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1.Current Status
Karnataka has diversity of landscapes associated with
biological and socio-cultural diversity.
The Western Ghats consists of part of Uttara Kannada
district, Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts. consists of the Uttara Kannada,
Shimoga, Chikmagalur, Hassan and Kodagu districts. Locally the whole region
comprising the West Coast and the Western Ghats is referred as Malnad. The sacred elements (SEs) in the
Malnad region can be described as follows:
The most common SE in this region is sacred grove
(SG). But the SGs vary in terms of size, ownership patterns and also with
respect to the vegetation. These factors are influenced by the biogeography of
the species harboured and the human influence on SGs. The
groves broadly come under two classes. The smaller groves are entirely
protected; no tree felling or other biomass extraction may be carried out. The smaller SGs are generally referred as devarbana, nagabana (serpent groves).
The Nagabanas are abundant in Udupi and Dakshina Kannada districts. They are
smaller in size ranging from few gunthas
to few acres in rare occassions. The Nagabanas are mainly owned by families
and ocassionally are linked with the temple complexes in the districts. The
number of Nagabanas will be very high in these two districts. Both these district
form a single cultural unit based on the Coconut and Areca nut plantations,
paddy fields, reserved forests, protected areas and family owned nagabanas.
Larger groves: These groves function as resource forest also, offering both
sustenance and ecological security. The people of the village may gather fallen
deadwood, non‑wood produce such as pepper, mango, jackfruit, etc., and
tap toddy from a palm (Caryota urens).
They tend wild pepper within the kans
(Brandis and Grant, 1868). The SGs
are referred by names such as devarkadu, devarkan, etc. These SGs are mainly
reported from Uttara Kannada, Shimoga and Kodagu districts.
Devarkans used to be an important landscape in Uttara
Kannda, Shimoga and Chikmagalur districts about 150 years back. The forest
management by the British regime in these districts altered the landuse pattern
substantially by either discontinuing the traditional practices or neglecting
them for the revenue and timber. The substantial alterations in the traditional
landuse pattern in the Western Ghats have made the devarkans as historical
sacred forests. Uttara Kannada was part of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency
where British regime abolished the rights of local people over the devarkans.
In the sacred kans
timber felling became a taboo assuring their preservation as a traditional
practice. But collection of various non ‑ wood produce and in some cases
fallen leaves for manure were carried out, if the community had no other source,
without endangering the ecology of the kan. Obviously referring to such sacred kans (Chandran and Gadgil 1993a).
Wingate (1888), the forest settlement Officer of Uttara Kannada, noted that
the kans were of "great economic and climatic importance. They favour
the existence of springs, and perennial streams and generally indicate the
proximity of valuable spice gardens, which derive from them both shade and
moisture" (Chandran and Gadgil 1993a).
Buchanan (1870) observed that wild pepper requires human attention for better
yield. He found people taking care of pepper vines in evergreen forest patches
called "Maynasu Canu"
meaning menasu kan or pepper kan. Such kans were intermixed with gardens and rice
fields. High demand for pepper in other lands could have been good incentive
for village societies to maintain `kans'. Pepper cultivation in kans may be even older to the spice gardens
started by the Havik Brahmins.
But the old records of Village Forest Registers mention the survey numbers
of ‘Kan’ lands in each revenue village. These records suggest that Sirsi taluk
had 106 devarkans whereas Siddapur taluk had 116 devarkans. It is quite likely
that there could be about 1000 devarkans in Uttara Kannada district. Now it
is quite necessary that to identify the overlap between smaller SGs and the
devarkans. All the Kan survey numbers are mainly under Reserved Forest status
(Gokhale, Y, unpublished).
Shimoga and Chikmagalur districts were part of erstwhile
Mysore State. Kan lands were recognised by the State Forest Department till
almost 1970. But after that those survey numbers were merged in Reserved Forests
and other kinds of forests including Minor Forests, State forests and District
forests. But even today Sagar division in Shimoga circle has 314 kan survey
numbers on official record, which need to be crosschecked in the field for
the status of forest (DCF office, Sagar).
Devarakadus are important feature specific to Kodagu
dsitrict in the Western Ghats. Kodagu district could be called as hotspot
of sacred grove tradition not only in the state but also in the country and
world since this district has the largest number of sacred groves in proportion to the area of the district in
the world and all the eighteen native communities including Muslims are stakeholders
in this unique tradition. There are
1214 listed sacred groves in Kodagu covering an area of 2520 hectares. These
devarkadus are owned by the forest department and managed by the community
with the help of Devarkadu committees. Apart from that SGs are also associated
with the Matta (monastries) and the in private ownership with the families.
Every village has at least one and there are 39 villages having more than
7 groves. These groves have been protected
in the names of 65 deities of which Iyappa, Bhagavathi, Bhadrakali and Mahadeva
are common. Though the district has
a large number of sacred groves nearly 45% of the groves are less than one
acre in extent and 80% of the groves are less than five acres. Hence the sacred groves in Kodagu are small
islands surrounded by other landscapes like coffee estates, paddy fields,
reserve forests and habitations.
Sacred species: Many species of the genus Ficus
are protected by people through out Malnad as sacred. The species like F. religiosa, F. benghalensis, F. tsiela, F.
retusa, F. glomerata are often found protected amidst the habitations
by constructing the platforms around the trees. Often these trees have sacred
importance because of the local deities associated with these species. But
such platforms without any shrine underneath the Ficus
trees are also a common feature of human habitations in the area.
Several sacred groves are protected for a particular species of animals like
Nagabanas are supposedly protected for the cobras. It is believed
in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts that citing of king
cobra, python or
cobra in the paddy fields before harvesting time will result in
good harvest for the year. And hence the species are protected by the
local people (Bhat, 2000).
There are occassional reports of Indian Fruit Bat roosts
getting protected like the Bawali vana sacred grove at village Koli, Belthangadi
taluk, Lakshmi temple premise at Puttur, Dakshina Kannada district (Gokhale
Y., unpublished).
Primates like Bonnet macaques, Hanuman Langoors are found in
wooded areas of towns and cities. But their presence go unnoticed as well as
undocumented. In the village Naravi, Belthangadi taluk, Dakshina Kannada
district Malekudiya tribals annually perform a ritual to propitiate the monkeys
in their surroundings. Every year the Malekudias in Naravi village visit a
place on the periphery of the forest called ‘Pingar Koni’. They carry jaggery,
beaten rice and coconut and spread the eatables on the flat rock over there and
pray for the bonnet monkeys to come and have those eatables. The tribals
believe that by doing this ritual monkeys will not invade their orchards and
will not trouble them for rest of the year (Bhat, H. unpublished).
Most of the temple premises having ponds in Dakshina
Kannada and Udupi districts are having tortoises and Mahaseer fishes protected
in them.
Waterbodies: The sacred patches of rivers prohibited from fishing are found in Malnad
at places like Shishila, Subramanya in Dakshina Kannada disctrict, Sringeri
in Chikmagalur district, Kaveri at Ramanathapura in Hassan District. The species
of fish called Mahaseer is abundant in most of these stretches.
Most of the villages in this region have village tanks.
At several places chain of tanks connected to each other is found in Sorab
taluk in Shimoga district for storing the overflow from the tank on upper
slope. Devarkans associated with tanks are common in Shimoga and Uttara Kannada
districts.
In this region of the State the traditional conservation
practices are mainly confined to smaller patches of forests like Gundu Thoppus
of Old Mysore regions and isolated sacred trees. Gundu Thoppus were very common as components
of the village landscapes in Southern Karnataka. These were community lands where the villagers planted the local
keystone species like Ficus sp.,
Mango, Madhuca, Neem and other native
trees. The villagers were permitted
to collect the usufructs and to conduct the annual village festivals. These community forests were mainly established
in and around the village tanks for watershed development. These groves also provided shelter for native
faunal biodiversity. This unique tradition of management of local bioresource
is under threat and many Gundu Thoppus have been encroached for habitation
and cultivation (Yathiraju, pers. comm.).
Sacred species: Protection to heronaries like the one at Kokre-Bellur is very significant
in this region. Many places are getting identified like Kaggaladu in Tumkur
district (Ameen Ahmed, pers.comm.)
In addition to these practices there are other mechanisms
like taboos and fear associated with certain elements of biodiversity, which
have helped in their conservation. Even with respect to utilization of the resources
there are traditions of restrained resource utilization called Sangraha Vidhana
about which the documentation is not available.
Waterbodies: The traditional conservation practices with respect to water bodies include
a large number of sacred tanks in all parts of the state, as part of a larger
temple complex.
2. Ongoing changes
Extent of change in terms of :
2.1.Spatial distribution:
In Kodagu, the first inventory of SGs was done in 1873
when 873 groves covering an area of 4398 hectares was listed. The area increased to 6277 hectares during
the year 1905 and during the last inventory undertaken during 1985 there were
1214 groves covering an area of 2550 hectares.
Hence in the last eighty years 42% of the area under sacred groves
was lost and the groves got fragmented resulting in an increase in their number
(Kushalappa and Bhagwat 2001).
Kans are reported only in Uttara Kannada and Shimoga
districts. 10% of the total landscape was historically under traditional conservation
practices like sacred kans, groves, in Uttara Kannada district of the Western
Ghats (Chandran and Gadgil 1993a). The sacred groves in Siddapur taluk
in Uttara Kannada district the extent of the sacred groves shrunk from
5.85% to 0.31% (Chandran and Gadgil 1998). The sacred groves in Uttara Kannada,
Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts are undergoing the process of sanskritisation
where local flora is replaced by few indicator species like Plumeria
acutifolia, Ficus spp., Thevetia peruviana and the platforms or small
temples are replacing the vegetation of the groves.
The nagabanas in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi district
might not have reduced in number but the smaller sizes are still getting shrunk
or sometimes encroached for platforms for the deity.
Gundu Thoppus, which were part of the village landscapes,
have been lost and at present are seen only in few villages in Mysore, Mandya,
Tumkur and Hassan.
In coastal areas the traditional seasonal ban on fishing
during monsoon is diluted because of change in fishing method. The new trawler
system can overcome the rough sea and weather conditions than the smaller
boats in the past. So fishing can be continued even during the monsoon.
·What
are the beliefs associated with such ritual hunting practices and why the
communities are still following these beliefs?
·Does
the ritual hunting affect the population of those species? If no then should
it be justified as community tradition? If yes then what action could be suggested?
The village tanks system in Malnad is totally neglected
by the government and even by the stakeholders to some extent. The ownership
is with the government so the users of the waterbodies do not have any right
or stake in management of these waterbodies. The channels connecting between
the tanks are also filled with silt.
2.2.Ecosystems
With respect to Devakadus of Kodagu in addition to
the physical loss in the area a large number of groves have undergone changes
in their forest structure and composition and have been degraded. This is mainly due to biotic pressures since
there is a great demand for land and forest resources in the present situations.
With respect to Kans Myristica swamps have been converted to other land uses. Chandran
et al (1999) reports 51 Myristica swamps from Uttara Kannada district. Out
of 51 swamps 9 are having the history of protection being the sacred groves.
The 9 sacred swamps cover an area of 25,800 sq. km.
The sacred groves are supposed to harbour near natural
vegetation in the local area because of minimal anthropogenic impacts. Hence,
in the Western Ghats the SGs are mainly evergreen in species composition as
it is the natural vegetation type in the area.
3.Institutional framework governing change
Implications of tenure / access regime:
In case of the forest department’s lands thesis elements
do not fall into the same kind of classification and are again found in various
forests such as Reserved forest, Minor forests, Protected forests, Privileged
forests, etc. There were a few efforts where government took notice of sacredness
being attached to these lands as like in Kodagu district. So the inventory
of these elements regarding the tenurial and access rights becomes a difficult
task without the participation of local communities.
Kodagu was among the few exceptional cases where sacred
groves were noticed by the forest department and kept records of those groves
– Devarakadus. But the revenue department did not handover the SGs to the
forest department untill 1985. As an effect of that these survey numbers were
never treated as the lands with sacred values by the government for the development
programmes and hence again got clasified under revenue land categories.
Since the sacred elements cannot be traced efficiently
from the government records, local studies are required to understand the
tenurial system in respective taluks in each district. Chandrakanth and
Nagaraj (1997) tried to work out for Kodagu district where the sacred
groves can be traced to large extent with the help of the records of the forest
department. The sacred groves in Kodagu are classified by Chandrakanth and
Nagaraj (1997) as:
Basadi kadu: These are the Jaina Basadi Kadu (Jina kadu).
Privately
managed devara kadu: Some families
have donated part of their forest lands for developing devara kadus, which are managed privately
by the respective families. For instance, Mutthappa devara kadu in Nemmale,
Machangala devara kadu in Kottangeri, in Virajpet taluk and Bhadrakali devara
kadu in Balamuri and Palengattu keri in Madikeri taluk.
Paisari devara kadu: Most devara kadus in Coorg belong to this category. These are owned by
the government, and are jointly managed by the village community and the government.
Norms, rules and taboos developed by village communities over several years
have provided social fencing to these devara kadus. In some paisari
devara kadu like the Bhadrakali devara kadu in Hudukeri, exotic silver
oak trees have been planted after almost clear ‑ felling a 50 acre patch.
Similarly, in Iayyappa devara kadu at Konageri, Eucalyptus saplings are planted.
Both these devara kadus have been
fenced to prevent cattle grazing.
There was confusion
in the regulatory and legal status of the sacred groves in Kodagu. Though
these areas are protected forests under the forest department as per the government
notifications issued in the year 1888 but it was presumed that they were transferred
to the revenue department in the year 1905 and remained as revenue lands till
1985 when the state government came out with a new order to transfer these
lands back to the forest department. This resulted in dual ownership of these sacred groves and is the
main factor that has contributed to their loss in area.
In Uttara Kannada the State forest department owns
most of the sacred elements. But all these elements are part of various categories
of forests like Reserved forests, Minor forests and Soppinabetta. Hence, the
forest laws are applicable to these elements.
The 73rd and 74th amendments
in the constitution related to Panchayati Raj act have given more rights to
the local communities to assert right on their cultural traditions where sacred
elements could be one of the traditions. But it has not been used in the State.
3.3 Infrastructure:
In Kodagu sacred groves were presumed to be revenue
lands before 1985 and hence in some instances were distributed to the landless
for habitations and all the facilities needed for habitations like houses,
the government provided roads, water, power and amenities. Similarly more
than 4000 ha of kan lands were thrown open for industrial timber felling in
Uttara Kannada district.
3.4. Market
Market forces are certainly having negative impact
on the cultural traditions. It has changed the views of people about harvesting
NTFPs like Garcinia gummi-gutta
fruits in Uttara Kannada. About 8-9 years back the fruits of Garcinia gumm-gutta did not have commercial value and people used
to pluck the ripe fruits only. But in recent years these fruits started getting
good rate in local markets, which prompted local people to harvest the unriped
fruits or even sometimes to cut the trees for fruits.
Arecanut prices have raised considerably in past decade.
Hence, people have started gorwing areca gardens by converting the paddy fields
in Uttara Kannada district. Also in this district British government gave
people privilege of lopping trees on the forest department lands for areca
gardens in 1:9PRIORITIZING TRADITIONAL CONSERVATION PRACTICES FOR KARNATAKA
proportion (1 acre of areca garden gets 9 acres of privilege land) called
as Soppina betta lands. But after 1930s no new Soppina bettas are sanctioned.
So all the plantations after 1930s have to illegally depend on the minor forests
or reserved forests for the mulching material. Smaller sacred groves surrounded
by soppina betta lands in Uttara Kannada are getting shrunk for the mounting
demand of mulching material for areca gardens.
Since the market for coffee increased during the last
20 years there was a heavy pressure on vacant lands for coffee cultivation
and the groves were encroached. The
increased demand for timber and their non-availability from the reserved forests
has resulted in illegal felling in these groves. The forest department for
their valuable timber worked certain groves in the dry deciduous areas.
3.5 Values.
The larger forces of Sanskritisation or Aculturation
are acting on all the sacred elements in the State. As a result lot of changes
are occuring many times at the cost of the biodiversity of the element. The
most primitive form of nature worship could be the worship place without any
idol; in such places idol are appearing. Where the deities were kept open
inside the groves or on banks of the tanks, temples are getting constructed
for the deities at times by clearfelling the vegetation. The faith of people
is changing from nature worship to idol worship. The purposes for which range
of such elements have been continued by the local people are becoming irrelevant
with the change in the livelihood practices. For example, the sacred grove
of Bete Devaru (Hunting god) in Kumta town has been converted to a small temple.
Traditionally people had to pray the deity for a success in hunting. But with
the change in the livelihood practices accompanied by the loss of forests
around the relevance of the deity to the local people is marginalised.
3.6 Knowledge:
The traditional beliefs or practices of nature
conservation could have two important characteristics which could be of use to
modern day conservation programmes such as:
·biological
information of species
·thumb
rule of sustainability or long term utility
According to the discussion regarding Current Status
it is quite evident that range of organisms are associated with these cultural
conservation practices, which are poorly documented. Lack of knowledge of
these practices even at local could result in the loss of the information
about species or at times loss of the species in itself. This also hinders
the furtherance of local knowledge of biodiversity.
5. Gainers and losers in ongoing changes.
Gainers and losers at various scales – local and global.
The processes of change, agents of change also should be looked in local-global
fashion e.g. construction of Murudeshwar temple complex against the CRZ rules
to attract the tourists in the name of the god and at the cost of marine diversity
and added pollution on the sea beach.
6. Aspects of
6.1 Institutional framework
6.2 Activities and
6.3 Agents promoting
ongoing negative changes.
The issue of dual ownership of the sacred groves in
Kodagu has resulted in the revenue department permitting landless people form
outside the district to build houses in the sacred groves. Since the forest department did not take any
action on these settlers they have constructed proper houses and all the
amenities have also been provided and today these areas have become
villages. The adjoining coffee planters
claim that they have encroached portions of the grove to prevent the government
from converting the groves into settlements of outsiders, which would cause
social problems to the native people.
These enchrochments by outsiders and locals resulted in the local people
losing their faith in this tradition, which resulted in other negative changes
like illegal tree cutting, firewood removal, grazing and soil collections. The changes in the worship concept where the
temple has become important than the grove and the shift from annual worship to
daily worship has resulted in lot of human interference in the groves.
Gundu Thoppus have been allotted to community projects
like Ashraya housing schemes; Primary health centers, schools and later powerful
local villagers have also occupied these areas.
7.Aspects of
7.1 Institutional framework
7.2 Activities and
7.3 Agents promoting
potentially negative changes.
Intentional negligence of historical resource management
systems of local people by the state
bureaucracy
leading to erosion or even
extinction of the local conservation practices and their benefits to nature
and people. e.g. Kans in the Malnad
was a joint management for existing forests. While implementing the Joint
Forest Management scheme the historical linkages of people and forest in terms
of management were neglected resulting into continued degradation of existing
evergreen forests unique to the Western Ghats.
The inaction of the government departments, local temple
committees and villagers in Kodagu may result in more of these community areas
being encroached and lead to other changes like tree felling, firewood collection
and grazing.
8.Aspects of
8.1 Institutional framework
8.2 Activities and
8.3 Agents
promoting ongoing positive changes.
The awareness and action plan proposed for the conservation and management
of sacred groves in Kodagu by the working group on sacred groves consisting
of representitives of the College of Forestry, Forest department, CEE, community
leaders, and media has generated lot
of awareness about the legal and management issues related to the sacred groves.
The results of the research work undertaken by the College of Forestry
have highlighted the ecological and economical values of the sacred groves.
CEE has undertaken educational and awareness activities among students to
highlight the importance of sacred groves in conservation of biocultural diversity.
The forest department in association with temple committees has started to
resurvey and protect the sacred groves in Kodagu.
9.1 Institutional framework
9.2 Activities and
The working group on sacred groves in Kodagu has prepared a draft plan for
the Joint Forest Planning and Management of the sacred groves and this draft
after discussion by the temple committees and community leaders was approved
and has been submitted to the forest department for approval and this action
will lead to revival and sustenance of the sacred grove tradition.
10.Currently operative strategy for conservation, sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits of biodiversity.
The present strategy in Kodagu involves legal protection
of the sacred groves as protected forests as per the Indian Forest Act of
1927 and the management of the temple and groves by a traditionally constituted
head or Thakka and temple committee constituted by the villagers.
With respect to sacred trees and animals there are some efforts initiated
by local groups for their protection.
The sacred groves in other part of the state on the
land owned by the state forest department come under the purview of the Indian
Forest Act of 1927 all over the state.
11.Lacunae in currently operative strategies.
In Kodagu the forest department, the legal owners did
not ascertain their ownership on these sacred groves and the officials of
the revenue department gave permission to build houses in these protected
forest. The temple committees the
stakeholders did not have any legal authority to evict these encroachers and
hence these groves reduced in size. There is no co-ordination in efforts being
undertaken by the government departments, communities and institutions to
develop and implement conservation strategies.
12. Lacunae in currently operative action plans.
Very few groves have been resurveyed and only the remaining
areas have been demarcated without taking into consideration the original
area. There have been no attempts
to involve any local groups like temple committees, community leaders in this
effort. Hence the information generated
has remained only as a report without any action.
The proposed action plan for Kodagu involves a Joint
Forest Planning and Management proposal for conservation of sacred groves. This action plan involves formulation of village
and district level committees involving the local communities, existing temple
committees and local government organizations to propose a management plan
and implement the plan. This action plan proposes to empower the committees
with respect to management of the groves. With respect to drier parts of the
state there is an urgent need to document traditional conservation practices
with respect to their present status and develop a Joint Forest Management
Practice.
The effort of Forest department in establishing the
pavithra vanas is a recent effort to revitalize the tradition. Give more details
of pavitra vana implementation.
14. Proposed action plan for Kodagu for sacred groves has the following practical activities
ØResurvey
of the sacred groves, sacred water bodies ,sacred trees and sacred animals
in a village and know their present position.
ØDocumentation
of the biodiversity in the village landscapes
ØPreparation
of management plan for the sacred groves.
ØConstitution
of joint forest management committees at the village and district level.
ØEmpowerment
of these committees through legal powers for management.
Discussion on strategy and action plan for cultural elements of biodiversity in Karnataka State
The cultural landscapes in the State of Karnataka
can be broadly classified as:
1. Sacred
landscapes and waterscapes – e.g. sacred groves, sacred waterbodies
2. Non sacred landscapes and waterscapes – e.g. Gundu Thoppu, village tanks
3. Sacred
cultural practices – e.g. Vratas, annual hunting for local deity,
4. Sacred
species –
e.g. primates, Ficus sp.
5. Non sacred
cultural practices – e.g. annual hunting after harvest
Even though 5 broad categories can be classified, a
limited number of practices could be considered for the exercise of preparing
strategy and action plan because –
·There
is a dearth of documentation regarding several practices which are specific
to local areas e. g. in Dakshina Kannada pythons and King Cobras are never
supposed to be killed if seen in the fields before harvests.
·There
are no ways by which crosschecking can be done to know whether a particular
tradition is practiced or it is only a belief e. g. the above mentioned example
cannot be checked for its validity.
Considering the limitations mainly with respect to
the information available on these cultural practices, only those practices are
considered having wider distribution and to some extent information from many
parts of the State and hence, would probably have an important role to play in
conservation of biodiversity. Those practices are as –
1.Sacred
groves
2. Ficus sp.
3. Sacred and
non sacred waterbodies
4. Primates
5. Heronaries
6. Gundu
Thoppu
7. Annual and
ritual hunting
Strategies
for conservation
1.Sacred groves
– The
tradition is reported from almost all parts of the State but it varies from
region to region mainly with respect to species protected, size, ownership
pattern and local taboos. In spite of having non-similarity in various aspects
related to biodiversity conservation, the sacred groves share common problems
all over the State.
Removal of biomass
- Mainly due to dwindling of local natural resources
like firewood people have started exploiting the resources from the sacred
groves as well. Hence, it is needed to work on the alternatives to stop the
removal of biomass from the SGs. It mainly involves the alternatives for firewood.
Sanskritisation – In many places, local folk
deities have been, and continue to be, replaced with Hindu gods and goddesses.
This has resulted in the erection of temples in side the sacred groves by
destroying the vegetation of the SGs.
This process needs to be halted by conducting
awareness programmes regarding the importance of vegetation of the SGs among
the local people and mainly among the stakeholders of the SGs like SG committee
members, priests, owners of SGs.
The SGs owned by the Government department can prevent
the destruction of the vegetation using the forest conservation laws.
Ownership – Very diverse patterns of
ownership from region to region. There is a need to have a statewide study
to understand regarding various ownership patterns for concrete and region
specific strategies for the conservation.
Economic incentives to the sacred groves could not
be the viable option for sacred groves in all situations considering the large
number of groves all over the State. There could be a threat to rest of the
groves, which would not receive the economic incentive. But the strategy of
economic compensation could be considered in case of very unique habitats like Myristica
swamps, which are basically getting converted to areca nut plantations. The
economic incentives need not be given for sacred importance but for the ecological
values. But there could be social recognition by publicising such places in
media lauding their role in conservation efforts.
2. Ficus species – Protection to species of Ficus like F. benghalensis, F. glomerata, F. religiosa, F. retusa is a common
practice through out the State for being sacred as well as a part of local
culture.
These protected trees have are even though not threatened,
at some places in Tumkur district they are reported to be used as firewood
for brick kilns.
There should be proper record of all available individual of Ficus
sp. In all the villages and towns with the respective Grampanchayats or
Municipal corporations with a copy with the concerned Territorial Range Forest
Office. Since these are trees on revenue lands mainly, they have legal protection
under the laws applicable to tree protection.
It is required to initiate the processes like mobilizing
local people to take care of the waterbodies in terms of maintaining those
by forming Joint Waterbody Maintenance Committees similar to Joint Forest
Committees. Care should be taken to make these committees financially sustainable
once they are formed by providing seed money by the State government wherever
the waterbodies are owned by the government. Pisciculture can be mooted through
these committees in the villages having tanks all over the State.
7. Annual and
ritual hunting – This practice is also known from almost all parts of the State. The control
or support to such practice needs to be done with respect to the species hunted
e. g. the species like Wild Boar is a pest in Malnad resulting in destruction
of crops. In such cases the practice of hunting of wild boars could be supported
in Malnad. But this decision requires careful monitoring on the population
and the damage done by the species every year. Otherwise the support to hunting
of such species might threaten the existence of the species.
In cases where rare or threatened species are hunted,
education and awareness campaigns need to be conducted to educate people about
the ecological importance of the species. There could be replacement suggested
for the species from domesticated animals like goat or chickens as a symbolic
hunting.
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Centre for Ecological Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012, India Ph: 3600985 |
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College of Forestry, Ponnampet, Kodagu |
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