Report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel - Part II : Actionable points for the WGEA : 3. Towards Multi-centred Governance in the Western Ghats : 3.5. Forest Rights Act : 3.5.1Poor regulatory oversight and institutional coordination : A More Thoughtful Conservation and Development Through Education
Opinion
20/12/2018
1614.
Sub : Report of the Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel - Part II : Actionable points for the WGEA : 3. Towards Multi-centred Governance in the Western Ghats : 3.5. Forest Rights Act : 3.5.1Poor regulatory oversight and institutional coordination : A More Thoughtful Conservation and Development Through Education
Ref : A More Thoughtful Conservation and Development Through Education
Role of Schools, Colleges and Voluntary Agencies Educational institutions with their voluntary force of students of NSS and NCC programmes, often working in tandem with local voluntary agencies, could an make an important contribution to the effort at environmentally and socially sound development of the Western Ghats. To be fruitful, however, such an effort should be directed and form part of a long term plan. Ideally, the effort should focus on a definite locality and should be undertaken in collaboration with the local village panchayats, their Biodiversity Management Committees, as well as Governmental agencies.
Environmental education is now a compulsory component of educational activities at all stages from the Primary Level through University education, thanks to a Supreme Court order of 22 November 1991. The National Council of Educational Research and Training and the University Grants Commission are guiding this process, which is being implemented at the state level. It would be very fruitful for WGEA to establish links with these extensive educational activities. The National Curriculum Review 2005 has made a number of significant suggestions in this context. These include the need to ground Environmental Education in student activities relating to local environmental issues and to use the information so generated to create a publicly accessible, transparent database on India’s environment.
Parisara: A free, public domain knowledge resource on Indian environment developed in a collaborative fashion
All over the world, citizens are a great repository of detailed information on many facets of their local environment. Our citizens, especially students and teachers, ought therefore to play an important role in this process of building up a good information resource on India’s environment. The rapidly advancing tools of ICT hold much promise in facilitating such a participatory process of knowledge generation. An outstanding example of such an application is Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. Wikipedia articles are expected to be encyclopaedic, i.e. based on published, authenticated information, and not on primary observations. Thus, a review of published information on birds of Ratnagiri district can qualify for an article in Wikipedia, while a checklist of birds of a particular college campus based on personal observations. However, the Wiki software is freely available for other users to create their own websites. Therefore, such a checklist could be hosted on a Wiki site set up on the website of a school/ college, or some other appropriate agency. Taking advantage of the Wiki facility, other students or interested citizens, observing additional species may then quickly add to the checklist. They may also add images of these bird species in Wikimedia Commons, their local names in the Hindi/Gujarati/Konkani/Marathi/Kannada/Tamil/Malayalam Wiktionary, classification details in Wikispecies, and show the location of the college campus on Google Earth images.
Another application of interest is a shared spreadsheet that is made available to all or selected users for concurrent data entry or modification, usually on a private or public network. One may visualize students from different colleges collecting information on BOD levels and other water quality parameters, in different water bodies, as a part of their Environmental Education projects. They may all be authorized to access a shared spreadsheet on which information from a number of different investigations can be uploaded, validated by a moderator, integrated, analyzed and eventually shared with the public.
The WGEA may begin this collaborative process of developing publicly accessible information on India’s environment, with a pilot project in Western Ghats districts. The programme may involve the many interested citizens of the district working with a consortium of junior and undergraduate colleges representing both urban and rural localities. It would take advantage of the fact that it is now mandatory for students in XI–XII standards as well as for second year undergraduates in all branches to undertake a major project on the environment. It could also build upon the provisions of the Biological Diversity Act 2002 that mandates all local bodies–Panchayats and Nagarpalikas–throughout the country to undertake documentation of local biodiversity resources and associated knowledge in the form of “People’s Biodiversity Registers”.
To succeed, such an endeavour clearly needs vigorous scientific support. The WGEA should provide this with the help of a Technical Support Consortium (TCS), primarily of local, district-based scientists. This group will have to develop manuals detailing study methodologies, formats in which quantitative data may be collected to support these studies, as also other resource material such as field guides to identification of bioindicators of water quality etc. Most importantly, the TCS may help through assessing the quality of the primary data posted by students or other interested citizens on the various Wiki sites that may be networked to constitute a non-peer reviewed publication called ‚Western Ghats Parisara Sthiti”. TCS may help in selecting material of good quality from this information resource, help in its interpretation in light of available scientific knowledge and in its publication in an appropriate peer-reviewed medium. Since much of such information, although of good quality, is likely to be of very locality-specific interest, it might be worthwhile organizing a locality-specific on-line publication called ‚Western Ghats Parisara Prakashana” to host it. Once properly peer reviewed and published, this information may be used to write Wikipedia articles.
This should set up a positive feedback system, because the more knowledge there is, the more readily can its quality be assessed, and the more readily can it be added to. With students, and other interested citizens generating knowledge about the environment, the quality of environmental education will improve. The built in transparency of the process would promote honest submissions, as well as grading. It would be a self-correcting system with a built-in forum for all citizens, including experts to assess, point out possible deficiencies, and incorporate improvements. In the long run, this process should create a totally transparent, publicly accessible information resource on India’s environment with proper accreditation to concerned students, teachers and other interested citizens for all items of information.
Analysis of the Local Situation The particular problems of environment and development of a region vary a great deal especially in a hilly tract such as the Western Ghats with its tremendous variation in rainfall, landform, extent of deforestation, population pressure and so on. Pointing out and investigating the specific problems of a locality does not require very sophisticated technical instrumentation and expertise, but can be very valuable for planning development. Schools, colleges and voluntary agencies could easily take up simple useful investigations of this type in a specific locality. The following is a sample of the kinds of questions that may be investigated :
1. What is the depth of water table in the wells in different months of the years? How has this level changed in recent years with the installation of electric pumpsets?
2. How much of the land previously accessible to grazing has been covered by Eupatorium?
3. What was the actual level of compensation which was productively invested by farmers who were rehabilitated due to a development project?
4. What is the quantity of paddy straw used up as thatching material every year?
5. What are the population levels of mosquito vectors of malaria in different seasons of the year?
6. What are the levels of gastrointestinal infections at different times of the year and in different strata of the society?
7. What are the levels of pesticide usage in arecanut orchards? Which pesticides are used? Are there any known suspected cases of pesticide poisoning?
8. How many years of fallow period are being allowed in the shifting cultivation of hill slopes?
9. What are the locally growing plants used for medicinal purposes?
10. What is the source of energy used for domestic cooking? If properly organized in a free, public domain knowledge resource on Indian environment developed in a collaborative fashion, as sketched above, a wealth of useful information pertinent to questions of environmentally sound development could be thus collected and used in highlighting specific local problems and required solutions. This could serve as a very useful aid to learning and teaching in educational institutions as well.
Public Awareness There is a great scope for educational and voluntary organisations to take the lead in educating the public, as also the technical people and administrators, about locally significant issues of environment and development. Many form of media, ranging from lectures, exhibitions, plays and songs could be employed. The Society for Environmental Education in Kerala at Payyanur and the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishat have been organising exhibitions, touring theatre productions, and publishing magazines, and books as well as conducting nature camps. The Hulgol Group Villages Co-operative Service Society in Sirsi taluk has organised lectures for their members on management of livestock, development of fodder resources and merits of stall feeding. The Mahavishnu Yuvak Mandali in Kumta taluk had organised a training programme on the construction of fuel efficient smokeless chulas at home. A variety of such models is thus already available and could be very profitably emulated more widely.
Organizing People Perhaps the most serious stumbling block in the way of eco-development is the fact that the masses of people are poor, and uneducated, and so fragmented by barriers of caste and religion that they cannot act together in common interest. They are so pressed by the need of making daily ends meet, that they find it difficult to exercise prudence in their own future interest. Therefore a major contribution that the educational and voluntary organizations could make is to help in organizing these people to co-operate with each other in good management of natural resources, and to take proper advantage of the many Government schemes to help them in this endeavour. The following is a list of worthwhile projects in this context :
1. Organise the villagers to agree to protect a fuel-cum-fodder plantation taken up under the social forestry programme on village common land
2. Organise a rotational grazing system on the village gochar land
3. Organise forest labourers, co-operative societies or LAMPS in tribal areas to take up working of forests
4. Organise a community biogas plant
5. Organise a co-operative programme of soil conservation on agricultural lands
Diffusion of Desirable Technologies A major block in our development programmes has been the lack of serious effort at understanding the problems of diffusion of new technologies under the field conditions, and then, promoting such diffusion. Local schools, colleges and voluntary agencies could take an active part in this process by analysing the situation, arranging model demonstrations, providing voluntary help to set up a project, acting as liaison with the Governmental agencies involved or acting as agencies for the execution of a project. Examples of such technologies which deserve consideration include :
1. Revegetation of barren slopes by species of utility to the local population
2. Fuel-efficient smokeless chulas,
3. Compacted soil cement blocks for construction
4. Sulabha Shouchalaya latrines There are thus a whole varieties of ways in which educational and voluntary organisations could promote the process of environmentally-sound development. At the same time, these could strengthen their own resource base by executing certain project components such as setting up nurseries for social forestry plantations or construction of chulas in scheduled caste houses.
Role of Universities and Scientific Institutions The following is an indicative list of areas of high priority for scientific research and development work for the Western Ghats tract:
2. Standing biomass and productivity of various sources of organic manure
3. Evolution of pesticide resistance amongst animal and microbial pests
4. Impact of pesticide usage on human and livestock health
5. Utilization of land in relation to its capability
6. Extent of soil erosion from hill slopes under different land usages
7. Extent of water runoff versus percolation from hill slopes under different land usages
8. Socio-economic forces promoting cultivation of hill slopes
9. Techno-economic feasibility of discontinuance of cultivation of hill slopes and a switchover to tree and fodder crop production on such lands
10. Possible role of rural employment generating programmes in switchover to tree and fodder crop production on hill slopes
11. Dependence of horticultural crops on forest cover in the neighbourhood for maintenance of microclimate, water regime, supply of leaf manure, fuelwood for curing tea etc.
12. Maintenance and liquidation of shade trees in plantation crops especially cardamom
13. Implications of future plans of extension of plantation crops for the maintenance of the natural vegetation on the Western Ghats
14. People’s attitude towards the use of community and state-owned land, pressures of fuelwood extraction and grazing on community and state-owned as well as privately held lands
15. Social organisations needed to ensure proper use of community and state-owned lands,
16. Current patterns of utilisation of malki forest lands
17. Techno-economic feasibility of switchover to stall feeding of livestock
18. Maintenance of goats on the Western Ghats
19. Enhancing the fodder resources of Western Ghats,
20. Development of fisheries in large reservoirs of the Western Ghats
21. An inventory of all near-virgin forest tracts of the Western Ghats
22. Impact of grazing, fuelwood collection, selection felling on levels of biological diversity of the Western Ghats
23. Cultural traditions of conservation of biological diversity of the Western Ghats
24. Man–wildlife conflict especially for elephant and wild pig populations
25. Economies of on-site preservation of indigenous varieties of cultivated plants
26. Non-sustainable use of ground water resources of Western Ghats
27. Micro- and mini-hydel potential—its utilization through pilot demonstrations
28. Impact of accessibility by road on the forest cover of Western Ghats,
29. Utilization of plant material in rural house construction
30. Improving the life of thatch on huts and cattle sheds
31. Impact of sanitation measures on incidence of diseases in rural areas of Western Ghats
32. Role of natural living resources in nutrition of people of Western Ghats
33. Environmental control of vectors of diseases such as malaria and KED in the Western Ghats
34. Socio-economic factors affecting the diffusion of environmentally desirable technologies
35. Socio-economic and psychological factors determining the number of children desired by families of Western Ghats tract
36. Perception of environmentally and socially sound developmental priorities by people of various strata.
Catalysing Environmentally and Socially Sound Development
There is clearly considerable scope for Research Institutions, Universities and research- minded faculty members of colleges to generate scientific information and technologies of immense value to the process of environmentally sound development of the Western Ghats. There are several reasons why very little has so far been accomplished in these directions. Foremost amongst these is the lack of tradition and interest in working with people and under field conditions. But technologies developed in isolation in laboratories at research stations often prove irrelevant in the field. It is therefore very important that we should now create new traditions of field research and of experimenting with technologies under field conditions.
Each University or scientific institution selecting a particular group of village or watershed for detailed long-term effort would best accomplish this. It could then involve itself in a variety of environmentally-sound development-oriented action programmes in collaboration with local schools, colleges and voluntary agencies and governmental agencies. Its original research and technical development work could form part of such an overall programme with the local schools, colleges and voluntary agencies taking up the major responsibility of actual field action. We believe that this could serve as a very good model for catalysing environmentally sound development.
NEXT :*Direct Payments to People, Communities and Companies for Conserving the Biodiversity of the Western Ghats :-
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