This Forest Can146;t Turn a New Leaf

That these good intentions lose something in the implementation is evident from an open letter from tribal organisations to the World Bank. 8216;8216;Adivasi organisations in Madhya Pradesh have repeatedly denounced the highly destructive, so-called eco-development programmes that the World Bank has been funding8230;8217;8217; it says, and goes on to denounce the 8216;8216;remarkably awkward combination of bans on the activities on which Adivasis have based their livelihoods since millennia shifting cultivation, fishing, extraction of forest produce on environmental grounds and the liberalisation of commercial activities to make conservation a good business. Hence, the Adivasis see themselves forced to buy in the market the products that they are not anymore allowed to extract from their forests.8217;8217;

The difference stems perhaps from the gap in the conception of the Eco-Development Project EDP and reality of its implementation. The EDP envisages establishment of a joint committee of an elected village representative and two forest staff to oversee the conceptualisation, planning and funding of projects decided by the villagers themselves. The beneficiaries invest 25 per cent of the cost of the project 8212; either as labour or in some other form 8212; which goes into a village development fund. In return, they are allotted around 240 to 400 acres of forest in the buffer area, which they protect from poachers and illegal felling and use to graze cattle and collect firewood and other forest produce.

8216;8216;Considerable work has been done in the village, including construction of a road and trenches to keep off wild animals,8217;8217; says Ram Singh Marabi, elected the EDP representative in Tikari Reyat village, at the very edge of the park, for two years. 8216;8216;But I have no idea how much has been spent and how much is still available in the village account. The forest staff keep track of the money spent and how much is to be spent on which project. They do talk to the entire village, but the decision is theirs.8217;8217;

It is a scenario repeated in village after village in this stretch of Gond settlements. The programme envisages the eventual handing over of control to the villagers themselves but, admits Subharanjan Sen, wildlife director of Pench National Park, 8216;8216;We are still very far from this objective in most villages.8217;8217;

It is also a problem of attitudes. Hari Shankar Khutrapalli, a deputy ranger on the EDP committee for Barailpar and Sali, says: 8216;8216;You cannot hand over control to these people. They take no interest in the work, they want everything done for them. You can8217;t change their brains, they spend their time drinking, they will destroy everything.8217;8217;

This in the case of Barailpar village, where EDP representative Brahm Lal is perhaps the best advertisement for the project. Elected repeatedly sice 1998, Brahm Lal has the details of every project on his fingertips. An avid votary of the programme, his fears, though are common to this whole stretch of villages. 8216;8216;We are being told that eventually we will have to stop grazing and felling firewood. We will be denied access to the forest, which we depend on for grazing our cattle, firewood, mahua, gum, herbs and tendu. How can we manage without these?8217;8217; he says.

8216;8216;The concept is a very good one to begin with,8217;8217; says Seoni district Forest Conservator B M S Rathore, who teaches professionals how to conduct such EDPs at the Wildlife Institute of India. 8216;8216;Some concrete steps have been proposed but with the scaling up of the project and the World Bank involvement, emphasis has moved to the alternatives for forest produce. This is just not possible in all cases. The thrust should be on sustainable use, which can work well when there is a buffer area of forest surrounding the park.8217;8217;

But it is the very concept of sustainable use that is a problem in these villages, including Barailpar and Tikari, which lies along just such a buffer. 8216;8216;While there are no plans to deny such access to the buffer, there have been discussions and the forest staff may have spoken to the villagers about it,8217;8217; says Sen. 8216;8216;A study by our own ecologists has shown that while the health of our national park area has improved, that of the buffer has declined considerably. If this continues, eventually the park will be affected. Part of the problem is that the cattle population is huge and the quality of the cattle is very poor.8217;8217;

The villagers here rear cattle and sell the young; Brahm Lal says he can sell a pair every three years for Rs 5,000. But Sen points out that due to the free grazing, cattle population has increased considerably. 8216;8216;If there was a return from cattle in terms of dairy products perhaps the dependence on the forest would be less. We have started some such programmes in a few villages,8217;8217; he says.

But this has not been possible everywhere. Because of the terms of funding, there is a mismatch between benefits that accrue to different villages. 8216;8216;There8217;s a cap of Rs 12,500 on the amount that can be spent on each family. So if there is a village with, say, 40 families, we cannot construct a tank because the cost would come to at least Rs 15,000-20,000 for each family. Consequently, we haven8217;t been able to do enough in small villages and the bigger villages have a surplus which they aren8217;t able to spend,8217;8217; admits Sen.

Another problem that has prevented villages from obtaining the revenue that the government has in principle granted to them comes about because of the nature of forest management at Pench. All the EDP are managed by the wildlife division that looks after the forest but the land allotted to each village falls under the buffer area and are managed by different forest divisions. The problem being faced by villages in realising revenue from timber felling is the result of this divide.

8216;8216;In village after village, EDP samitis have signed away our right to felling earmarked timber because we do not have money to pay the initial cost to the labour. This money is easily recouped when the timber is taken to the depot but we don8217;t have the initial investment,8217;8217; says Brahm Lal.

Sen admits that he is not aware of any village where payment for timber has been received. 8216;8216;This is a problem of management. We have now proposed a buffer division, as in Kanha, which once set up will be able to take steps which will ensure the revenue reaches the villagers,8217;8217; says Sen. Of course, the problems are worse in villages which lie adjacent to the national park area with no buffer zone to depend on.