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Forest Product Use, Conservation and Livelihoods: The Case of Uppage Fruit Harvest in the Western Ghats, India
Get PDFThe harvest and sale of non-timber forest products (NTFP) by local communities has been suggested as a possible solution to the often observed conflict between forest use and forest conservation. Recent studies have, however, suggested that the economic rewards might not be constant, and that ecological effects of harvest might be higher than previously believed. In India trade in NTFP has a long history, but few studies have explored both the ecological and socio-economic aspects of harvest. We report here the results of a socio-economic and ecological study on the harvest of fruits from the rainforest tree uppage (Garcinia gummigutta), which occurs in the tropical forests of the Western Ghats. We studied the characteristics of uppage fruit harvest, socio-economic factors that influence harvest, and the ecological effect of fruit harvest under differing tenurial regimes. Our findings suggest that dependence on NTFP harvest by local communities might be problematic due to market instability, patchy resource distribution, inequitable access to forest resources within the village and lack of security of tenure
Discothyrea sringerensis (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) a new ant species from India
Get PDFDiscothyrea sringerensis sp. nov. is described and is the first record of this genus from South India. The other known species of Discothyrea are scattered within the tropics and the temperate zones of the world. Based on workers, D. sringerensis is most similar to the species described from Malaysia and Australia characterised by 10-segmented antennae
Reconciling Conservation Paradigms
No full textIn spite of decades of conservation efforts, biological diversity throughout the world continues to dwindle. Prevailing conservation models have had greater success in determining which species and ecosystems to conserve than in fully taking into account the social and cultural landscapes within which these conservation targets are embedded. International conservation organizations have tended to define conservation targets (and approaches) at large spatial scales in hopes that they may apply broadly. Thus, over the last few decades we have seen a succession of generalized, monolithic conservation models replacing one another or competing with one another for attention and resources (for a recent review see Redford et al. 2003. Conservation Biology17:116–131). These models have been developed within large international conservation organizations and are thus partly driven by a need for general application. The models, based on conservation science, seek unifying principles reflecting science's quest for general and widely applicable concepts. They tend to view the world through relatively coarse filters and may fail to encourage the emergence and spread of fine-grained models adapted to local conditions. Moreover, most models are directed toward the achievement of particular outcomes, rather than the support of systemic resilience
The biodiversity bandwagon: the splitters have it
Get PDFThe accurate estimation of biodiversity has become one of the most important biological and conservation concerns of the 21st century. An unbiased estimate of biodiversity requires an unambiguous measurement unit. The most commonly used unit is the ‘species’, and though it is
implicitly accepted as valid, consistent and appropriate, there has been little consensus over the many different species concepts proposed over the years1. Among these, the Biological Species Concept2 has been widely used, but it has come under fire due to the arbitrariness of the
genetic distance or morphological divergence that is generally used to assign species status3,4. Recently, the phylogenetic species concept5, which recognizes diagnosably distinct taxa, has been used extensively for some groups. In the context of conservation, ‘management units’and ‘evolutionary significant units’ have been proposed6,7, but most studies still use species as the basic unit without examining or explaining which definition of ‘species’ they are using
Decentralising Governance of Natural Resources in India: A review
Get PDFThis paper provides a broad overview of the past and ongoing efforts at decentralising the governance of natural resources (DGNR) in India. The focus is on ‘governance’, which includes both day-to-day management as well as broader decision-making regarding resource ownership, access and use, and associated legal, administrative and fiscal arrangements. We assume that more decentralisation than what prevails today is better, but emphasise the need for multi-layered governance as well
The Ecological Consequences of Managing Forests for Non-Timber Products
Get PDFHUMANS WERE HUNTERS and gatherers long before they became farmers and loggers. The fruits of hunting and gathering non-timber forest products continue to this day to make an important contribution to subsistence and market economies alike. Worldwide, it is estimated that several thousands of species are collected from the wild for a variety of purposes (Myers 1988); in the high-diversity forests of Amazonia, for example, more than two-thirds of all tree species are used by indigenous peoples (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2001). At the local community level, non-timber forest products (hereafter, NTFP) can account for 35 per cent (for example, Zimbabwe; Cavendish 1997) to as much as 60 per cent (for example, India; Hegde et al. 1996) of household incomes. And even at a global level, the estimated value of the market in herbal medicines alone (a large proportion of which is collected from the wild) is about US$ 14 billion (Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2001)
Regeneration of Amla, an Important Non-Timber Forest Product from Southern India
Get PDFAmla fruits collected from Phyllanthus emblica and P. indofischeri are an important non-timber forest product for the indigenous Soliga community in the Biligiri
Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary, India. Seedlings, saplings and trees of these two congeners were monitored over three years in ten 0.1 ha plots each to assess and compare their regeneration status. The densities of seedlings and of adult trees of both species were similar, but the density of saplings of P. emblica was lower than that of P. indofischeri. The size class distribution of P. indofischeri, but not of P. emblica, followed the inverse J-shaped curve typically associated
with regenerating populations, suggesting a higher mortality of seedlings and saplings of P. emblica than of P. indofischeri. Furthermore, re-sprouting individual-spresumably a response to damage by fire or grazing constituted a larger proportion of the population in the case of P. emblica and may constitute a future population bottleneck. We suggest that anthropogenic pressures other than harvest could be responsible for differences in population structure between these two species, which are managed under similar harvest intensities and subject to
similar disturbance regimes
Jurassic frogs and the evolution of amphibian endemism in the Western Ghats
Get PDFThe diversity of frogs and toads (Anurans) in tropical
evergreen forests has recently gained importance with
reports of several new species1. We describe here a
fossorial frog taxon related to the African Heleophrynidae and Seychellian Sooglossidae from the Western Ghats of India. This frog possesses a suite of
unique ancient characters indicating that it is a transitional form between Archaeobatrachians and Neobatrachians. Molecular clock analysis based on the
nucleotide diversity in mitochondrial 12S and 16S genes dates this frog as a Gondwana relic, which evolved 150–195 Mya during the mid-Jurassic period.With this taxon, the evolution of endemism in the Western Ghats and other Gondwana break up landmasses is now dated much before the Cretaceous–Tertiary boundary. We propose that sea level surges in the late Jurassic2 isolated tablelands creating insular amphibian fauna. Reduction in area may have promoted stochastic extinctions and resulted in amphibian endemism. Our study reinforces the conservation significance of the Western Ghats as major global hotspot of biodiversity. The habitat of this endemic amphibian
lineage is currently endangered due to various upcoming
dam projects, which is a cause of serious conservation
concern
Beyond State-Community Polarisations and Bogus "Joint"ness: Crafting Institutional Solutions for Resource Management
No full textDecentralised collective action is no longer on trial in the current academic debate on natural resources management.2What still needs to be worked out are the conditions for its success and its optimal nesting in or relationship with other institutions.A vast body
of research has addressed the question of under what (external) conditions decentralised collective action will succeed (for a recent review, see Agarwal 200 1, specificallyin the context of forests, see Ostrom 1998). But there seems much less debate, let alone agreement, on the question of relationships between local-level collective action institutions and other institutions at different levels. From the perspective of those
interested in proving that community-level institutions of resource management can and do work, often the only role the state can (and should) play is "non interference" or at most "legitimisation"? Ifthe need for "nested enterprises" has been recognised, it is only
in the case of common-pool resources that are part of a larger system (Ostrom 1990:90). Even here, the precise meaning and form of "nestedness" are yet to be elaborated. 4The focus has remained on the conditions of success for local-level collective actionin which
the state implicitly has a minimal role. Others have recognised that the neat separation of state, community and private property regimes is only a theoretical one, and that in fact resource rights or tenure regimes are better characterised as variations in the manner in which different strand
A preliminary report on the biodiversity of Mahul Creek, Mumbai, India with special reference to avifauna
No full textA preliminary faunal survey, with emphasis on avifauna, was carried out during July 2001-December 2002 in the Mahul Creek and its environs along the Arabian Sea coast. Various habitat types such as tidal flood plains, mangroves, marshes, saltpans, crop fields and plantations attract rich biodiversity. A total of 149 species of birds, seven mammals, 10 reptiles, 10 fish, 28 butterflies, five crabs, 15 molluscs and two species of polychaetes were identified. The tidal flood plains all along the creek attract more than 20,000 waterbirds every year making the area more appropriate to be declared a Ramsar site. The area, being prohibited for public, is free from human disturbance to a large extent and therefore forms a large roosting site for flamingos, gulls and other small waders. However, the factors influencing the survival of fauna and flora in this creek include chemical pollution and oil spillage