ECO DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEES (EDC) are formed by the initiation of Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary. Many EDC are functioning in the village Thirunelli. EDCs are formed by the colective effort of Tribal People in the Thirunelli Village, Forest Department of Kerala, Kerala Forest Research Institute. Forest Department was formerly having a centralised system of looking after the Wildlife. Now it has been changed to participatory system. . In olden days, the tribal people in Kerala harvested NTFP (Non Timber Forest Produce), at low impact level. In the context of low employment generation outside the forestry sector, tribes, particularly primitive tribal groups depend heavily on collection of NTFP for their livelihood. Thus this increased demand, however, has transformed the traditional low impact pattern of resource extraction into more intensive forms. So there was illegal trade of the forest produce. This made the centralised system of forest management ineffective. Now in a EDC, the main purpose is to stop the forest encroachment. More than the Forest Officials, the tribes know more about the forest. So a committee was constitued which included both the forest officials and the tribes. The NTFP collection was restricted to Tribals and could be sold by a Schedule Tribe Cooperative Society to the outside market. This brought the information about the encroachment in the forest as well as income for the tribes.
This collective action which include not only the people from the society, but also from the government departments helped to conserve the Forest and make it sustainable
2 comments:
Participatory forest management programs like this would be good examples of collective action. The incentive derived out of these activities motivate all the stakeholders to be part the collective action. The most difficult part is in sustaining these efforts as we observed in Thirunelli and other parts of Wayanad. Also there were other similar initiatives like 'Vana Samrakshana Samiti' (VSS)and 'Kurumulaku Samiti'.
VSS was a participatory approach for protecting the forest from human intervention. The stake holders included forest officials, political leaders and villagers from different sects. Being a tourist area and due to the presence trekking spots like Pakshipatalam it was apparently very important to make sure the protection of forest and wild animals. There were six VSS s functioning in Thirunelli itself. Even though people from different castes joined together domination by upper caste in decision making and conflicts of interests were observed. None of the VSS had a tribal person as its president or secretary.
Post a Comment