The undulating hills of Biligiri Rangan Temple
Wildlife Sanctuary, about 200 kms south-east of Bangalore, are more
in the news due to the activities of Veerappan rather than their
enormous wealth of flora and fauna. The area has taken some blows as
most of the sandalwood has disappeared. A tusker is a rare sight in
the sanctuary. However, with a variety of forest types and over 900
species of flowering plants and several animals, the sanctuary,
located at the meeting point of the eastern and the western ghats,
is extremely valuable for its biological diversity.
Before Veerappan arrived, the sanctuary had been
home to the Soligas, about 4,000 of who still live there, and
many more in the villages surrounding the forests. With the
establishment of the sanctuary in 1976, their traditional
occupations of hunting and shifting cultivation came to an end. But
they continued to gather many things from the forest for their own
use and for sale. With little land and few other sources of income,
this was an important source of obtaining cash. Research suggests
that even now up to 30 per cent of their cash income comes from
selling products collected from the forests. As most of it is sold
in the raw form, the Soligas get little benefit by way of
value-addition.
Meanwhile, evidence suggests that regeneration of
certain plant species, for example, amla, is low. It is suspected
that excessive harvesting (records showed increasing extraction) may
be responsible. Practices such as lopping of branches had
undesirable effects and the trees had heavy parasitic loads.
What could be done? According to one school of
thought, conservation could succeed if local people derived
substantial benefits from the area’s biodiversity. This required
that enterprises were linked to the biodiversity of the area.
Another requirement was partners with inter-disciplinary skills.
Hence, with support from the Biodiversity Conservation Network, a
collaborative project was implemented as a partnership between the
University of Massachusetts at Boston, the Tata Energy Research
Institute and the Vivekananada Girijana Kalyana Kendra. It was part
of a wider initiative establishing and examining the prospects of
enterprise-based conservation approaches in Asia and the Pacific.
Twenty such projects have been undertaken in the region.
The challenge for the project partners was to
identify the pressures on the forests, understand the utilisation
pattern and importance of the resource for the Soligas,
establish enterprises which would add value at the local stage and
involve the community in monitoring of biological resources. The
project would thus have three major components: One, enterprises to
process non-timber forest products (NTFP), two, a social research
and outreach programme and three, a biological research and
monitoring programme.
At BR Hills, enterprises were established to
process honey, fruits and herbal medicines. At the honey processing
unit, raw honey is cleaned, filtered, pasteurised and its moisture
level reduced. Finished honey from the unit is certified by Agmark
as of A grade, just like major brands in the market. The honey is
retailed through department stores in the principal markets of
Bangalore and Mysore and in two outlets in the sanctuary. The
products are branded and sell under the Prakruti name. It
also supplies honey in bulk to one of the largest pharmaceutical
companies in India for their plant outside Bangalore.
The fruit processing unit mainly uses amla to
make pickles and other products, such as jams and juices. The unit
has certification from the Fruit Product Order. Another unit makes
shikakai powder using amla, shikakai and soapnut, which is a popular
product with a ready market.
Sales at the two units have increased rapidly
from Rs 1.4 lakh in 1995-96 to nearly Rs 13 lakh in 1996-97 and are
likely to double again in 1977-98, though it will be difficult to
sustain such growth levels in the future. Profits have increased
more than proportionately with the loss of Rs 1 lakh turning into a
profit of Rs 2 lakh. The units generate enough cash surplus to be
able to expand and can now meet the costs of biological monitoring
and social outreach activities. The herbal medicine unit, however,
is still trying to establish itself.
The honey unit has been the most successful of
the three and its further growth is limited by the availability of
raw honey. As volume growth is likely to be limited, the challenge
is to increase value addition by suitable positioning of the
product. The fruit-based units are constrained by the production
capacities and the development of an adequate market for their
products.
The Soligas have been trained to manage the units
with all responsibilities at the shop-floor, including running and
maintenance of the plant being handled by them. Women, too, have
been involved and handle an increasing number of jobs. Training in
accounting and marketing is also being imparted.
As part of the effort to improve the quality of
raw honey and to help the collectors realise better prices, the
project team has demonstrated improved harvesting and collection
methods. One such improvement has led to cleaner raw honey with
greater clarity. Such honey reduces processing costs and also
commands a price premium in the market. Training of honey collectors
to reduce mortality to bees during harvesting and multiple harvests
of colonies are also being tried.
Biologists from the project team have worked with
collectors to understand and analyse collection practices and the
impact of collection on the ecosystem. In addition, the biologists
carry out more formal studies which have led to a greater
understanding and deepening of knowledge of the forests, including
aspects such as productivity, extraction levels, phenology,
population dynamics, distribution of major species and weeds.
Social research has deepened knowledge and
understanding of how the Soligas use the resources. Their knowledge
of medicinal plants and the forests has also being documented.
Efforts are on to restructure and reform the lamps societies to make
them more responsive and increase the control and management of the
local people over them.
Finally, with the units turning profitable, the
assets are in the process of being handed over to a new society,
which has been registered.
While the project has managed to establish, run
and transfer both management and ownership, major challenges remain.
The principal ones are to determine the level of sustainable
harvests, to hand over the units to the local people and to persuade
the community to take up monitoring, and distribute the benefits
among the people. A major one would be to determine if the Soligas
will voluntarily limit their harvest of NTFP in the wake of the
attractive prices that they now obtain.
The programme was designed to answer the question
whether communities could be gainfully involved in efforts to
conserve natural resources. And what would it take for such
initiatives to succeed? Could income generation be combined with
conservation of natural resources and how could the use of
non-timber forest products be made sustainable?
The answers to these questions have not been
found. The project is too early in its life-stage. However, with
some more time and the experiences of the other projects, it is
likely that some lessons could be drawn. Much more needs to be done
to understand the experiences and the performance. Project teams are
going to be working on this in the coming year.
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