will be mainly accredited to the local team. The co-ordinator and the executive committee would collect the data from local teams and will be responsible for a state wide report atleast in English. W.W.F.- India will have the credit of being the national funding agency for wider publicity and movement, while the local state and national credits will be shared by the respective agencies in aforesaid manner. Each state nodal agency will computerise, process and pass on information to the Center for Ecological Sciences that will be responsible for the national level report.
The agencies involved will have to find out follow-up mechanism for the plans and stratergies generated during the project - both at village level and at policy/ legal level. Although the focuss is on wild plants and animals, the project can help all the concerned agencies and individuals to develop larger prespective of ground level natural resource management and translating peoples proirities into state/ national planning. It is hoped that project would, most appreciably initiate a long term network of educational institutions and NGOs for grassroot policy research and follow up action.
1.8 VIEWS ABOUT DOCUMENTING PEOPLE'S KNOWLEDGE
Srushtigyaan is the documentation of people's knowledge of nature, its utilization and conservation. The information generated through modern science about these aspects is considered to be a seperate effort - Srushtivigyan. The Community Biodiversity Register (CBR) is a component of `Srushtigyaan'. CBR is envisaged as a record of knowledege, perceptions and attitudes of people towards biodiversity, its utilization and conservation. A CBR document is supposed to cover a village or a panchayat.
As of today, local people are seldom seen taking up documentation and furtherence of their knowledge in a adaptive fashion. This is due to traditional attitude as well as the cultural shock due to the rapid socio-economic changes of late. Thus, it is being planned that local school/ college teachers/ students or NGOs or NGIs etc. would take up the documentation of neighbouring village panchayats all over the country in an organised fashion. Thus, CBR would have a component of Srushtivigyaan too - the interfaces between local people's knowledge and modern science e.g. local vernacular plant names and corresponding botanical nomenclature. This would help interpretation of local people's knowledge in the modern context also.
Such an interface between the practical ecological or so called `traditional' knowledge and the modern science is variously discredited by many. The main contention is that the modern science; and in turn its dictators - the rich and the mighty -would benefit from such an unequal marriage at the detriment of the `traditional' knowledge and its stake holders - the pratical ecologists of the countryside. There are several evidences of similar processes operating around in the past and present. A fundamental question would thus be how and why CBR would not fuel such unjust developments?
Most common apprehension is the possible misuse of CBR by say multinational pharmaceuticals to find out plants of interest and recklessly exploit it to drive it to extinction; patent the knowledge inspired by the local people and make huge benefits out of it. To our minds, such allegations are often over-projected or excessively blown up. We feel that this would not happen given certain facts and conditions. In fact, we strongly believe that only CBR and supporting framework can check such malpractises and subsequent inequitable development.
To begin with, let us identify the possible enduses of different major sections of CBR. There are three major sections (a) knowledge and facts about species, their uses, and techniques (b) other knowledge and facts say culture or history (c) their developmental and conservation framework. It is mainly the people's knowledge about availability of a given species, its uses and relevant skill/ techniques that is of particular interest to enterprenures. Even today such information about over 7500 flowering plants collected from people all over India already exists in published literature and reports for limited circulation. However, it is available mostly in global information system and the `market forces' not so much to common man, villagers. The other kind of information such as landscape and ecological history, driving forces, management options etc. is neither interesting to the `market forces' nor used/ documented by the government or NGOs/ NGIs and not available to common man, villagers. So the local natural resource management is never based on local wisdom and not many want to to be. The third kind of information that pertains to their priority for biodiversity, its utilization and conservation is neither documented nor available to common man or government. Neverthless, activists often voice their own worldview as representative of people's aspirations, without systematic evidence and feasible stratergy. Hence, they are discredited as being extremist, irrational by the government.
It would then be very clear that the sections of pratical ecological knowledge of local people and their management options conservation priorities contain a little that can be misused by the big and the rich. In fact, a CBR in local language would help local people - panchayat and other governmental institutions to better manage their natural resources; unlike today. Activists can use CBR as a tool to validate their concern and pragmatic stratergy/ action plan. Thus, there is every reason for CBR compilations along these lines; as a tool of people's empowerment rather than subjugation and suffering in future.
Even in case of species, people's knowledge could be divided into three major categories. The first relates to the kind of species or uses that have been widely reported from literature or in vogue - `public domain'. This is readily available to the rich and mighty, and they are already using it as in case of Neem, and indeed worrisome. Incorporating such knowledge in CBR causes no additional concern, as it is already available. The other kind of peoples knowledge is about species availability and abundance. The pharmaceuticals are fully aware of these aspects about species of their interest, already have their local contractors network well knit throughout India and are exploiting all the raw material thoughtlessly at cheapest possible rates. It is the local people who do not know the profits made from their services and by liquidating their services; and it is the Indian government or activists or intellegencia that is unaware of species distribution and abundances, trade volume, changes and priorities. So CBRs, if generated in several parts of India, would provide us, rather than the enterprenures, a good understanding of what is happening to our precious natural wealth, and what needs to be corrected. It will also help local people to understand the market forces and their exploitation - and they can stake higher claim through a participatory process in periodic CBR activities. Third category of people's wisdom relates to the `secret' kind of knowledge about species or uses or techniques not reported/ talked about earlier - which is largely in the `private' domain of individuals or communities. There are serious contentions, and rightly so, about misuse of this knowledge. We do not encourage people to record such knowledge in CBR unless protective framework is established.
Center for Ecological Sciences and its associates such as Foundation for Revitilization of Local Health Traditions are making full efforts to push forth legal and policy framework to prevent and punish misuse of such privaten knowledge brought into the public domain. We are fully convinced that within such a framework one can safely document not the actual knowledge but one can safely claim about such knowledge by its stake holders. Documentation of such claims and claimants across the country through CBRs would provide the only sound mechanism of equitable benefit sharing whether through national funds or community grants or personal awards or transfer agreements. The pharmaceuticals are well capable of, and already engaged in, dislodging such knowledge by spending on the villagers. Neither the villagers know the worth and exploitation of their wisdom nor do the other individuals and communities across the country who share the knowledge know about their stake of profit being denied. What would thus prevent us from such anarchy is only a system of country wide transparent public documentation of such knowledge and source or its claims and claimants and its sharing by all the sectors of the nation, through computer networks and other media.
There are several steps that we need to collectively initate at all levels, to overcome the mighty hurdles in the way of countrywide documentation of peoples knowledge and its sharing with all the concerned individuals and agencies. Reorienting our educational, bureaucratic systems and financial mechanisms is arguably a major challenge. But even those who disbelieve in the possibility of a legal framework and countrywide system of CBRs to protect the `private' domain knowledge; cannot rule out the other benefits of CBR in particular and Srustigyaan in general. So, it is then only wise to initiate such a nationwide movement.
One more apprehension about CBRs, especially aired in `scientific' fora is the quality of information and degree of correlation of peoples knowledge and modern science. It is feared that the quality of information would be low due to two factors. Firstly, people may not like to express their knowledge, views, attitudes due to suspision and their psychology and the information could be poor. It is difficult to overcome this, and even after all the confidence building measures as suggested in the manual, some knowledge would always remain hidden. The less sensitive information can be extracted better and this would be quite useful for overall objectives. Secondly, they may give wrong or misleading information in case they are persuaded too much but do not wish to share the full or right kind of knowledge with us. Both these possibilites cannot be ruled out, but certainly minimised through a series of validations. This validation process is inbuilt into the methodology envisaged here. For instance, the ecological history views or management options suggested by knowledgeable individuals during the field visits are referred to the group discussions and later these outcomes of various group discussions are brought up in the Gram Sabha. Thus, one can pick up the information that is agreed upon during all the three phases as more valid than the rest. Such a validated information is termed as the anthropological truth.
Another issue pertains to compatibility and correlation between the anthropological truth and the modern science. For instance, one could ask, how far accurately the vegetation types or species have been identified in varnacular and more so, technically? This depends on efforts put in by the investigators. More efforts such as many all season and all time field visits with many local people would unearth greater information on more species and validate it better. This would also provide greater scope for investigator to collect or enlist or sketch the distinguishing characters of the species and refer to the experts. The quality of scientific advice would also matter a lot. We can achieve sound information only with greater and better inputs by all and one involved in this endeavour.
Intellectual issues aside, at the grassroot level people are worried that the documentation of their using natural resources would lead to their subsequent repression by the government. They are also worried about immediate commercial misuse although they cannot imagine its scale and fashion. This suspision proves a stumbling block in retreiving any other information too, as people tend to be very sensitive. We need to explain people that we are not interested in either. Nevertheless, one is free to refrain from documenting any such sensitive information if people are strongly against it.
An other practical problem investigators face throughout is the apprehensions about futility of such research. Most frequently asked question is whether such documentation would generate immediate benefits or policy and administrative changes. Some in fact even question remotest possibility of any policy and legal changes ever being made. This study would be taken up only those who appreciate that the wildlife/ environmental policies/ laws that were non-existent a few decades back, were enacted although with an anti-people orientation in the last couple of decades; but of late, they have been also showing signs of pro- people change. It is difficult but not impossible to convince ourselves and local people that positive changes will occur if all of us make commited efforts. Whether this will convince local people in the absence of tangible local level and short- term benefits, is a matter governed by local socio-economic environmental conditions of history. But this convitiction gives us and like minded people the spirit to persuade this agenda with greatest enthusiasm and vigour.
In essence, we should surge ahead in documenting public knowledge of biodiversity, its utilization, protection and overall management. We need not document the sensitive knowledge about species or skills or tehniques that may lead to intellectual property rights or user disputes. However, barring this all the aforesaid components viz. ecological knowledge, management options, developmental aspirations and conservation priorites, need to be documented across the country in increasing vigour. Using such well rooted and prescriptive documents, pressure should be built upon the government to formulate and implement pro-people and participatory plans, policies and legislations. We earnestly believe that the intended BCPP stratergies programme would mark the beginning of a pragmatic nationwide movement in the larger and long term interest of people and biodiversity.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
2.0 ABOUT THE MANUAL AND THE SUPPORT
2.1 INTRODUCTION
This manual is designed as a user friendly field guide for human-nature interaction studies. For the immediate purpose it focuses on biodiversity conservation prioritization studies at village level. No formal academic background is needed for using the manual.
The manual will help the user understand the following:
a) How to establish rapport and communication with people.
b) How to document the usage and values of different biodiversity elements by various human groups at the level of village landscape.
c) How to reconstruct historical patterns, ongoing changes in the landscape and bioresources and their likely impact on people and biodiversity.
d) To trace the evolution of management practices involving human groups resulting in current pattern of biodiversity changes.
e) To document management priorities and measures relevant to various human groups for biodiversity conservation and how much significance people attach to biodiversity conservation priorities relative to their overall developmental aspirations.
f) To identify the area of consensus, and more importantly conflicts arising out of different priorities and management options by various human groups and to devise ways to minimize these conflicts.
g) To crystalize feasible conservation stratergies based on people's priorities with the overall understanding generated as above.
The manual consists of twelve chapters or modules organised under three parts. Each module explains a specific activity or a topic. The first part introduces the user to the concept of data collection and how to select appropriate methods after setting the targets. In this sense, this manual may help many exercises involving people. The second part more specifically describes the course of activities intended for this project. The investigators would choose a locality specific modus operand using both the parts of the manual. The third part consists of Annexures which include guidelines for landscape classification and mapping and summary of case studies from Western Ghats.
2.2 TERMS AND DEFINATIONS:
Landscape element: A landscape element (LSE) is a patch within a landscape homogeneous in appearence and distinct from surrounding patches. These LSEs may belong to a variety of LSE types e.g. pond, road, forest, habitation etc. Each LSE type may be represented by several LSEs in a landscape. Thus, there may be five ponds or three forest pathches or seven roads. Alternatively, we can say that there are five elements belonging to the type pond; three to the forest or seven to the road. Each patch is a seperate LSE. Its type could be any of these or others e.g. river. For our purpose, we may consider only LSEs as patches larger than 0.25 ha (which is easily seen and distinguished from a distance) say a field or linear elements eg., stream, long enough (say 1000m or more ). A landscape is thus composed of several patches (LSEs) belonging to a few types (land or water; linear or polygonal). Primarily depending upon the nature of human impacts, many patches (and thus the whole landscape) keep on changing into other types. These changes can be broadly classified into those leading to more natural or more manmade types (or landscapes). Although the latter degradative changes are frequently recorded and talked about, changes towards more natural types (or landscape as a whole) are also often observed. These include forest regeneration on earlier shifting cultivation sites or areas clearfelled by the forest department and abandoned later.
Thus we need to understand the changes taking place in a particular patch and pooling the information from all patches resulting changes at the level of types and landscape.
User Group: A group of people using living resources in a similar fashion, and quite distinct from other such groups. This often reflects different livelihood stratergies. Thus farmers, artisans, women, children could be some examples of the user groups. An individual person may be a part of more than one user group. Thus, if in a village, most women collect firewood and vegetable herbs, they may constitute a user group. But if some of them are also engaged in bamboo crafts, which is an activity conducted by men too; `artisans' becomes another user group. Some womens would thus belong to both `women' and `artisans' as far as user group classification goes. These user groups are often, but not necessarily caste or ethinc groups. In fact, in the user group say owners of fishing trawlers, one may have people from various castes, creeds or sexes. Thus user group concept should be flexibly applied according to the local conditions and purpose.
Anthropological thruth: Any proposition believed to be correct by many people in a community, especially those coming from different sectors. It may or may not correspond what we call as scientific truth. However, it is the anthropological truth and not so much the scientific truth that plays a key role in social organization and functioning. Hence, its understanding is of utmost importance to a student of the human communities. These beliefs can be carefully utilized to motivate the local people, as the arguments based on these would find ready acceptance. Intelligent presentation of anthropological truths is thus another dimension of our study.
Documentation of anthropological truths are related to biodiversity/ natural ecosystem conservation prioritization is the backbone of our study. An excellent example of an anthropological truth is reporting of reduction in rainfall alll over the countryside. Although scientific data does not overrule this possibility, definitive examples are rare. The changes still appear to within the natural limits of climatic fluctuations. However, environmentalists have effectively nurtured and used this anthropological truth to project importance of forests and plantation in water cycle and subsequently promoting reforestation movements.
Prioritization: At the simplest level, prioritization will involve listing all the options suggested and discussed with people, and then ranking them on the basis of how many people/ groups/ villages/ states choose which option. More complex and contentious issue would be attaching weights and values to various people, groups, villages, states on the basis of their number, representativeness, social position, level of study etc. One can then even evaluate each option and priority. It is expected that we would not attach our biases to the priorities and document what majority of people suggest as viable options.
Protection: Protection means preventing the practises that are leading to or may lead to exhaustion or dwindling of a species population or an LSE. It is often seen as an act of saving a species from excessive exploitation for local/ an commercial demands such as ban on fishing or hunting during breeding period of fishes and animals or collecting plant parts without uprooting the stem. However at times even species very abundant or not apparently likely to be very useful or dwindling also receive protection e.g. fig trees.
Utilization: The process of extracting and consuming material from a species or LSE. Utilization is said to be sustainable if the species/ LSE is not found to change its abundance/ distribution over considerable time period. However, defining the length of the time period and abundance are contentious of species issues. It is generally argued that if many villagers confirm that a practice has not lead to shrinking or dwindling of a species/ LSE over the last few decades, it can be considered sustainable. On the other hand, a significantly declining trend in the resource in view of the villagers can be considered as unsustainable. Of course there may be empirical secondary data (records/ literature) to substantiate this interpretation e.g. fish production figures over the years from a river.
Conservation: Conservation envisages either protection or both utilization and protection. In this sense, conservation resembles sustainable utilization. Thus, it may include utilization of a species or LSE but without significant trend of decline over time scale of few generations. In such cases it may imply either utilization well within the limits of natural productivity or special efforts for full or part protection (in space ot time). Or else it may include no utilization and subsequent conservation.
Bench Marks: Bench marks or reference points are communication aids used in interviews and other occasions to help interviewers to promote more reliable data flow. These may be classified according to the objectives, such as:
1. Historical Bench Marks
2. LSE Bench Marks
a) Historical Bench Marks (HBM):
These are used to identiy the past events in a study area through interviwes or any other tool described in the manual. For example the team might wish to ask for an estimate of population of tigers in an area during 1960s. The team should Identify a well known event that took place during 1960s, like building of a temple, death of a prominent personality in that area, flood, earth quake etc. Out of these select an event which is known to most of the individuals in the study area. The selected event becomes the bench mark for 1960s. Whenever the team wants to know anything from the respondent in connection with 1960s, that event can be a reference point for the respondent. It follows that there could be many HBMs in a given area, and one needs to choose amongst them depending upon the purpose.
b) LSE Bench mark (LBM):
These are used for estimating the past or likely future status of the LSEs. Select any well known LSEs of the pertinent type that the investigator judges as highly degraded or degraded or moderately degraded or well preserved etc., on basis of visual estimate and the kind of human influence people report. Use these LSEs as reference points to assess status for other LSEs of that type. It is possible that you may not get the whole gradation for every LSE type to serve as benchmark.
For documenting the past or forecasting the future status of the same or other LSEs, let different repondents compare these with the benchmark LSEs. Sometimes, people may know examples of well preserved LSEs from not the same village but some other place they might have visited. In such case, discuss its physical appearance and level of human influence to arrive at your judgement.
2.3 SUPPORT SYSTEMS
For succesful completion of the project, following support systems and delegaton of responsibility is visualised
_________________________________________________________________2.4 SUPPORTING MATERIAL:
Personnal/ Responsibility Degree of
Agency involvement
_________________________________________________________________
1) Investigating * Collection, processing and team presentation of ( Investigator documentation. + Student * Participation in Total + local discussions at various persons) levels. * Report preparation. 2) A sample of * Informants. villagers * Participation in (Different discussion at various Total user groups levels and decision +knowledgeable making. individuals (KIs) 3) A sample of * Informants Partial seasonal migrants 4) Trade * Informants Partial enterprises and Industries depend upon Bioresources 5) State, District * Informants Partial local government authorities and politicians 6) Colloborating * Sharing personnel Partial Institutions * Sharing infrastructure and individuals * Biological Identification 7) Nodal agency * Administration Participatory * Finance * Computerization * Supporting materials
_________________________________________________________________Note. For restricted areas topsheets can be provisionally obtained through the nodal agency/ educational and research instituions.
MATERIAL SOURCE UTILITY RELIABILITY
_________________________________________________________________
1) Gazeteers Government Wide range of Moderate publication information on dept. Archives most of the aspects 2) Census " Population Moderate reports structure and status 3) Maps a) Toposheet Information about High Geography and nature of terrain Geology depts. of the study area, drainage pattern, area etc. b) Forest Forest Survey Forest types Moderate maps of India Forest Dept. c) Political and Book sellers General Less tourist map information 4) Reports and Govt. dept. Information of Variable theses research and the various (related to education studies study area) institutes, NGOs, NGIs and other sources like internet 5) Manuals and Publishers and Biological High Field guides book sellers, identifications, research and social issues educational institutes ----------------------------------------------------------------
DOs DONT's
Conduct few trial interviews Go without any groundwork,
with the help of team members. rehearsals
Locate a suitable respondent Select only those of individuals
group associated with the you come across.
study.
Randomly select from the group Identify the individuals whom
individuals to be interviewed. you think will co-operate
in your study.
Present yourself before the Care little about how you
respondent as a responsible present yourself and the way
reliable person you interact with the
respondent.
Train your informant with some Present your goal and explain
sample questions and introduce the importance of your goal
the method of questioning and in the current context.
explain what is the informants
role.
Create a suitable environment Immediately jump to actually
for the flow of information interviewing.
and help the respondent to
come out of fear and shyness.
Have an open eye to watch their Be inconsistent in your
non-verbal communications and approach, tell irrelevant
clean ears to verbal stories to respondents, express
communication. your views or opinions, pass
unnecessary remarks on
respondents or their responses.
Watch the involvement of the Be mechanical, ask questions
respondent and facilitate the and get the answers.
process by probing.
II PROJECT ACTIVITIES
PHASE I
GETTING ESTABLISHED
SUGGESTED SCHEDULE FOR THE PHASE 1
-----------------------------------------------------------------
ACTIVITY TEAM -DAYS
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1) State level training programme 4
2) Collection of secondary information 2
3) Selection of study area 1
4) Field visit for finilisation 2
5) Approach, rapport, familiarisation/ mapping 2
6) Field visit with knowlegeable individuals 16
of each user group
7) Gram Sabha I: introduction 3
-------------------------------------------------------------
Total 30
SUGGESTED AGENDA FOR TRAINING PROGRAMME
1. Presentations by investigators and further understanding of
the project activities; discussion and modifications
2. Exercise - Ice breaking, mapping, terminology, documenting
species and LSEs Homework.
3. Practical sessions on interviews, group discussions and gram
shaba and documentation procedures.
4. Scientific sessions on focal species, field guides, taxonomy
and classification.
PROJECT EXCERCISE
7.0 SELECTION OF STUDY AREAS
7.1 INTRODUCTION:
To study the biodiversity conservation prioritization at
local level each state nodal agency is free to choose broad areas
and teams to work there and the team is free to select a village
cluster for their study. Care should be taken that all the
criteria mentioned below are fulfilled while selecting the area.
Following would be helpful in achieving these objectives.
7.1.1 Tools
a) Reconnaisance trip
b) Individual interviews
7.1.2 Secondary data
This is not mandatory but may be helpful for site selection.
One should not spend too much time on these prior to site
selection and should focuss on physical and social accessibility
of a study site rather than other parameters. These secondary
data sources prove useful even after choice of area.
a) Maps/ atlas
b) Census reports
c) Gazeteers
7.1.3 Homework
a) Select a list of probable villages
b) Collect secondary information, regarding market
places, market days, population and ecological aspects
regarding the area to be covered during the reconnaissance.
7.2 SELECTION OF STUDY ZONES
To begin with, one should first identify the ecogeographic
zones in each state; such as dry and wet, plains and hills etc.
Then try to distribute the eight to ten sites into these
ecogeographic zones to obtain adequate representation of
following ecosystem categories in the order specified below.
i) a) Forests
b) Lake
c) Rivers
d) Sea
The ecosystems may be sampled in both -
ii) a) Protected areas ( national park, sancturies etc)
b) Unprotected (minor forests/ gomal etc)
Within the unprotected areas, you may represent some -
iii) a) Intensively exploited area, new urbanisation
b) Economicaly backward, remote, tribal areas
There may be also be areas representing
iv) a) Areas with ecodevelopment thrust by NGOs/ NGIs
b) Areas showing environmental regeneration by people
alone
After applying some or all the above mentioned criteria one
may decide upon the broad areas from where the village clusters
would be selected.
7.3 SELECTION OF STUDY AREA
When the broad areas are identified, the team should discuss
with the people who have served in that area as teachers, public
health workers/ officers, postman etc or any other responsible
people. They would select a suitable site for the project.
7.3.1 Selection Criteria
a) The optimum study area based on a social unit (village or
village cluster) may have 200-300 families.
b) The area should preferably have a close access to a few
natural ecosystems and at least 5 to 10 different kind of user
groups.
c) The selection of sites could follow two kinds of
approaches
a) Landscape element approach
* Choose the landscape element of interest e.g. a lake or a
patch of forest from the broad area and list the different social
units which uses that landscape element.
* Using the census report or by actually enumerating find
out the number of families in each social unit. Choose as many
villages, or a part of a village or town as needed, to make up a
total of 250 - 300 families.
b) Social unit approach
* Identify a social unit (village or village
cluster) which has about of 200-300 families from the focal
site. Find out the LSEs with which the people are intimately
related, and include these in the study area.
Example
RANWA is an NGO, working in Maharashtra, mainly on
biodiversity inventory and monitoring. One of their study areas
was Phansad Wildlife Sanctuary. Where they had earlier done some
scientific vegetation study. During their visit to Phansad for
their study they came accross a village settlement called
Supegaon which is located inside the protected area. This
settlement included eight user groups:
1. Hunters 2. Carpenters 3.Local herbal healers 4. NTFP
collecters 5. Honey gatherers 6. Fuelwood collecters 7.
Sheperds 8. Green manure collecters.
The number of families was about 265. The people of the
village were cooperative. When working for CES in 1995, RANWA was
looking for a village for conducting community biodiversity
register. Because all the requirements of that project were
fulfilled in Supegao, RANWA selected that as the study area. The
approach which was taken by the RANWA is the social unit
approach. The study area thus identified about sixteen LSEs or
resource localities by the local usergroups. According to
scientific investigations, there were about nine LSE types and
several tens of LSEs.
PROJECT EXERCISE
8.0 APPROACHING THE VILLAGE AND TRUST BUILDING
8.1 INTRODUCTION :
For a smooth introduction with the villagers and quick
confidence buiding it is better that the team gets introduced by
a person or an institution having good relationship with most of
the people in the village, e.g. college teachers, postman, NGO,
NGI or any one not known to be politically or socio-economically
motivated. Period of the year, nature of the work people are
engaged in and the earlier experiences of local people with the
outsiders would influence the process of familiarization. The
process may involve one or all of the following:
1) Reconaissance trip to the village and landscape
2) Informal interviews with local leaders
3) Group discussions
i) Within the team
ii) With villager (informal)
4) Habitation mapping
5) Field trip with villagers
The main objectives in the initial phase are two fold -
a) To understand local conditions and develop specific
stratergies to achieve friendly relationships with local persons
of the study area.
b) To identify different user groups and knowledgable
indiviudals (KI) from the local people and to build relationships
with them.
8.2 DO's DON'Ts
1) Consider local persons for 1) Approach independently
introduction and get inside
2) Consider suitable time 2) Approach any time
according to local according to your
condition convinience
3) Watch your words, respect 3) Underestimate village
the elders, follow the dress rules and traditions and
code, take care of even minor wear and behave the way
things which may disturb the you want
local people
4) Try to develop a pleasant 4) Irritate local people
atmosphere while interating by lengthy conversations
with them, let it be short
and sweet
5) Learn the local 5) Show interest in local
traditions and customs politics
Meet responsible individuals from all strata of the village.
Use simple techniques like mapping and try to inovolve the
people in all the activities. Identify the village structure
and the people with different needs and resources. Select a
suitable method to get closer to the people.
Try to develop a friendly atmosphere and be alert to pick up
their practices and the common words are used by the local
people. Be at ease with them and open general informal
discussions related to common interest. Also build human
relationship using your own stratergies and explain the purpose
of the study.
8.3 EXPLAINING THE PURPOSE
Our purpose is Our purpose is not
1) Possible policy changes and 1) To fund development
longterm, large scale benefits. immediately/ locally.
2) To identify areas of 2) To work on areas of our
their priorities. priorities.
3) Discuss with the outsiders 3) Report to Government
feasibilities of implementing officials about village
conservation and development. secrets.
4) Document what they know. 4) To preach what we know.
5) Document local knowledge 5) Document knowledge for
and give them due recognition commercial use and selfish
and credit. profit.
6) To share the resulting 6) To bring out a secret/
information with locals. inaccessible report.
7) To work with them with their 7) To work with our own
help. set-up.
8) Importance of their 8) Promote our initiatives as
participation as locals. outsiders.
8.4 EXPERIENCE
Shri Dayanand Bhat (Sirsi, Karnataka) from the Western
Ghats Biodiversity Network approched his study area with the help
of one of his students. He was introduced to the parents of the
student who lived in the study area. They introduced Dayanand to
a local leader. Later, on a village walk Dayanand inquired the
leader about the recent village developments. Upon his prompt and
impressive response, Dayanand appreciated his efficency and then
explained the motivation behind his visit to the study area.
This helped Dayanand to quickly establish the rapport, without
either harming or unjustly furthering the leader's interests.
PROJECT EXERCISE
9.0 PRELIMINARY DATA COLLECTION
9.1 INTRODUCTION:
Once the team builds up good rapport the villagers, next
step is to motivate local people to participate in our
documentation of their knowledge about natural ecosystems and
local bioresources. The useful tools include Interviews, Field
study, Gramsabha I, Mapping. Apart from using these tools, the
team can collect secondary data also from sources like
gazetteers, reports etc.
The team should identify knowledgeable individiduals (KIs)
from different user groups, confirm their participation in our
study and plan accordingly. The KIs should be rewarded in cash or
kind, as they desire for the time, effort and expertise they
share with the team.
9.2 VILLAGE PROFILE
Following basic information can be gathered from the people
in the house discussion or field works. as well as from
pertinent documents -
- Population of the village.
- Geographical location.
- Administration, developmental infrastructure.
- User groups, number of families belonging to each
group, male and female ratio, youth, children, and
knowledgeable individuals.
- Cultural diversity, festivals, village organisation and
leadership.
- Habitation map and cadastral map.
- Seasonal and geographical work pattern of different user
groups.
- Local names of different localities (LSE) in and around
the study area as used by the local people.
- Local names of the most important species utilized or
conserved by different user groups.
- Status, availability of the species in different
localities (LSE) as specified by the local people.
- Ownership of each locality (LSE) and degree of
accessibility to the various user groups.
- Role of the outsiders (migrants, traders) in utilizing
the different biodiversity elements available in the
study area (specific to each LSE).
- Role of children/ women/ men/ elders/ youth of each user
group in collection/ utilization of biodiversity elements
(specific to each LSEs).
9.3 IDENTIFICATION OF USER GROUPS
The important factors in determining a usergroup are:
a) Availability & accessability of biodiversity elements.
b) The knowledge and skill required to use the biodiversity
elements.
c) Cultural diversity of the ethinic groups of people who
live in the study area.
d) Gender bias/ age/ health status.
e) The number of options available for an individual or
group to channalize their knowledge and skills in order
to generate money/ aquire the resource to run their
family or satisfy their needs.
f) Local work calender/ work pattern.
g) Working attitude of the local people
Hence, it is commonly seen that the person who is a member
of the one specific user group for e.g. honey gatherer, may also
be a member of various other usergroup in different period of the
year or even different hours of the day. Following steps may help
to clear through the complexity of the usergroups.
1) Identify & list the various activities of the local
people (e.g. Honey gatherering, fuelwood collection, NTFP
collection etc).
2) Classify and enemurate people involved in these
activities into major and minor usergroups. For our convinence, a
group which spends more than 3 months of a year in one activity
can be called as a major usergroup and the others can be called
as the minor usergroups. For instance landlords or agricultural
labours could be a major usergroups and NTFP collectors as minor
one.
3) Estimate the degree of association between the members of
each major group and the minor group or any other major user
group. This can be estimated as the proportion of the members
shared between the usergroups. For instance, half of the
agricultural labourers may be engaged in NTFP collection, whereas
none of the landlords would be involved. Thus the labours and
NTFP collectors have good degree of associating but not the
landlords.
4) Compare all the usergroups and identify why people stay
alongwith a usergroup and/ or often shift to another. Then rank
those factors for each major and minor usergroup. For instance,
the agricultural labours may not be switiching over to basket
weaving for the want of necessary skills. They may not be
migrating to cities for the lack of opportunity - such as a
contractor. These make them remain as agricultural labourers.
They may however be shifting seasonally to NTFP collection due to
slack period and supporting livelihood. This is tentative ranking
of causal factors.
5) Conduct few informal discussions among the investigating
team members and KIs to confirm and modify your assessment and
rank all the usegroups according to their interrelationship.
6) Prepare an annual calender of activities for each
usergroup.
Some pratical tips for identifying usergroups and conducting
interviews are as follows:
1) While conducting interviews, group discussions care
should be taken to consider the representatives of the following
kinds of individuals:
a) associated with only one major usergroups
b) associated with only one minor usergroup
c) associated with one major usergroups and two or more
minor usergroup
d) associated with two are more then two minor usergroups
e) associated with various groups both major & minor
usergroups
2) During individual interviews and household interviews
care should be taken to asign the usergroup status of each member
of the family because, the head of the family may be a herbal
medical practicer and one of their son may be a fisherman
(heterogenous resources). Where in another case the whole family
may be involved in fishing activity (homogenous resources). To
the same question related to protection of medicinal plant is
asked, they may give two different answer.
3) One may often have to club or seperately treat different
people depending upon the purpose. For instance, while recording
perceptions of agriculturists, one may have most of the village
as the usergroup but for recording perceptions of NTFP labours,
only a few of the agriculturists may form the target population.
Example
Carpenters versus Toddy tappers
A team selected 50 individuals and asked "Are you interested
in protecting a particular Palm? ". 45 of the respondents
said "No; we prefer to cut it," but 5 of them said that they
would like to protect it. The team reported that most people in
that area would prefer cutting the Palm tree, and hence Palm
trees have very low conservation priority for the people. Later,
it was found out that the team missed an important step, that is
the step to identify the user groups. The 45 persons who said
that they would like to cut the tree are carpenters (and not
toddy addicts) whereas the other 5 are toddy tappers. The
carpenters depend upon about 25 different species from 8
different LSEs, out of which Palm is a minor one. They may prefer
to protect teak trees for a longer period of time so that they
can increase their profit. Palm is obviously not their priority.
On the other hand, the Palm is found in only one LSE and the
toddy tappers do not have any other alternative to the Palm for
their livelihood. On the basis of the report if all the Palm
trees were replaced with some other timber yielding trees by the
authorities, one of the user groups would have lost their source
of livelihood.
9.4 MAPPING
The detailed procedure and subtalities of mapping are
discussed in the chapter `Tools' and the annexures. The
habitation and landscape maps would be most important, other maps
like resource flow or landscape change or priority LSEs etc.,
would be secondary in importance. Mapping could be undertaken as
a seperate exercise per say; however it would be more efficient
to couple its field work with the field visit for species and LSE
documentation. The season, time and location of observation spots
for mapping and later validation should be carefully decided.
Incase of villagers with several settlements, the habitation map
may comprise of two parts - (a) the first showing the placement
of settlements in the study area (b) if necessary insets of
larger settlements.
9.5 FIELD VISITS WITH KNOWLEDGABLE INDIVIDUALS (KI)
For methodological discussion on field visits please refer
to the chapter `Tools'. Here we spell out only the procedure and
objectives of this excercise. Initial field visits can generate
information on ecological history and management options too, but
it fits better in section 11.2 and 11.3.
9.5.1 Planning the field visit programme
a) Identify the priority LSEs/ waterscape elements which
people variously consider important so as to make best use
of limited resources and time.
b) Identify the locations of visits, check the distances and
purpose (mapping/ species knowledge/ validation) check the
KIs availability, fix up a time suitable to them.
c) Try to get many say 3 KIs per each visit, each
representing different user group and having different
skills. Thus, each field visit would become multifaceted.
9.5.2 Documenting LSEs:
Some 10 to 20 LSEs representing 5 - 8 ecological types can
be identified as high priority by discussing with people and
visits to them planned as above. For each of these, one can
gather information on many topics suggested below. It is
difficult to fit the information in a tabular format in the
field. As we do not know what topic will generate how much
material, there is little point in deciding column widths and
table heights. Thus, refer to the checklist and discuss all the
issues and take notes. Whenever you get to know something
throughout the study period. Later this can be sorted out and
tabulated or computerised appropriately. The key-words are
underlined in the following account, to help sorting the data.
The field visits will no doubt bring out bulk of the information,
but other incidences would also enlighten the team.
a) Local name and its meaning in local language,
scientific typology, identification of boundries and approximate
shape, size, location and area on the toposheet, LSE map based on
discussions.
b) Ownership of the LSE as a whole or in parts, access
regimes to LSE for user groups, outsiders, conventional rights,
norms and rules of usage.
c) Status of the LSE with respect to soil, surface and
ground water (good/ bad/ very poor).
d) Importance of LSE as a habitat for wild economic plants,
fishes, birds, larger mammals.
e) Changes in status of LSE in relation to historic
benchmarks (HBMs) in terms of ownership, access regimes,
ecological status, driving forces responsible for the change, its
impact on user groups, species and others (outsiders etc).
9.5.3 Documenting Species:
During field visits, we often do come across manu species
reportedly or expectedly common or characteristics of a given LSE
or area. This is partly due to chance, overlooking, improper
timing, wrong season etc. Stimulate your informants to provide
information on all such unseen species which are important to
them; including the one's that have gone locally extinct. This is
best done by showing and talking about illustrated fieldguides to
local people.
Please note the following points to be discussed about each
species in your every notebook. Select a few tens of most
important plant and animal species for various user groups. It
is necessary and impossible to document all the aspects below for
all the important species. So classify the rest of the species,
the unimportant areas into groups. Just provide group characters
regarding above parameters and list of species in the group.
Please highlight the keywords, underlined below while
writing descriptions. This will help easy retrieval of
information and tabulation.
a) Local name, its meaning in local language, scientific
name, characters used for identification.
b) Habit / Lifeform:
Animals: Mammal/ fish/ bird
Plants: Tree/ shrub/ herb/ climber/ orchid/ parasite/
epiphyte
c) LSE types or individual LSEs prefered by the species,
its status in these (rare/ common/ abundant).
d) Which user group makes which use of which part of the
species, how does the usergroup access the species, are there
any norms or rules related to the access regime?
e) Seasonal changes in the availability of the species
f) Processing of (into market product) and value addition
(generating economic value) to these biodiversity elements.
g) Values attached by local people and ranking (high,
medium, low):-
i) Market values in various local markets.
ii) Ranking of utility for local people (subsistence
values).
iii) Ranking of religious and/ or cultural (aesthetic,
moral) values.
iv) Ranking of conservation values (importance for
ecosystem services like soil and water conservation,
windbreaks fire breaker, shelter to
other species etc.)
v) Ranking according to nuisance value.
h) Changes in its population availability over times, years
or decades, causes., predictions.
9.6 DATA RECORDING:
The data should be recorded in a field note book using
pencil/ ballpoint pen. It is better to record precise words used
by the people. Using an audio cassette recorder is ideal for
field visit, group discussion, Grama Sabha, interviews etc. Soon
after the investigation is completed the team has to meet and
collate/ compile the information obtained. Only anthropological
truths (i.e. what people say or inform) should be recorded. The
investigators comments may be written seperately and this keyword
highlighted. Person who leads the investigation or the
interviewer need not usually be involved in recording the data.
Some other person should take up the recording. Recording should
not become a barrier in the communication between the
investigator and the respondent.
9.7 PRESENTATION IN GRAMA SABHA I
The team can best explain the purpose of the intended
exercise to the whole village in the Gram Sabha. Preliminay
findings based on field visits or interviews conducted so far
should be discussed to generate interest. A possible agenda at
GS I could look like -
1) Prayer song by local teacher/ school children, if
necessary.
2) Introduction of the team to the village.
3) Welcome address by a local person.
4) Investigator's explaination of the purpose.
5) Question - answers.
6) Presentation of habitation map by local people.
7) Identification of different user groups and the
knoweldegable individuals at LSEs.
8) Local representatives remark.
The main objective of Gram Sabha I/ Combined Group
Discussions I would be:
1) To emphasize their ecological, economic, social,
cultural, religious, ethical values of documenting local
biodiversity.
2) To explain possible future economic and ecological
linkages, and now that would affect their livelihood and
progeny.
3) To request local people to co-operate throughout the
study.
4) To confirm the identity of different user groups and
their relationship with biological resources available in
and around the study area.
A habitation map and a pictorial presentation sunch as pie-
chart of seasonal/ monthly work schedule of user groups for a
year can be prepared, presented and modified with the help of
local people. This would get people involved in the study. The
Grama Sabha should be arranged and conducted in such a way that
the people become clear about our study, their role in the study,
possible outcomes and the limitation of the team. Care should be
taken not to get involved in the existing social structures -
gender and ethnic, socio-political hierarchy. It is not possible
to conduct a gram sabha because of enomorous social disparity or
remoteness of settlements or unsuitable timings, conduct a few
combined discussions to cover all the usergroups.
PROJECT ACTIVITIES
SUGGESTED SCHEDULE FOR THE PHASE II
DOCUMENTING MANAGEMENT OPTIONS
--------------------------------------------------------------
SR.NO ACTIVITY TEAM-DAYS
--------------------------------------------------------------
1 Home work: Biodiversity Dynamics 2
2 Group discussion I: Conservation practises 6
3 Home work: Ranking conservation efforts 6
4 Field visit II: Landscape history and mapping 8
5 Group discussions: Management options 6
6 Home work: Management options 6
7 Gram Sabha III: Preparation and execution 3
8 Group discussion III 5
9 Gram Sabha III 3
----------------------------------------------------------------
Total 45
PROJECT EXERCISE
10. ASSESSING PROTECTION, UTILIZATION AND NUISANCE
10.1 INTRODUCTION:
Most user groups have a species and site specific annual
activity schedule. They begin the pertinent activities at a
particular period of the year when the biresources they are
interested in are available; finish when the bioresource
become less/ available. They can monitor the seasonal changes
and act accordingly; locate the LSEs where the species of their
interest is available. Each user group often has characteristic
management practices of collecting, storing and using specific
biresources. Time to time they change their management practices.
Both internal factors and external factors drive such change. The
procedures also may differ from one group to another. Similiar
process as those about useful species, also operate on harmful or
neglected species but at different scales or intensities.
Many of these have inbuilt conservation mechanisms. Generally
four practices are common amongst user groups -
i) Using a specific set of bioresources fully or partly in
terms of specific LSEs and species, and more so with
commercialization.
ii) Protecting another set of specific bioresources fully or
partly form specific LSEs and species even though
commercial demand or known economic importance is attached
to the species. There may be sacred or ethical elements,
which may succumb only to great pressures of social change
and market.
iii) Protecting or overlooking of certain biodiversity elements
due to ignorance. This is about the value attached to the
bioresource.
iv) Shifting from protecting to utilizing and vice versa. i.e.
they start using a species which was once protected by
them or protecting a species which was once used by them.
v) Tolerating certain level of nuisance or employ mild measures
of prevention such as defence against birds, foraging in the
fields or monkeys, destructively feeding on orchards. Note
that these species are neither used nor protected by people.
vi) Indulging into violent measures of defence such as
electrocuting elephants, although they are neither consumed
nor may have tusks.
10.2 HOMEWORK: BIODIVERSITY DYNAMICS
Considerable information on the above aspects would be
generated from the field studies with the KIs.
* Using this field information, prepare following
accounts for different user groups.
* SP/ LSE used by the user group under investigation
* SP/ LSE used outside the study area during the
course of migration
* SP/ LSE used by the UG for the benefit of
outsiders or other user groups (eg. Trade)
* Bioresources brought into the study area by the
user groups
* Extraction procedures and management practices
related to protection
* Values/ myths which lead them to save/ conserve the
biological resources.
* SP/ LSE used/ protected by outsiders.
(eg. forest department, outstation land lord)
* Species/ LSEs that are neither used nor destroyed but are
harmful
* Species/ LSEs that are not used but are harmful and are
partly/ fully eliminated by people
Retrieve information from all your field note books and
group it according to different neads or highlighted keywords.
This could be according to major usergroups or if necessary or
possible, for some/ many/ all groups together.
Example
User Group I : Fuelwood Gatherers
_________________________________________________________________
LSE/ SP LSE/ SP Bioresources Bioresources
saved used brought from sent outside
outside
_________________________________________________________________
Species
LSEs/ types
Area
Mode
Proportion
_________________________________________________________________
If the team finds that the information is not adequate to
give an overall picture of the behaviour of the user group try to
conduct individual interviews.
To confirm this information a group discussion may be
arranged where the following questions can be discussed.
1) The significance of saving few LSE/ SP.
2) Special consideration while collecting/ hunting/ extracting
the bioresources in order to minimize the damage to LSE/ SP.
3) Status of availability of resources and impact of utilization.
4) Flow of bioresources across the user groups and outsiders.
5) The damage caused by the harmful species and the
precautionary/ controlling/ reimbursement measures.
10.3 GROUP DISCUSSION I
The considerable inforamation collected during the field
visits is compiled in aforesaid fachion. The time is now ripe to
validate and modify these data. This can best be done in group
discussion where we discuss the opinions of KIs as above. The
relationship between the group members and their role in the
group activity can be also derived. Select representatives from
each user group according to the local condition. Find out the
suitable day, time and venue from each user group to meet them in
a group and conduct the group discussion. Depending upon the
number of representatives of each user group the number of group
discussions may be decided. As a rule of thumb, the number of
participants should not exceed 20.
To begin with it would be beneficial to identify the
different user groups of the study area and classify them
according to their access to different LSEs. For example in the
case of shepherds, find out how many LSEs they use in the study
area. Then check whether all of them visit all those LSEs. The
team may notice LSE based differentiation in the shepherds e.g.,
shepherds - I with access to all five LSEs and those who have
access to only one LSE as Shepherds - II. For group discussion -
I, it is better to have two separate rounds/ subgroups for the
two catergories of shepherds if time and manpower permits. If
necessary, a combined GD can be arranged after GD I.
For further information migrants, traders and others who
bring bioresources to or take them away from the study area have
to be identified with the help of local people. Depending upon
the time and the expertise available a good number of migrants,
traders and those involved in this process should be interveiwed
and their activities and interests documented.
10.4 HOMEWORK: WEIGHING CONSERVATION EFFORTS:
Unsustainable utilization and complete protection are two
extreme activities. The activities of each user group may lie
somewhere inbetween or may be highly variable and are influenced
by various factors. To understand the degree of utilisation or
protection or harm caused we suggest following ordinal scales:
1. Availability scale (of species in the LSE)
| 0 1 2 3 |4
|___________|________________|______________|_____________|
Absent Scarce Inadequate Adequate Excess
2. Demand scale (species used by user group)
3. Utilisation scale (user group behaviour)
4. Effort scale (collection - processing)
5. Protection (effort) scale
6. Nuisance
For all these parameters except availability, following
scale would apply
| 0 1 2 3 |4
|___________|________________|______________|_____________|
Nil Low Moderate High High
The team may employ these scales to prepare a rank matrix of
all the parameters. Based on these matrix, utilization or
protection or nuisance can be ranked for each species held
important by the user groups. Of course, such an eloborate
exercise may not be possible for many species or LSE types.
Hence, one may have to judge the gross conservation scale by
combining relative values on each scale, while talking to local
people on these issues.
PROJECT EXERCISE
11 DERIVING LOCAL MANAGEMENT HISTORY AND OPTIONS
11.1 INTRODUCTION:
We are interested in documenting (a) earlier management
pratices by people/ outsiders and their impacts on species and
landscapes (b) driving forces behind the changes in species,
landscape and management over times (c) current/ future
management options and motivations.
11.2 FIELD VISIT: ECOLOGICAL HISTORY
To assess the changes in the landscape, species and
interaction patterns, one should begin with a landscape map of
the village. The procedure for preparing such a landscape map has
been eloborated earlier. The investigator can profitably visit
the LSEs alongwith knowledgeable individuals to assess the
pattern of change. As a matter of fact this information can be
obtained during initial field visits only. However, the limited
familiarity with landscape and species in the beginning may
result in our loosing some vital information. Hence, the section
is placed here. If field visits are again conducted at this
stage, they can used to validate them.
11.2.1. Assessing current status:
Select few KIs from a user group. Visit LSEs used by the
user group and confirm the status of availability of the
bioresources used/ protected by them. If your team has an expert
who can identify the botanical name/ zoological name of the
species, then he/ she can use this occasion to list them. If no
such expert is available or the identification is not readily
possible then the team can note down description or preserve the
specimen, or animals in formalin for identification/ confirmation
later. Knowledgeable individuals would remark on the status of
the forest or scrub or grassland as good, degraded or
regenerating etc, if probed intelligently. About most species
they may comment on the status (abundance) as very common,
occasional, rare etc. This should be recorded carefully.
11.2.2 Estimating past status:
One can assess the earlier status of the LSE or species
relative to the current status. This needs to be sought with
reference to some historical bench mark (HBM) e.g. flooding or
death of a prominent person or any other prominent phenomenon
of which year can be traced back from literature or people. Thus
KI may be of the opinion today's degraded forest was a good
forest earlier or that current scrub has grown up in place of
abandoned habitation etc. Similarly they may remark on increase
or reduction or constancy in the abundance or availability of a
species. They may provide pictures of such changes with reference
to one (say 20 yrs ago) or two (say 20 and 55 yrs) benchmarks.
11.2.3 Examples
Following are two examples of reconstructing ecological
history from the WGBN:
a) Team 1: RANWA (Study site: Supegaon, Maharasthra)
This team arranged a group discussion (GD) with the elders
of Supegaon village in order to collect data regarding Ecological
History. The GD revealed that shifting cultivation was practised
in the past. People said that their fore-fathers used to clear
nearby forests in patches and cultivated ragi. But they were not
able to recollect the period in which this happened. The team was
interested in finding out the period during which shifting
cultivation was practised. Because the team had few experts in
forest ecology they decided to visit the sites where the
cultivation was believed to have been practised along with some
knowledgable individuals. In the field the experts could
differentiate regenerating forest patches from the old growth
forest patches. They estimated the age of the regenerated
forest, based on judgement of average tree sizes and growth rates
and then estimated the period of shifting cultivation.
b) Team 2: American College (Sathuragiri, Tamilnadu)
When the team from Tamil Nadu visited their study site
Sathuragiri with some knowledgable individuals of that area, they
found out that most of the economically important timber yielding
old trees were missing in the forest. They could see only
saplings of tree species. When asked the local tribals reported
that a group of outsiders stayed in that forest for more then two
years and cleared all the huge timber yielding trees. The local
tribals were unable to recollect the exact period when this
happened. The team did not have any experts in forestry, so they
were not in a position to estimate the period. They took another
route. While the team members were collecting secondary
informations from Gazatteer, it was mentioned that their study
area was under the control of Saptur Zamin. Saptur is about 30
km. away from the study area. The team visited the Saptur and
interviewed one of the sons of the Zamin and recorded that during
1947-51 that area was neither in the control of the forest
department nor in the hands of the Zamin. During that short
period, extensive poching and illicit felling of trees took place
at Sathuragiri.
11.2.4 Identification of the Driving Forces:
Seek from KIs the causes underlying behind the changes in
LSEs or species such as hunting overharvesting or neglect or
alternatives created or change in legal status or development
activities etc. There may be at time more than one driving
force. This generates an understanding of the ecological history
of a LSE and its main species. Likewise we can visit other
important LSEs and seek their ecological history and the history
of their major species. Ofcourse many species especially animals,
would be common to may LSEs and thier documentaion need not
repeat every time. The next step would be to explore management
options. Apart from consulting KIs, this could best be done in
group discussions.
11.2.5 Establishing benchmarks
a) Historical benchmarks
Example: A question without bench mark.
Interviewer: Could you tell how commen the tigers were
during 1960s ?
Respondent : Amm...??? Sorry. I don't know the exact
year. There used to be some tigers.
A question with Bench Mark
Interviewer: Could you tell how common the tigers were
before the temple was built ?
Respondent : Prior to the temple, there were
many tigers. I had about five encounters with
tigers during that period.
Hence, it is suggested that the team has to look for such
a well known event as benchmarks (flood, earthquake, temple,
pond, well or death of a prominent person etc.) in their early
stage of work. The next step is sit with knowledgeable
individuals or with supporting literature materials to find out
the exact year in which those events took place. If such
information is available then these events can be used as
benchmarks. Usage of bench marks promotes accuracy and precision.
a) LSE bench mark
Example:
Interviewer: You know about LSE A, B and C. LSE A is highly
degraded, LSE B is degradedd whereas LSE C is better off. Could
you tell me about the status of the LSE C before the temple was
built. Was it the same or like LSE A or B or something else,
whether bettr than today or worse than A or intermediate ?
Respondent: The LSE C was something similar to that of LSE
a/ b. But after the temple is built no one is cutting trees in
that area so it has become better, as of today.
11.3 GROUP DISCUSSION II: MANAGEMENT OPTIONS
Invite members of each user group seperately for a group
discussion to identify their management options. If the number is
too high, arrange for as many group discussions as possible with
limited number of participants permitted by time and manpower
constraints. If the UG uses more than one LSE/ type, subsample
according to LSE usage, if necessary/ feasible. The management
options of the user group can be further analysed and the forces
which mould the choice of options by the user group can be
traced.
Example: Three families of hunters hunt over a territory of
50 sq km. Recently they stopped hunting hoenbills, when probes,
they said that the number of hornbills is reducing sharply these
days. This user group chose to switch over from using a species
to saving it as the management option. When probed further about
the decline in number of hornbills, they gave an interesting
answer. "The hornbills prefer only large soft wood trunk to make
their nests. They make a hole in the trunk and lay their eggs
inside. Now large trees are not available because during last
decade outsiders have felled and smuggled out the large trees".
This answer explains the ultimate driving force behind the
change the behaivour of hunters.
For each existing management practice/ future option the
user group may have one or many driving forces originating within
or outside the study area. The team has to carefully study the
various clues in order to explore, find out chain of the possible
factors and forces, both proximate (immediate, obvious) and
ultimate (hidden, deeper cause). In the group disscusion the team
can use the LSE map as a visual aid. Following topics can be
discussed -
A) Usage/ destruction
For what end use or destroy (subsistence/ commerce/ life and
property defence) they are using a species/ LSE from the study
area? How long have they been using/ culling it ? What are the
changes in levels of harvest/ population over this period? Can
they continue to use/ have it with current levels of
availability, if nothing else changes? How many years more? In
case the species/ LSE would decline, what are their future
options?
B) Currently protected
a) Why they are currently fully/ partly protecting a LSE/ SP?
Was it used by them any time earlier? How?
b) Are they interested to protect them further ? On what
condition (moral, religious, economic, legal etc)?
c) If they are not interested in protecting, would they
utilize (or destroy/ transform) a species/ LSE? In what way?
C) Currently unprotected
a) Are they interested in offering part or full protection
to a currently unprotected species or LSE?
b) If so, why they would like to protect and on what
conditions they will protect ?
c) If not, would the supply population remain constant with
current levels of harvest/ destruction? If not, would they
like to initiate some measures later? Or would they like to
switch over to another resource?
11.4 HOME WORK: MANAGEMENT OPTIONS
Using the answers given by the each user group the team can
List the various factors/ forces which are operating against/ for
the user group while deciding upon protecting a SP/ LSE or
utilizing a SP/ LSE. The team needs to systematically compile all
the informtion in probably three major categories as follows:
11.4.1 Species/ LSEs currently protected
- Current efforts from the user groups (already being put
in).
- Future efforts required from the user group and others
(under changed circumstances)
11.4.2 Harmful species/ LSEs neither protected nor utilized
- The nature and scale of nuisance/ damage.
- Conditions for protection (changes in the existing
norms).
- Requirements for protection (physical measures or
efforts).
- Participation of other user groups/ outsiders/ village
administration (cooperation).
- Role of women/ children/ men (division of labour)
- Role of NGOs/ temple authorities/ RI/ CI/ traders.
11.4.3 Species/ LSEs currently utilised/ culled
- Need/ demand/ local/ outside.
- Method or quantities of extraction of biological
resources which may help conservation or lead to
desturction.
- Desired changes for orienting utilization towards
conservation.
- Requirements for the change (efforts, measures,
mechanisms).
- Co-operation from other user groups, local people.
- Expected changes in the access regime (legal/ practical).
11.4.5 Changes in species/ LSEs from protection to utilization/
culling or vice versa .
- demand/ reason
- influence of other user groups
- shift in the lifestyle/ attitude of the user group
members
After studying all user groups, major LSEs and species; the
team is in a position to compile all the data and draw broad
conclusions about ecological history of major vegetation/ LSE
types (all LSEs of a type pooled together) and future changes.
More importantly, one can identify the contrasting ideas of
different user groups about certain LSEs/ species as well as
areas of concensus. The time is then ripe for a discussion of
future planning to minimize areas of conflict and enhance degree
of confluence.
11.5 GROUP DISCUSSION III
The GD III is a vital one. During GD III the team should
encourage each user group to come out with their future plan. To
help the planning process the data compiled as above should be
presented to the team. The team cam present the information along
the following lines -
1) Current status of the LSEs/ species which are used by the
user group.
2) Projected future status of the LSEs/ species which are
used by the same user group. At least two kinds of projections
can be made using the available data.
a) if the current driving forces do not change.
b) If the driving forces are altered
i. factors which can alter the driving forces
ii. role of other user groups in altering the driving
forces
3) Their reactions to proposed plans of other user groups
(local/ outsiders)
a) Who depend on the bioresouces of the study area ?
b) Who have the power to control the access of the
bioresoures to others/ concerned user group ?
c) Who have the competence and infrastructure to undertake
scientific research or social development ?
Upon presenting this background information find out the
reaction from each user group towards protecting and utilizing
the bioresources which are available to them, and especially
areas of overlap between two or more user groups. Let them
prioratize their options with reference to the LSEs and species,
taking into account this full picture.
Example:
The user group `A' would like to protect/ utilize SP/ LSE if
the following conditions are fulfilled.
Condition 1)__________________________
2)__________________________
User group `A' promises to contribute the following efforts
and skills to protect/ utilize the same
Efforts:
1) _________________________
2) _________________________
3) _________________________
User group `A' would like to get help from the following
outsiders/ other user groups for the following:
Name Nature of help
1) _______________ ______________________
2) _______________ ______________________
User group `A' would suggest the following modifications are
made in the existing ownership pattern/ power structure/ rules
and regulations/ pricing policy.
1) _______________________
2) _______________________
11.6 GRAM SABHA II:
The team may conduct a Gram Sabha or combined group
discussions with the following objectives in mind:
- To present a clear picture of the different LSEs/ SPs
protected and utilized over a period of time in the study
area.
- To appreciate the collective role of all the user groups
in protecting and utilizing the local bioresources.
- To highlight the impact of migrants and other outsiders
in protecting and utilizing the bioresources.
- To bring out future plans of different user groups
which may call for participation of the entire village
community/ participation by more than one user group.
- To indicate the areas of concensus and more importantly of
conflict between user groups - both locals and outsiders
and possible ways to minimize the conflicts, and
strengthen the confluence.
Use the LSE map and prepare charts, diagrams, posters,
cartoons to explain these issues. Let your presentation be as
simple as possible. Encourage people to ask questions and answer
them with plenty of patience and clarity. In a sense, at the end
of the day, we come out with a general and widely agreed plan of
action, leaving out the grey or conflict areas that cannot be
resolved despite all efforts at local level. We have thus
reconciled views within the village and generated some common
understanding.
11.7 GRAM SABHA III: THE VILLAGERS FIRST AGENDA
Grama Sabha III may be conducted in order to inform the
decisions made by each user group and arrive at a concensus from
the local people.
Homework
There may still remain disputes and ambiquity,
but we will focuss on broad consensus. Or else, these ideas may
be further crystallised through a group discussions with a few
members of the user groups along following lines -
1) Ranking each plan according to the preference of the various
respondents being interviewed.
2) Arrange the plans according to the priorities of the
respondents being interveiwed.
3) Identify various factors which may influence introduction/
execution of the suggested plans.
4) List the problems related to executing/ introducing the plan
as predicted by the respondents, especially problems relating
to other user group.
5) List the merits, demerits and discuss feasibility of various
alternative plans.
PROJECT ACTIVITIES
PHASE III
BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION PRIORITIZATION
------------------------------------------------------------
ACTIVITY TEAM - DAYS
------------------------------------------------------------
Individual interviews I 6
(Developmental aspirations)
Individual interviews II 8
(Outer links)
Home work: (Development and Conservation) 2
Conservation prioritization 4
Grama Sabha III: (Conservation stratergy) 4
----------------------------------------------------------
Total 24
12 CONSERVATION VIS A VIS DEVELOPMENT ASPIRATIONS
12.1 INTRODUCTION:
We have by now ameliorated as far as possible the different
opinions about management options within the villagers, and have
a fairly widely argued plan of the people. But this is just not
sufficient because the plan may be of little significance to
local people under current of future scenario as they visualise.
Secondly, several outsiders would prevail upon local people in
managing the local natural resources and biodiversity. We try to
tackle both the issues here.
Under the existing circumstances the local people who have
knowledge, skills and abilities in protecting, utilizing and
destroying or controlling the biodiversity have little management
authority. The traditional management practices of sustianable
utilization have been uprooted since the British confiscation of
the forest and commonlands. The people have a very different
attitude and world view than a few decade ago. For, they have
received tremendous cultural shock of late. They also have
several development aspirations - both individual and community
level.
To identify how far the interests of local people differ
from the authorities who have the power to make decisions and
enforce them.
To evaluate the level of importance (priority) people attach
to biodiversity and its conservation in relation to their overall
personal and village development aspirations.
To assign priorities to grassroot level options for
biodiversity conservation taking into account the power
structure.
It is often noticed that people opine differently in public
and in private. They are more secured in private and often opine
what they actually believe in public they may tend to populist or
antagonist. Also, organising meetings of people in various
categories would be very costly and often inconclusive. Hence, we
suggest that interviews would better inform us on such sensitive
issues.
12.2 INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEWS: ASPIRATIONS
12.2.1 WHOM TO INTERVIEW?
We present here various groups of people including outsiders
to the study area, based on their relation to decision making and
implementation. One should choose a few people at random from as
many categories as possible. The categories and their details are
as follows:
1) People who cannot technically make decisions for the study
area, but may or may not enact/ practice their own decisions at
small scale.
a) All KI.
i) Gender classes
ii) Economic strata.
b) Teachers (High school, PUC)
i) Within locality.
ii) Nearest place where local students go.
c) Seasonal migrants (Opportunistic surveys)
i) Pastoral (Based on animal husbandary)
ii) Non-pastoral (Entertainers, medicine men, hunters,
gatherers, beggars, religious people, nomadic
tribes).
2) People who can influence the decision makers
a) NGOs/ NGIs
i) Field workers, Researchers, Grassroots level
workers.
ii) Directors, and project staff.
b) Commercial enterprises
i) Small scale/ cottage:- Traders in NTFP, agricultural
products etc. Value addition processing like saw
mill, furniture etc.
ii) Large scale industry:- Larger industries
depending upon small-scale/ cottage industries, e.g.
pharmaceuticals etc. Mining, polluting industries
etc.
c) Local people welfare associations/ societies and
movements
3) People who enforce/ implement but do not make the decisions
a) Govt. departments (like forest, revenue, BDO,
agriculture, fisheries, PWD, etc.)
4) People who make the decisions and policies.
a) Elected panchayat members from the concerned locality,
President and other office bearers deciding upon local
policies.
b) Politicians concerned with the village MLAs, MP, co-
operative society directors who advocate regional policies.
c) Officials (bureacrats) and experts (policy advisers) who
draft regional policies.
All the interviews conducted under this module specifically
study individual interests related to conservation of
biodiversity with our study locality as an example.
12.2.2 CONTENTS: WHAT TO INTERVIEW?
a) Local people:
1. What they would like to contribute to the conservation
practices and what they would like to get out of conserving the
bioresources? Religious or cultural satisfaction or direct
economic benefits?
2. What are their personal interests in the life as a whole;
may be regarding future occupation, children's career etc.?
3. How much importance do they accord to biodiversity and
its conservation in the light of these interests (High, Medium,
Low)? Does biodiversity (utilization or conservation) help or
would help them in future in acheiving their personal desires?
4. What are their views on village development priorities?
(transport, communication, education, health, agriculture,
industry etc). What value or +ve/ -ve impact biodiversity and its
conservation has in this framework? What needs to be changed for
it to be prominent on this agenda, or is this a impossible
preposition?
5. How much do they know about the importance of the
biodiversity and the current developments at the local and global
level? For instance, convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)
requesting sharing benefits by biodiversity enterprenures with
local people; or general agreement or trade and tarriff (GATT)
granting patents on life processes and products; subsequent
Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) issues over knowledge etc.
What is their reaction to all this?
b) Outsiders:
1. How far do they value biodiversity and conservation in
their individual and institutional development agenda? High,
Modest, Low ? Future prospects? Why?
2. What are their interests in biodiversity and conservation
of the study area in particular regional/ national perspective?
General (say ethical or legal) or by default (duty) or anything
in particular (say sentimental or economic)?
3. What are their personal contributions to the utilization
or conservation of bioresorces? Future prospects?
4. What is their opinion about the people's patterns of
utilization and conservation of biodiversity and people's
priorities as studied here? Are they feasible? Desirable? If not,
where do the problems lie? How to tackle these?
If possible we can and should take alongwith us some local
people to discuss these issues with the outsiders. After we hear
the outsiders fully we or the local person can try to appreciate
the justified views and debate the unjust or conflicting views.
There could be a process of negotiations and a broad agreement
reached, as far as possible, in probably the only visit to each
outsider. Note that trade offs i.e. compromises should begin only
after the complete presentation by the outsiders.
The team should select for interviews the outsiders
suggested by the local people, who have some relation with the
study area. The team should also select those having power/
authority to decide (or help the decision maker) on what happens
in the study area such as officials or politians having the study
area under their juridiction but who may not have any direct
contact with villagers. The interviews need to be conducted
intelligently and skillfully as these rich and mighty people are
used to brush aside the main concern and escape with slippery
answers or else, they may, especially politicians instantly but
superficially agree with whatever interviewer suggests.
12.3 HOME WORK: DEVELOPMENT AND CONSERVATION
The results of interview I and II should be classified and
various kinds of interests grouped. Local peoples interests and
the outsider's interest should be compared and the values they
attach to biodiversity and conservation be ranked. The outputs of
this exercise can be grouped under two categories as follows -
12.3.1 Areas of conflict and concensus -
Despite all the negotiations and compromises there would
remain some conflict - contraversial areas and some `grey' areas
of insufficient knowledge. Ofcourse, the process of dialogue
would boil down to many areas of common understanding too. We
need to present it as follows -
1) A list of outsiders and their interests common with/
similar to local people.
2) A list of outsiders and their interests which are in
conflict with those of the local people.
3) A list of interests of the local people of which the
outsiders were/ are unaware.
12.3.2 Importance accorded to biodiversity and conservation -
1) User groups (both villagers and outsiders) having
biodiversity and conservation (High, Modest, Low) on their
personal and social agenda; and their rationale behind this
valuation.
2) User groups (both villagers and outsiders) arranged
according to their influence on biodiversity and conservation,
both in reality (say industrialist or poachers or timber
smugglers) and theoratically/ technically (say officials or
juridicary).
3) An understanding of likely future status of biodiversity,
utilization and conservation as a cummulative effect of these two
aspects, its repurcassions and detailing management options which
will emerge as a balance between the various forces.
12.4 GRAM SABHA III: FINALIZING BIODIVERSITY STRATERGY
Based upon the feedback from the interviews and home work,
the team has to motivate each user group to prioritize their
options and a stratergy for biodiversity and conservation.
The purpose of GS III or combined GD III will be:
1) To summarise the current status, history and future
scenario of their village biodiversity and the driving
forces.
2) To pointout strong areas and weak areas in
management of biological resources and its influence on
people in past, present and future.
3) To project the plans evolved by different user group and
the areas of conflicts and consensus both within village and
with the outsiders.
4) To identify the areas where modification is
needed in existing structure or the proposed plans.
5) To analyse the driving forces behind areas of consensus
and if these could be strengthened to resolve existing
conflicts in future.
6) To identify suitable mechanisms institutions, funds and
coordinates to execute the plans so generated, at village
level and how this could feed into state and national
framework.
PROJECT ACTIVITY
13. REPORT WRITING
13.1 CREDITS AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
The reports would be prepared at the level of villages,
state and nation, in a nested fashion. The reports would clearly
indicate respective sections as being facts or opinions of local
people or investigators' judgements etc. The responsibility and
credit of these reports would go to the agency entrusted for the
study at respective levels. Investigators and agencies at various
levels are welcome to publish the part or whole or versions of
their reports, once the project is over and due acknowledgements
to agencies and individuals at various levels made. However, co-
authorship should not be confered on any individual or
organisation without their consent.
13.1.1 Village level:
Investigators are welcome to prepare these in the local
language so that can be used by local educated people, if any.
For the state level compilation, the investigator would pass on
the sorted data or a draft report or final report reports,
written in English or the state language, for the purpose of
computerisation. These norms are to be evolved by the state nodal
agency and the investigator concerned.
13.1.2 State Level:
The state nodal agency would receive all the locality
specific organised datasets and probably draft reports well in
advance - say by May 1997. Otherwise, the local investigators
would submit the datasets in phases - say November 1996, February
1996 and May 1997. These would be computerised by the state nodal
agency and analysed and interpreted. It would prepare the state
report, in English and possibly state language for wider
circulation and follow - up.
13.1.3 National level:
Centre for Ecological Sciences would receive all the
computerised datasets by May 1997, and preferably draft reports
too. It would collate a national level report, by August 1997 in
English, for a wider national and international circulation.
13.2 CHAPTERISATION:
The reports at the local, state and national level would be
shaped along similarly. Following is a framework of the national
report. The relevant chapters or sections can be incorporated in
the state or local reports.
13.2.1 Social setting, Broad picture:
Human communities and their relationship with land, water
and biological resources. Prevalent systems of property rights
over natural resources. Pertinent religious beliefs, commercial
demands for land, water, biological resources and how they are
met. Systems of governance: political and bureaucratic
institutions controlling use and development of land, water and
biological resources. Systems of recording information on land,
water, biological resources. Practical ecological knowledge.
Official records. Scientific knowledge.
13.2.2 People's relationship with biological diversity:
Detailed picture of how different segments of the society;
tribal and rural communities, men and women, political
leadership, bureaucracy, traders and entrepreneurs, teachers and
scientists relate to diverse biological resources. Subsistence
uses, commercial uses. Religious, Cultural, Scientific, aesthetic
perspectives. Direct conflicts (e.g. crop raiding). Indirect
conflicts through interest in transforming land and water use
patterns.
13.2.3 Distribution of diversity:
Distribution and relative richness of economically useful
plants, fishes, birds and larger mammals along two major axes of
property rights and ecosystems. Core and buffer zones of
protected areas. Reserve forests. Protected forests. Revenue
lands. Government lands and waters. Temple lands and waters.
Corporate lands and waters. Individually owned lands and waters.
Different types of forests, scrubland, grassland, flowing waters,
ponds, lakes, coastal zones, open ocean etc. Distribution of the
different ecosystems in terms of fragmentation, varying levels of
human impacts.
13.2.4 Ongoing ecological changes:
How the land and water use is changing along the two axes of
property rights and ecosystem types. How direct demands for
harvests of different biological resources are changing with
changes in patterns of subsistence or commercial use, religious
beliefs. How direct demands for elimination of certain biological
populations are increasing due to changing patterns of land and
water use, or problems such as crop raiding. Changes in demand
for maintenance/protection of certain biological populations
because they are useful or of some religious, aesthetic,
scientific value. What seems to be forces driving these
ecological changes (e.g. demand for cultivable land by
immigrants, generation of industrial effluents, demand for
granite for export, demand for certain medicinal plants, demand
for constitution of core zone of national park).
13.2.5 Implications of ecological changes for diversity:
How this whole series of ongoing ecological changes is
affecting the focal elements of biological diversity, namely,
economically useful plants, fishes, birds, larger mammals.
13.2.6 Social perceptions of conservation issues:
These are to be recorded separately, for the various local
communities, political, administrative, commercial interests, men
and women, as well as what emerges through various group
discussions. What elements of biological diversity deserve to be
conserved, what elements deserve to be eliminated. Where should
these elements be conserved, where they should be eliminated.
This should be discussed in terms of the two axes of lands and
waters under different property rights regimes and different
types of ecosystems. Also to be recorded are the views of
different social constituents on how the conservation programmes
are to be implemented.
In particular (a) What kinds of legal provisions are needed,
what kinds of amendments to forest act, panchayati raj act,
minerals act, environmental protection act etc. are desirable (b)
what kinds of property rights regimes, for instance, rights of
local communities, or panchayats in reserve forest or revenue
wastelands are desirable? (c) What kinds of institutions will
facilitate conservation measures, e.g. village forest protection
committees, forest labour co-operatives? (d) What kinds of
regulatory measures are desirable, e.g. ban on grazing in reserve
forest areas? (e) What kinds of incentives or service charges may
be desirable, eg. special grants to Panchayats for continuing
protection to a sacred pond, special award to an individual for
maintaining a collection of jackfruit germplasm on her farm etc.
(f) What kinds of compensation for accepting damage from wildlife
e.g. if crop raiding by elephants is desirable; how should
payment of such compensation be organized? (g) What types of
commercial uses of biodiversity elements, e.g. medicinal herbs
should be promoted. How should such usage be regulated? (h) What
forms of biodiversity based enterprises would be promoted, how
should they be encouraged, regulated?
13.2.7 Social aspirations for development:
These are to be recorded separately for the various local
communities, political, administrative commercial interests, man
and women, as well as what emerges through various group
discussions. The discussions should focus on development
aspirations for the whole variety of sectors - agriculture,
animal husbandry, fisheries, industry, mining, transport,
tourism, health, education etc. Of particular interest is how
these developments would influence land and water use patterns
and directly or indirectly biodiversity. Measures to minimize
resultant conflicts as well as to promote biodiversity friendly
developments.
13.2.8 Personal aspirations:
These are to be recorded separately for various local
communities, political, administrative, commercial interests, men
and women, as well as through group discussions. The focus is on
what people want out of life, and what role do they see for
conservation of biodiversity in relation to their personal
aspirations. Do they personally value biodiversity as a possible
source of income, as a source of aesthetic, religious, cultural,
scientific satisfaction, or are they indifferent or hostile to
biodiversity. What kinds of conservation efforts are people
willing to support personally.
13.2.9 Promoting conservation:
This concluding section would pull together the lessons
contained in the previous sections and make specific suggestion
as to how to conserve or restore biodiversity, with respect to
legislation, property rights regimes, institutions, commercial
use patterns, regulatory measure, incentives, religious,
cultural, scientific activities that would have broad based
public support.
13.2.10 Annexures:
The annexures would probably much more relevant to each
locality specific report. At the state or national level, these
may be organised in the form of databases and GIS (Geographic
Information Systems) rather than enormous unprocessed data at the
state or national in the form of maps and tables/ lists which are
of little help for information retrival.
T) Tables/ Charts
T.1. Efforts invested-
Number of interviewers (if necessary break up by categories),
Number of respondents (if necessary break up by categories),
Interviewer days/ hours (if necessary break up by categories),
Respondent days/ hours (if necessary break up by categories),
Degree and nature of aquaintance with villagers prior to study,
Degree and nature of aquaintance with outsiders prior to study,
Data compilation days/ hours (if necessary by categories),
Data analysis days/ hours (if necessary break up by categories).
T.2. Village Profile -
State, District, Taluka, Panchayat, Access, Area,
Population, Communication, Water, Health, Education, Development,
Communities, Occupations, Population break up.
T.3. Species (/Groups) Information -
This includes information about 20-50 species on following
aspects: local name, its local meaning, scientific name (if
available through experts), life-form, preferred LSEs/ types and
respective status, access norms and regulations, historical bench
marks, driving forces, past and future changes vis a vis user
groups and outsiders, field knowledge, ranked values regarding
market, subsistence, culture, religion and management priorities
across user groups and outsiders, conflicts and consensus.
T.5. Landscape Element (/LSE Type) Information -
This will include information about 10-20 LSEs belonging to
5 to 10 LSE types on following parameters: local name of each
LSE, its meaning in local language, scientific LSE typology and
description, status of soil, surface and ground water, access
norms and regulations, historical bench marks, driving forces,
past and future changes vis a vis user groups and outsiders,
field knowledge, ranked values regarding market, subsistence,
culture, religion and management priorities across user groups
and outsiders, conflicts and consensus.
T.6. Management options:-
Major management regimes, changes, future preferences and
driving forces for important species and LSEs/ types.
T.7. Development priorities:-
Main thrust areas for development as desired by various user
groups both within and outsiders the village, and how this would
benefit or harm major species or LSEs/ typres.
T.8. Personal aspirations:-
Important personal aspirations, and ranking of biodiversity
and conservation within this framework, across user groups.
T.9. Consensus and Conflict Issues:-
Key issues where people across village and outside user
groups agree and are at cross-roads, and how these would
positively or negatively affect biodiversity, and whether/ how
the confluence areas strengthened, contrast minimized in future.
T.10. Strategies and action plan:-
The priority species, LSEs and measures required as well as
feasible for protection and/or utilisation and/or transformation.
M) Maps
a> Essential maps -
M.1. Habitation map/s
M.2. Landscape map according to local terminology
b. Optional maps -
M.3. Landscape map according to scientific methodology
M.4. Historical landscape map/s
M.5. Key (bio)resources' location on the landscape map
M.6. Developing priorities and management options map
M.7. Landscape map with conservation priorities/ stratergy
M.6. Futuristic map, considering overall situation
D) Diagrams
D.1. Annual Activity Schedule
D.2. Land scape/ use/ ownership classification
D.2. Species proportions by usage categories
D.3. Species proportion by abundance categories
D.4. Landscape elements/ LSE types by usage
D.5. Landscape elments by management options
D.6. Management options by user groups/ numbers