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BIODIVERSITY-INDIA: Climate Change Skews Tribal Farming

Keya Acharya

BILIGIRI HILLS, Karnataka, May 16 2007 (IPS) - A group of 25 leaders of the Soliga tribe in the isolated Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary in the hills of this southern Indian state sit in a semi-circle, discussing matters of concern to them.

The talk centres around rainfall which has been either delayed or erratic in recent years, affecting their small patches of maize, local millet, pigeon pea, beans and pumpkin grown for home-consumption.

Part of India’s amazing cultural diversity Soligas (children of the bamboo) were originally semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who have lived in total harmony with the wildlife and dry deciduous forests for millennia, subsisting on minor forest produce and shifting cultivation till the formation of the 547-sq km sanctuary in 1987.

Most were then relocated to the sanctuary’s fringes by the forest department (FD) and given an average of half-an-acre each to cultivate. They were also given access to non-timber forest produce (NTFP), such as berries, wild fruits, honey and tubers which could be sold to meet their daily needs.

Collection of NTFP however has been banned by an amendment to India’s wildlife protection act since 2006, which, coupled with the delaying rains, has given rise to distress conditions amongst the tribals. Some 2,000 of these primitive farmers live in the deep interiors of this sanctuary.

Nearly 200,000 of India’s villages are located in or near forests and their inhabitants depend on forest resources for their sustenance.

”Previously, by the ‘Doddajatri’ festival in May, our crops would be this high”, says 50-year-old Konuregowda from the relocated settlement of Kannere inside the wildlife sanctuary, indicating his knee. “But now we can’t cultivate the land, because there are no rains till the festival.”

Another tribal says his village has not been able to till the land either because of lantana growth, an invasive weed that appears to have pervaded the sanctuary, throttling all indigenous forest-floor species.

The medical doctor H. Sudarshan, recipient of many awards for initiating health, education and livelihood empowerment schemes for the Soliga, agrees that climate change is becoming noticeable in these hills. ”Rainfall patterns are now erratic and there have definitely been extremes in temperatures that we haven’t had in previous years,” he says.

As per India’s national communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2004, the country would see temperatures increasing by 2 – 4 degrees C in the southern region and possibly exceeding 4 degrees C in the northern region, with decreasing but high-intensity monsoonal days.

Approximately 20 percent of the 64 million ha of India’s geographical area is forested under 16 major forest types, from alpine pastures to dense tropical forests possessing amazing biodiversity.

More than 5,150 plant species, 16,214 insect species, 44 mammals, 42 birds, 164 reptiles, 121 amphibians and 435 fish species are endemic to India’s forests.

Senior scientists at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc) located in Bangalore have published preliminary studies of the impacts of climate change on these forests and biodiversity in India.

Conducted by N.H. Ravindranath, Raman Sukumar, N.V. Joshi with A. Saxena of the Forest Survey of India, the study used the Hadley Centre Regional Climate Models and incorporated assessments of the current needs and dependence of forest communities in central India and the Western Ghats in southern India.

They have predicted a major shift in India’s forest types due to the increased temperatures and variable rains, especially on tropical dry forests, moist and dry savanna such as in the Biligiri hills.

This shift may lead to large scale loss of forests and biodiversity, even though net primary productivity of forests may increase for a period before becoming unsustainable for forest communities in the long term due to forest-loss.

IISc professor and chairman of its Centre for Ecological Studies, Raman Sukumar has projected serious consequences for a wild, rare goat called the Nilgiri Tahr, if exotic weeds invade the montane grasslands of the Western Ghats.

But while some beginnings in scientific conclusions on impacts of climate change on flora has been made, there is practically no attention still on faunal populations in parks and sanctuaries.

“Climate projects at regional level are not robust, though global warming projections are healthy”, says IISc professor N.H. Ravindranath who is also chairman of the Centre for Sustainable Technologies (CST) at IISc. ” Research methods are still evolving, mainly because models for prediction are very complex”, he explains.

The scientists have sent their findings to India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests(MoEF), with recommendations for appropriate policies for both forestry and socio economic sectors.

The Bangalore-based Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), with a research base in the Biligiri sanctuary, is meanwhile looking to incorporate Soliga knowledge of the forests and how best to partner the community in adapting to climatic changes and thus recommend future policy.

‘’We could perhaps then stem the Soliga’s vulnerability by improving agricultural methods, or diversifying their crops,” says Siddhartha Krishnan, sociologist at ATREE.

Dr. Sudarshan who founded the VGKK Trust for tribal development in the Biligiri sanctuary 25 years ago, says the country’s rural employment scheme, whereby the government ensures 100 days of work for every household, could be tapped for setting up rainwater harvesting and watershed constructions.

The doctor says no less than India’s President Abdul Kalam, a technocrat himself, had suggested he start a carbon credit project in biodiversity conservation under the Kyoto Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism that would help the tribals.

“I have been thinking about biomass gasifiers for electricity generation for the tribals, using the lantana weed that is pervading the sanctuary, but I need help in setting it up”, he appeals. ‘’We need to see whether this could qualify as a CDM project which we will close when the lantana has been eradicated.”