It was just another summer morning. But as I began my regular day as a development professional, little did I know that a chance encounter would leave me with a web of thoughts that I would spend days unravelling. I was heading from my home in Kushalnagar to the Thithimathi Gram Panchayat in Kodagu district of Karnataka for a meeting, with my colleague Hoysala ND riding pillion on my two-wheeler.
And there he was, along the Mysuru-Virajpet road near the Anechowkuri forest check post — walking briskly, holding a yellow mass in his hand.
We caught up with the man and asked where he was rushing barefoot in the middle of the dense forest of Nagarahole National Park. And what he was carrying.
“It’s a honeycomb. I am on my way to sell it,” he answered. It had barely a trace of honey in it. Hoysala asked him how much money he would get for it, and why he was risking his life all alone in the forest, where elephants and tigers lurk behind the trees.
We learned that he belonged to the Jenu Kuruba tribe (which literally translates to "honey Kuruba") and lived in the hadi (hamlet) near the Mathigodu Elephant Camp, not very far from the spot. He had gathered the honeycomb from the Anechowkuri forest and was heading to sell it for Rs 100. After chatting with us for a moment, he went his way. I felt both sympathy and empathy toward him. There he was, all alone, barefoot, running with a piece of honeycomb that held hardly any honey, risking his life for a hundred rupees.
At the same time, I realised that this national park was designated only recently, whereas his people have been collecting honey for centuries. What he was doing was natural to his existence. And there we were, on a two-wheeler, hastening our journey since we felt that stopping inside a national park was unsafe.
The day ended, but his image remained etched in my mind.
On a personal level, I felt a longing to connect more directly with communities. Professionally, I manage an IUCN-funded project across Kushalnagar and Ponnampet taluks of Kodagu district. The SABAL (Strengthening Sustainable Agriculture and Biodiversity Across Landscapes) project aims at biodiversity conservation and achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN) in the Western Ghats landscape. A core component of this is the conservation of high conservation value forests, in which indigenous communities have historically played a vital role.
This was reiterated by Thammaiah JK, a 63-year-old Jenu Kuruba elder in Balegundi tribal village of Valanuru Gram Panchayat, when I had met him on an earlier occasion. He had emphasised that they do not fear wild animals because they don’t view themselves as separate from the jungle. Just as wild animals depend on the forest for survival, so do they.
The Jenu Kuruba scale cliffs and tall trees to harvest wild honey, mara paachi (lichen), soapnuts, wild black pepper, and several other economically valuable non-timber forest products, which they sell to large area multi-purpose societies (LAMPS) for their livelihood. They rely on their traditional ecological knowledge, listening to the alarm calls and cues of langurs, deer, and monkeys, and detecting the presence of elephants in the forest through their distinct scent. When they sense elephants nearby, they run in a zig-zag pattern in the opposite direction to avoid a direct encounter. This deep understanding of the forest and its wildlife keeps them safe. Nevertheless, Thammaiah felt that if forest guards and department experts assisted them in avoiding sudden encounters, many fatal incidents arising from human-wildlife interaction could be averted.
The thought really hit home with me. Wildlife conservation policies have pushed the tribal communities out of the core and buffer zones. Communities living in villages bordering national parks and tiger reserves often lack basic amenities like electricity and paved roads because of constraints on the development of such infrastructure within forest limits. On the other hand, the habitat quality inside Nagarahole National Park and Bandipur Tiger Reserve is also no longer sufficient to sustain wildlife adequately. These areas have been invaded by the aggressive Lantana camara weed, which suppresses the growth of any other plants. Annual forest fires further decimate other plants while allowing fire-resilient lantana to proliferate even faster.
No wonder then that there are recurring instances of wild elephants entering coffee plantations situated outside the so-called "protected areas" of the reserve forests and national parks of Kodagu and neighbouring districts. According to radio-collar tracking data from the Nature Conservation Foundation, coffee plantations in Hassan, which maintain perennial canopy and forage, have become permanent refuges for several elephant herds. Additionally, other herds migrate from the national parks toward coffee estates in Kodagu, Hassan, and Chikkamagaluru during dry periods.
The dominance of lantana has created what is effectively a "green desert." For centuries, indigenous communities actively managed the forest floor. The cessation of their traditional practices has disrupted ecological dynamics, depleting native forage, paving the way for invasive species to thrive, and driving herbivores into farms and plantations in search of food.
This divide can be bridged through sustainable landscape management plans (SLMP). A few steps, such as the following, can be considered:
Integrate the traditional early-warning cues of the Jenu Kuruba with modern technology, such as radio-collar alerts or community-led forest surveillance, to yield a safer, shared-landscape model of coexistence.
Because elephants widely frequent coffee estates now, private landholdings within these corridors can be recognised under the framework of high conservation value forests (HCVF).
The communities can be strengthened by advocating for basic civic amenities in fringe settlements. Revitalising institutions like LAMPS can help arrest their socio-economic marginalisation.
Habitat restoration needs to be done by physically removing lantana and reintroducing native NTFP species, such as wild black pepper and soap nut, to restore foraging and revive tribal livelihoods.
"Fringe-sensitive" infrastructure policies can grant the Jenu Kuruba a dignified life without breaching core conservation mandates. A collaborative forest guard-tribal network could be established to share real-time wildlife movement data for the safety of NTFP gatherers.
For me, the image of the tribal man with the yellow honeycomb was not just a passing scene; it was a mirror. Are we losing ground because we have sidelined the very individuals who possess natural "biological sensors"?
Watching someone risk everything for a hundred rupees is unsettling yet deeply humbling, especially when his "workplace" is a forest that the rest of the world perceives as a perilous frontier. He was neither lost in the wild nor recklessly courting danger; he was simply going to work in the area his ancestors had inhabited for generations.
Ranjeet Kumar Sahani is a Senior Project Manager at the Foundation for Ecological Security (FES), Karnataka. Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth.
Views expressed are the authors’ own and don’t necessarily reflect those of FES or Down To Earth
