CONSERVATION AND SUSTAINABLE UTILIZATION

Most of the forests in the localities (ranging from 574 ha in Adur to 3395.3 ha in Kudurur (Forest Report 1999)) have been subjected to degradation and loss having an adverse effect on the biodiversity, natural regeneration, and biomass production. Causes of degradation include overexploitation, poor management of forest resources and encroachment of forest land. The other two main factors directly influencing the distribution of forests are overgrazing and fire Much of the forest ground vegetation is burnt on a yearly basis to enhance the growth of grasses, or in many cases, for no apparent reasons. While fire generally does not kill adult trees, it will effectively destroy the seedlings and young trees, thus preventing tree regeneration, creating senescent forests and eventually leading to the disappearance of forests (Kessler, 2001). Increase in forest fragmentation also gives rise to edge effect with respect to micro climatic changes, species invasion from surrounding vegetation, and the impact of surrounding anthropogenic activity (Menon and Bawa, 1997) .

Hence, these forests have a tremendous potential if they are conserved and used sustainably. Different localities or forests are distributed in different reserve, state and minor forests. The state of minor forest conservation is far from sufficient, and the plight of localities coming under reserve and state forests is also bad due to rampant logging. Cotton and other crop cultivators are fast encroaching localities like Telaginamane (Telaginamane State forest), Jamballi (Jamballi State forest) and many other State forests. The former locality (Jamballi SF) is so degraded that only little of the original vegetation remains, while much has been converted to cultivation and habitation, and as the place gets degraded, it is planted with monoculture plantations like Acacia auriculiformis. In some highly degraded forest lands, where the young tree saplings are coming up, the regeneration is totally curbed by planting Acacia and other monocultures with little concern for conservation of rejuvenating forests.

Conservation through sustainable utilization

Evergreen and semievergreen forests are to be conserved not only for their ecosystem value with  rich endemic species, but also because they couple with deciduous forests in satisfying the needs of the local people. The results also show that majority of the forests though affected by anthropic disturbances still has sufficient diversity, biomass and regenerative capability to cater the needs of the local community if used sustainably. Except Jamburmane and Varamballi all the other localities have a higher basal area (≥ 24.5 m²). To conserve these forest localities, many conservation activities have been undertaken by Governmental (Forest department), non-Governmental organizations, Government-people approach (Joint Forest Management-JFM) and people-initiated “Community forest management system (CFMs)” strategies to save these flora and fauna. In most localities though the forest department is working for the protection of forests their service is hampered by not being people-participatory, lack of local people’s confidence, limited staff and resources, and lower salutary returns to local communities. The role of most of the Village Forest Committee’s is increasing, and can contribute more actively if their demands are met more efficiently and in time. People representation will be more if the forest department considers the local people or VFC for collecting NTFP of their villages and share the profit to each house hold members. For example, the upper Sharavathi catchment has nearly 23 VFC’s which can be given the sole rights for NTFP collections. Here, each villager will have the right to collect NTFP from the buffer zones and sell it to VFC. In turn VFC’s market these NTFP’s outside sharing the profit with the forest department. This villager-based approach can be carried out instead of collections done by tenders given to non-localites by forest department. This approach will be more appealing since each villager will become more responsible for conserving the forests by which he is directly benefited and knows that if one tree is felled he will be losing financial gains through NTFP. However, the highly fragile areas of forests which act as feeders to the numerous streams should be demarcated as core areas and protected from any kind of human activities. These forests not only help in acting as a focal point for dissemination of seeds for forest regeneration and as food for wild animals but also as watershed areas to keep the streams flowing throughout the year. This management strategy has to be meticulously and scientifically planned involving various experts from various fields and organizations including local communities. In case of isolated patches such as Adur, Kanmane etc., they can be more efficiently managed if the local VFC’s or village communities work upon an efficient way of deriving the forest resources sustainably and thereby conserving their valuable forest. For this:

1. They have to cut down the intensity of grazing inside the forest either by banning grazing for initial 5 years and later introducing regulated grazing periods in demarcated areas.
2. Create broad trenches to keep away cattle.
3. Protect the forest from fire, promoting normal regeneration.
4. Discontinue the non-sustainable removal of either timber or fuel wood and implement  regulated extraction of these resources. This can be done by permitting collection on selected days or extraction of fixed quantity of firewood per household in selected species (non-destructive collection) and ban on those trees used for higher yielding NTFP collections.
5. Maximize the NTFP collection without affecting the regeneration of the forest so that the local communities get higher incentives and thereby help their financial situation, which has a positive effect on forest conservation.
6. Decrease the pressure on the forest resources, and the open eroded and barren lands planted with monoculture plantations initially and when the soil condition improves, replanted with mixed species plantations. These replanting  has to be done taking into consideration the native vegetation type, climate and topographic factors. People preferred local species are to planted like in land supporting deciduous forests (e.g., Jambehalli) timber trees species such as Grewia, Terminalia, Xylia, Dalbergia, Pterocarpus, Lagerstroemia, etc., NTFP yielding tree species such as Diospyros melonoxylon, Spondias, Terminalia chebula, Cassia fistula, Emblica officinalis etc., and to cater the needs of the local artisans like basket weavers etc., species of Bamboo, and other soft wood tree species (for carving) etc.
7. Finally the role of NGO’s and Research organization could play a major role in promoting participatory forestry by catalyzing the rate of spread of JFM and CFM, community awareness of the policies of JFM, promote “cluster of villages” approach for protection and management under JFM, and CFM (Kessler, 2001).

From this point of view the present localities have several advantages: their higher basal areas, good native species regeneration (though there is increasing weed population) in high canopy disturbed evergreen and semievergreen localities, fair representation of VFC’s and other conservation bodies, and lastly growing environmental consciousness in people themselves. Thus, it would be possible to conserve and use the resources in a sustainable way if local communities and organizations start believing the concept of ‘ecosystem conservation’ instead of specific flora or faunal conservation.