Harvesting justice: The long road to inclusive forest use
By: Rai, Nitin D
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Material type: 
BookPublisher: Seminar: Cradle of Diversity Description: 735, Nov, 2020: p.48-51.
In:
Seminar: Cradle of DiversitySummary: TWO weeks before I saw the road that connected the village of Kelaginakeri to the town of Sirsi in the east, I had arrived in this hamlet after walking up the western slope of the Ghats. My circuitous route involved changing two buses and a four-hour walk up the ghats. I was on a hilltop doing fieldwork when I saw the dusty road. On asking my companion Parma Gowda where the road led to he replied that this was the road to Sirsi, on which a bus came twice a day! I did not know if I should laugh at my folly or rejoice at my luck. I felt both emotions in full measure and happy that I had found my research site which would take a few hours rather than a whole day to get to.
I spent the next four years living and studying forest use in Kelaginakeri. Located in the Western Ghats, Kelaginkeri is a mosaic of forest and agriculture that has been produced by centuries of human use and management. The village is majority Brahmin and Kare Vokkaliga Gowda families almost all of whom grew the palm Areca catechu, the seeds of which were sold as betel nuts for the supari market.
The area has always been part of a long history of commodity markets linked as it was with the betel nut and spice trade for centuries. And yet in talking about the Western Ghats, conservationists often invoke images of remote landscapes and forests. I had come here to complicate the predominant idea of conserving nature as if people did not matter. I wanted to challenge the idea that people’s use of forests is ecologically degrading and therefore restricting forest use is an essential step to conserving biodiversity. Reproduced
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Articles
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Indian Institute of Public Administration | 735, Nov, 2020: p.48-51 | Available | AR124870 |
TWO weeks before I saw the road that connected the village of Kelaginakeri to the town of Sirsi in the east, I had arrived in this hamlet after walking up the western slope of the Ghats. My circuitous route involved changing two buses and a four-hour walk up the ghats. I was on a hilltop doing fieldwork when I saw the dusty road. On asking my companion Parma Gowda where the road led to he replied that this was the road to Sirsi, on which a bus came twice a day! I did not know if I should laugh at my folly or rejoice at my luck. I felt both emotions in full measure and happy that I had found my research site which would take a few hours rather than a whole day to get to.
I spent the next four years living and studying forest use in Kelaginakeri. Located in the Western Ghats, Kelaginkeri is a mosaic of forest and agriculture that has been produced by centuries of human use and management. The village is majority Brahmin and Kare Vokkaliga Gowda families almost all of whom grew the palm Areca catechu, the seeds of which were sold as betel nuts for the supari market.
The area has always been part of a long history of commodity markets linked as it was with the betel nut and spice trade for centuries. And yet in talking about the Western Ghats, conservationists often invoke images of remote landscapes and forests. I had come here to complicate the predominant idea of conserving nature as if people did not matter. I wanted to challenge the idea that people’s use of forests is ecologically degrading and therefore restricting forest use is an essential step to conserving biodiversity. Reproduced
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