Subject: NATIONAL CONSULTATION RECOMMENDS INTEGRATION OF WILDLIFE CONSERVATION AND PEOPLE'S LIVELIHOOD RIGHTS The 4th National Consultation on Wildlife Conservation and People's Livelihood Rights was held from April 15-17, 2000 in the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple (BRT) Wildlife Sanctuary, Karnataka. The Consultation was jointly organised by the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyan Kendra (VGKK), the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), and Kalpavriksh. This Consultation was part of an ongoing attempt to bring together people who represent the cause of wildlife conservation on one hand, and activists working with natural resource dependent communities on the other. In the past these constituencies have often been in conflict over issues of biodiversity conservation and people's livelihood rights, including in protected areas (national parks and sanctuaries). The objective of these consultations has been to provide a forum for constructive interaction among forest officers, NGOs, social activists, local community representatives, conservation researchers, academics, and others. Such dialogues are a part of a larger attempt to build bridges, and to work towards joint strategies against threats to the habitats that support both wildlife and local communities, including protected areas (PAs). Previous consultations in this series, which was started in 1997, were held in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. About 50 participants (as listed below) from various fields and sectors participated in the 4th Consultation. Its main outcome was a consensus that the integration of wildlife conservation and people's livelihood rights was necessary. Such integration would benefit both, by creating a stake and specifying responsibilities amongst local communities in the conservation of wildlife habitats. Strategies to this end, including those for PAs, were extensively discussed. The venue of the consultation offered the opportunity to specially highlight the possibilities of such integration. This is because of the ongoing collaborative work of VGKK, ATREE and the Karnataka Forest Department on the use of non-timber forest produce for ensuring livelihood security of the Soliga tribals, while attempting to keep the conservation objectives of BRT Wildlife Sanctuary in mind. MAJOR CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The Consultation ended with the following major conclusions and recommendations: 1) Maintaining wildlife habitat integrity: Several activities (agriculture, dams, railway lines, roads, etc.) cause fragmentation of forests and other ecosystems, with serious impacts on wildlife. There is an urgent need to understand such impacts, and to avoid fragmetation in critical wildlife habitats and corridors. Also important is biological monitoring to ensure that human activities are not causing loss of biodiversity. 2) Commercial / Industrial Threats: Activities such as mining (e.g. Kudremukh National Park, Karnataka), dams (Great Himalayan National Park, Himachal Pradesh), roads (Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu), railway lines (Rajaji National Park, Uttar Pradesh) & aquaculture (Bhitarkanika Sanctuary, Orissa), tea and coffee plantations (BRT Wildlife Sanctuary, Karnataka), and encroachments by large farming interests (Bhadra Sanctuary, Karnataka), are the greatest threats to PAs and local people's livelihoods and should be strongly opposed. The current model of development which involves sacrifices of critical ecological areas, and also threatens local community livelihoods, needs to be seriously questioned and changed. Participants also recognised that urban and elite lifestyles and consumerism are a major factor in the above threats. 3) Tourism and pilgrimage: Tourism in wildlife habitats should be environmentally and culturally sensitive, otherwise it will remain a major threat. To ensure this a strict code of conduct should be formulated and enforced. Local communities should be enabled to manage and earn revenue from such tourism. A part of the revenue generated should also go back to the management of the wildlife habitat in question. In many critical wildlife habitats (e.g. Periyar Tiger Reserve, Kerala and Bhimashankar Sanctuary, Maharashtra), pilgrimage activities have considerably increased and are causing serious damage. A concerted effort is needed, in association with those in charge of these pilgrimage sites, to tackle this problem. 4) Settlement of Rights: The Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972 requires that the rights of people dependent on areas to be notified as PAs, be settled by the state government. However, the current process of settlement of rights, resulting from a Supreme Court order of 1997 on a case filed by WWF-India, is an area of major concern. There has been widespread misunderstanding and varied interpretations of the court order, leading to the harassment of local people in many areas and to the denotification of parts of PAs in others (e.g. Great Himalayan National Park, Himachal, and Semarsot Sanctuary, M.P.). The process of settlement of rights has also become a front for the entry of various vested interests like mining and hydro-electric power companies. There is an urgent need for a set of guidelines for the conduct of the process of settlement of rights, so that denotifications can be minimised and the customary rights of people can be properly recorded and established. 5) External Aided Projects: Serious concern was raised about the adverse impacts and lack of sustainability of externally aided projects related to forestry and wildlife. Internal funding sources should be identified for conservation. All ongoing projects should ensure the complete involvement of the concerned local communities, the integration of wildlife conservation concerns, and transparency in their formulation, implementation and monitoring. 6) Laws and Policies: There are several existing laws and policies like the National Forest Policy 1988, the Gramdan Acts of several states, provisions like those of Village Forests in the Indian Forest Act 1927, the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996, and the new Government of India circular extending JFM to good forests, which should be proactively used to ensure participatory conservation. At the same time necessary amendments need to be made in existing laws like the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972, so as to allow for the participation of local communities in the management of PAs, and at the same time to keep destructive commercial forces out of environmentally and culturally sensitive areas. 7) Wildlife in JFM areas: Attempts should be made for Joint Forest Management programmes to lay greater stress on wildlife conservation. 8) Community conserved areas: Participants discussed several examples of natural ecosystems and wildlife conserved at the initiative of local communities, outside of official PAs. It was strongly felt that such cases must be accorded recognition and considered as possible models of the integration of wildlife conservation and livelihood rights. 9) Conservation Education: There is an urgent need for creating awareness and raising information levels on ecological and conservation issues (including social aspects). This is needed amongst various sections of society, including local communities, government officials, and NGOs. A substantial commitment to this end from the state is called for. Conclusions The participants of the Consultation felt that the ongoing collaborative work in Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary was an excellent example of a joint initiative involving the Forest Department, community-based groups, scientific organisations, and local communities. It has been strongly recommended that this process in BRT Sanctuary be taken further in the direction of participatory or joint management of Pas. One way of doing this might be through formal recognition of the joint initiative already under way. Overall, there is an urgent need to move towards a model of conservation which involves local people in the planning and implementation of wildlife conservation programmes, including in protected areas. This will ensure the livelihood security of the local communities and the conservation of natural resources and wildlife. In this model, priority must be accorded to wildlife and local communities over urban/industrial developmental requirements. Pankaj Sekhsaria H. Sudarshan Kamaljit Bawa Kalpavriksh, Pune Vivekananda Girijana Kalyan Kendra (VGKK), BR Hills Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bangalore (on behalf of the participants below) NO. PARTICIPANT ORGANISATION PLACE 1. M Jadeyegowda Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) Bangalore, Karnataka 2. Priyadarsanan DR -do- -do- 3. Sumathi Sridhar -do- -do- 4. T Ganesh -do- -do- 5. R Siddappasetty -do- -do- 6. R Ganesan -do- -do- 7. RN Nanjundaswamy Vivekananda Girijana Kalyan Kendra (VGKK) BR Hills, Karnataka 8. V Muthaiah Zilla Budakattu Abhiruddi Sangha / VGKK Chamrajnagar, Karnataka 9. Madegowda C VGKK BR Hills, Karnataka 10. Leo Saldanha Environment Support Group (ESG) Bangalore, Karnataka 11. Manu Mathai -do- -do- 12. Bhargavi S Rao -do- -do- 13. Mahalakshmi Parthasarthy Nagarika Seva Trust / Environment Support Group Project Bangalore, Karnataka 14. Savio Carvalho OXFAM Sirsi, Karnataka 15. Ajay Dolke Srujan Pandharkawda, Dist. Yeotmal, Maharashtra 16. Mohan Hirabai Hiralal Vrikshamitra / Joint Forest Management (JFM) Network Maharashtra Chandrapur, Maharashtra 17. Ranjeet Ghodeswar KHOJ Paratwada, Dist. Amravati, Maharashtra 18. Aruna Shete -do- -do- 19. Prashant Shinde KHOJ Mumbai, Maharashtra 20. Prashant Mahajan Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) Mumbai, Maharashtra 21. Kusum Shanta Kashinath Shaswat Manchar, Dist. Pune, Maharashtra 22. Sujatha Padmanabhan Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group Pune, India 23. Anuprita Patel -do- -do- 24. Roshni Kutty -do- -do- 25. Govind Khalsode -do- -do- 26. Neeraj Vagholikar -do- -do- 27. Ashish Kothari -do- -do- 28. Tejaswini Apte -do- -do- 29. Bansuri Taneja -do- New Delhi 30. Sachit Bhandarkar Youth for Unity and Voluntary Action (YUVA) Nagpur, Maharashtra 31. Suresh Jones National Tree Growers Coop Federation (NTGCF) Madanpalle, Dist. Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh 32. Yash Sethia -do- Udaipur, Rajasthan 33. Arindam Das North Eastern Society for the Protection of Nature and Wildlife (NESPON) Siliguri, West Bengal 34. Arnab Bhattacharya -do- -do- 35. PA Aziz Salim Ali Centre for Ornithology and Nature (SACON) Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu 36. Kawle Vithal Bangalore, Karnataka 37. Cheryl Nath Bangalore, Karnataka 38. Suresh A Bangalore, Karnataka 39. Manju Menon Sirsi, Karnataka 40. Kanchi Kohli Sirsi, Karnataka 41. Sanjiv K Gajbhiye Bhandara, Maharashtra 42. Sujeet Kumar Dongre Pune, Maharashtra 43. Masood Aziz Rajnandgaon, Madhya Pradesh 44. Tariq Aziz New Delhi 45. Sugato Dutt Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu Address: Conservation and Livelihoods Network C/o Kalpavriksh, Aptmt. 5, Shree Datta Krupa, 908 Deccan Gymkhana, Pune 411004. 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