THE aftereffects of a forest felling movement started in
Singhbhum district of Bihar in 1978 had created a none-too-
happy situation for tribal forest dwellers of the region, who felt
that the core of their existence was being damaged indiscriminately. This was coupled with the Porahat (a forest territorial
division in Singhbhum) Forest Corporation's activities to
replace traditional mixed forests with teak monocultures, as a
response to the recommendations of the National
Commission of Agriculture (NCA).
It was in 1976 that the NCA set a new agenda for
forests, declaring that the requirements of industry should
determine forestry projects. That was the period when the
quest for scientific management of forests and environmental
issues had gained ascendancy. Consequently, the forest
dwellers, hitherto dependent on timber contractors, perceived
a certain sense of 'wagelessness'.
The completeness of this tribal-forest relationship is
brought out extremely well in the B K Roy Burman
Committee Report on Tribals and Forests (1982). The '70s
and '80s tended to look at forests from the more narrow
perspective of incomes, instead of the wider concept of
securing livelihoods. But traditionally used to 'living one day
at a time, tribals view 'income' quite differently from the
urban populace.
The tribals also make A clear distinction between tree-
growing and natural forests. The diversity of sal forests and
the multiplicity of plant and animal species that they support,
have defined the very livelihood patterns of the people in this
area. A study had found that of 214 wild plant species identified in the adjoining sal forests of the Jamboni Range of
Midnapore forest division, the tribals used 155 species for
fuel, food, fodder, medicine, household articles, commercial
and religious purposes, ornaments and recreation.
Located in the central Indian tribal region and spread over
an area of 13,440 sq km, Singhbhum district (bifurcated into
East and West Singhbhum districts in 1990) has one of Asia's
finest sal forests - the Saranda forests. The Ho tribals, akin to
the Mundas, but unique in preserving their
traditional cultures, dominate the Saranda, Kolhan,
Porahat, and South Forest divisions. The district is
also very rich in iron ore,, uranium, copper, asbestos,
kyanite, china clay and other minerals. This explains the
emergence of 20 industrial mining towns
in the region, including the industrial city of Jamshedpur.
Besides the incomes from non-timber forest products, not-
so-modem agricultural practices are followed in almost all its
32 community development blocks. The Dhalbhum region of
the district has many tanks and a second crop of vegetables is
grown in many such pockets to meet the growing needs of the
mining towns. The firewood and timber needs of these towns
have exerted pressure over forests in these regions.
Singhbhum has also traditionally been meeting the needs
of the Indian Railways for making wooden sleepers in a large
measure. The unabated increase in the demand for wooden
furniture has also put tremendous pressure on these sal forests
(according to a 1989 preliminary market study of the wood
industry in Bihar, and another contemporary study, India's
timber needs will go up to 300 million cubic m by AD 2000,
from the 125 million cubic m consumption in 1978-79). The
tribals point out that although the state has been reporting
felling by tribals, the loss of forest cover
due to industrial expansion has been
more significant.
Tribals have long been demanding
the closure of private sawmills. Their festivals and rituals, like the Ho festivals -
Maghe and Ba - are all centred around
the annual seasonal cycle of the sal Most
of the festival songs refer to life in the
land of the sal tree. The Santhals too have
their own rituals and the annual shikar
(hunt) is still practised. Non-tribals of
this region also have their livelihoods -
mostly agricultural operations - organised around the natural forests. Even the
long 15-20-year cycle of shifting cultivation among the tribals is considered
useful in mixed forest areas.
The promotion of natural regeneration as a means to protect degraded sal forests has been an ancient tradition of
this region. The Forest Working Plans, as well as the Cadastral
Survey and Settlement Reports, prepared early this century,
also mention such efforts. Forest Working Plans for Saranda,
Kolhan and Porahat divisions mention that in certain villages,
the demarcation of reserved and protected forests had posed
some problems that needed redressal by forest settlement
officers, as land patterns kept changing.
The Cadastral Surveys of Dhalbhum and Kolhan mention
community initiatives to protect forests - how people came
together to extinguish forest fires. Forest reservation and protection on the other hand, through state ownership of natural
resource, managed to alienate the people, especially in an area
where the tribals recognised land ownership based only on
sasangdiris (stone memorials to the dead) which they had
installed in several places as they were primarily nomadic in
the past. As a result, some reserved forest and protected forest
areas have these sasangdiris within their areas.
The introduction of social forestry programmes around
Jamshedpur in Dhalbhum and North Forest divisions, have
promoted tree-growing culture as an income-generating
activity. With the usual degree of apathy attached with most
forestry programmes, there has been largescale plantations of
the non-browsable acacia and eucalyptus. Farmers on these
plantations initially made good money. Later, prices slumped
'gradually and long bureaucratic procedures emerged around
transit permits which affected the pace of such endeavours.
Subsequently, a greater attraction for the protection of
degraded natural forests has arisen, partly from a realisation that it may be more remunerative in the long run, especially
following the spread of Joint Forest Management
schemes. This rings more true in areas adjoining Midnapore
district in West Bengal, where the Santhals and Bhumij
tribals have taken to intensive agriculture and have also made
some money by tree-growing under social forestry
programmes.
The tribal movements and agitations of the '80s were determined by the delineation of contested domains. The perceived
helplessness of the tribals was developed into a movement of
desperation by their leaders, and the illicit felling of trees by
the tribals en masse became a symbol of protest. In fact, among
the Hos, any villager who did not participate in illegal felling
during the movement, was fined and beaten up by his community. But even at the peak of the movement, one notable
feature was that the tribals rarely sold off the felled timber
themselves; they would go to the forest state trading office
after the monsoon season when the roads became motorable,
and demand wage labour. At a point of time, the grapevine
had it that the only way to get wage labour was to indulge in
illicit felling, as the forest department abandoned felling as per
the Working Plan (the response of the forest department in
the wake of illicit felling was to suspend the operation of the
Working Plan). There was no harmonious relationship left
between the forest and the forest dweller, and the actions of
the state appeared to the tribal to be an alienating one.
It is paradoxical that many of the movements for forest
protection also started during the '80s. In the areas that had
been exposed to social forestry programmes, the local tribal
community came together to protect degraded natural forests
with prospective financial returns in mind. In non-commercial areas, in the interior of Singhbhum district, it was the perception of the community that the ultimate wellbeing of the tribal lay in the survival of natural forests. Even the manner of
forest protection varied, depending on the motivation that
brought the people together.
The plantations by the forest department on government
lands, on the banks of canals, next to roads and railway lines,
and on deforested hill slopes, consisted mostly of acacia and
eucalyptus trees. In 1989, in a meeting of 300 village heads -
to discuss the problems facing the forest regions - the Tribals
very strongly argued against the indiscriminate plantation of
these non-browsable species. They unanimously demanded
support for the natural regeneration of degraded forests with
silvicultural practices instead.
They argued that silvicultural operations are labour-intensive, and a much lower cost is involved in them than in the
planting of acacia and eucalyptus. Also, the community would
be willing to support such constructive initiatives. In 1992,
Manjul Bajaj, in a study (The Price of Forests, edited by
Anil Agarwal, Centre for Science and Environment, 1992) on
the prospects of natural regeneration with community
participation, maintained that silviculture has many
advantages over plantation forestry and is also cheaper than
afforestation operations.
The most common type of community forestry programmme
is that in which the forest department takes on the responsibility for carrying out the planting. It provides inputs such as
fertiliser and seedlings without any outlay from the community; the engagement of the local community remains largely
passive, and is normally restricted to providing hired labour.
This has often resulted in the villagers illegally felling trees
before they are fully matured.
Efforts at involving the community were also made in
some other Indian states - notably in Gujarat - and it
actually did lead to the participation of people in tree-growing
on a large scale. Clearing undergrowth, digging contour
trenches to conserve rain water where and as it falls, thinning
and pruning to promote more luxuriant growth, protection
from cattle by social fencing, fines for unrestricted use of
forest resources or for trespassing and the like, are all part of
such efforts. Manjul Bajaj holds that regeneration efforts will yield a more diverse output mix than the so-called afforestation
programme's.
Besides timber, natural mixed forests provide grass, fibres
leaves, fruits, seeds, medicinal plants, resin, honey, lac, and
several other non-wood products which can sustain and support the livelihoods of a large number of people. Present afforestation technology aims at maximising wood outputs. Other outputs remain only byproducts of plantation forestry.
Also, naturally regenerated forests are less vulnerable to pest
and disease attacks.
In fact, the activity of regenerating forests demands attention and investment in its own right. However, ambiguity
regarding the sharing of forest produce has often led to feebler
community participation. More exchange of information
regarding the entitlements of the community involved in protecting degraded natural forests and promoting natural regeneration would probably improve this. In Goberdhan village in Majhgaon block, villagers participated actively in forest protection, in the realisation that a regenerated forest provides
sufficient undergrowth for the fuelwood needs of the
community, besides creating wealth in the form of timber. But
after they had protected their forests, they were informed
that since part of the land was reserve forest, therefore, no
benefits would accrue to them. Such absence of clearly
demarcated rights can act as a deterrent in promoting natural
regeneration.
The Indian Forest Act and other regulations which are
meant to officially restrain the use of forest wealth, have successfully alienated the tribals in their own lands; they are being
told that it was they who were responsible for the destruction
of forests. This made the tribal communities develop a sense of
disrespect towards their original world view of harmonious
relationship with nature. Their forced pauperisation on
account of poor agriculture yields and poorer integration with
the market made them look at issues on environment as
alienating propositions. They immediately attributed the
failures of the state to restore confidence in them as an absence
of political will.
The homogeneity of tribal societies and the institution of
village heads can help in community self-regulation.
Modernisation and industrial mining activities partly
destroyed the homogeneity of some of these tribal villages.
Self-regulation gave way to wanton destructiom There are
instances where forest dwellers became sub-contractors to
timber thiefs. No wonder that the enlightened lot among them
demand a shift from the current policies of social and community foresty. In their understanding of the dynamics of
regeneration, alternative methods would he much more welcome as natural regeneration compels a community of people
to think and act together.
The well protected Kudada forests - very near
Jamshedpur, for example - are a clear demonstration of what
wonders community initiatives can do. The village of
Ramgarh, near Tatanagar in
Singhbhum, has been protecting its forests since 1984.
Predominantly inhabited by
Munda and Santhal tribals,
the village had virtually
become a desert following
mindless felling. Now the
mud track leading to the village from the highway is bordered by a lush green forest wall of young sal trees.
"When the rains started
decreasing, we realised that it
was because of the depleting
forest cover," says Mohan
Singh Munda, a villager. The
villagers then decided to put
a stop to the exploitation of
the forests by timber-pinching profiteers. Initially, no
one was even allowed to enter
the forest; now only minor
forest produce is permitted to be collected, that too, only off
the forest floor. -The fact that these strictures were unquestioningly followed is a strong evidence of the effectiveness of community participation.
Sustainable livelihoods in natural forest regions. will
require the participation of the community. The state
will have to intervene to secure the basic needs of the people
living in forest regions. Exploitation of timber in natural
forests arises largely out of poverty and destitution faced
by the tribal -communities. The returns from non-timber
forest products will need to be protected by policies of
effective minimum support price and procurement
arrangements in a decentralised manner at each of the village
market centres.
This experience of monopoly procurement and marketing
rights vested in the operations of the state forest corporations
have often limited the options of the tribals. The modalities of
successful intervention on their behalf must be looked at carefully. The successful market interventions made by the Girijan
Cooperative Corporation in Andhra Pradesh can throw up
very useful guiding principles in this regard.
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