Forest Products from the Western Ghats, India

by University of Massachusetts/Boston

Partners:

University of Massachusetts/Boston (UMB) Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra (VGKK) Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI)

Success Stories

We made good progress meeting the project goals in 1997 and reached important milestones in biological monitoring, enterprise management, and formation of another community organization. Below we highlight these accomplishments.

Although some Soligas have been participating in biological monitoring for some time, the participatory resource monitoring began in earnest earlier this year, beginning with nelli and honey. The concept of participatory resource monitoring was first explained to the Soligas during pre-harvest meetings held in the majority of the settlements. These meetings were followed by monitoring of production and extraction levels by the Soligas, assisted by researchers. The success of participatory resource monitoring was evaluated in post harvest meetings. Participatory resource monitoring, which will be continued, was generally successful as indicated by the level of participation and response of the Soligas to questionnaires used to judge the effectiveness of monitoring. The success was primarily due to Soligas' traditional conservation of biological resources. We have also prepared simple manuals for participatory resource monitoring.

Soligas were encouraged by the partners to form another community organization to take over the honey processing and food processing plant, to initiate other enterprises and to eventually participate with VGKK, in participatory resource monitoring and other community outreach activities associated with enterprises, conservation, and environmental education. The organization would obtain income tax exempt status and VGKK will transfer the assets and provide working capital to the new organization, and maintain a close working relationship with it. The organization is broad-based, and its membership is composed of harvesters and other community members from all three regions of the sanctuary.

The honey processing unit and the food processing unit started to function smoothly in 1997. Both units began to generate profits, and the products from both units are being marketed successfully through retail outlets in two principal cities in the area, Mysore and Bangalore. We have established a small shop to directly sell honey, pickles, jams, and squashes in the village itself. Apart from generating revenue, the shop provides employment for an additional household of the Soligas community.

There is good demand for the products, particularly honey. Production of honey is not limited by sales, but by quantities available in the Sanctuary. Soligas have been trained to operate and manage the two units, and they have completely taken them over. The manager regularly reports to a managing committee, which consists of Soliga community representatives.

Challenges

A major challenge emerged midway during the third year when seemingly irreconcilable differences emerged among partner organizations with respect to management of the project and transfer of the enterprises to the Soliga community organization. The differences were resolved when one of the organizations accepted full responsibility for the transfer and appropriate community outreach activities necessary for the successful implementation of the project. Given differences in the background and long-term perspectives of the partner organizations, divergence of opinion in how best to implement the project is not surprising. The general lesson is that such differences are likely to occur, but can be minimized with clarification of goals and objectives of partners, mutual respect for different agendas of partner organizations, and effective communication among partners.

We have made little headway in linking sustainable harvest with conservation. One of the assumptions underlying the project is that economic gains from local biodiversity will provide incentives to extractors to harvest products on a sustainable basis. However, we still do not know the level of sustainable harvest. Even if an arbitrary limit on harvest were to be placed, it is debatable whether the harvester would respect this limit in the absence of direct economic benefits from marketing and processing. Although extractors have strong traditional interests in conservation, success in meeting this challenge may depend upon the extent to which benefits accrue to the harvesters at both the individual and community levels, and the degree to which harvesters and the community can be made aware of the connection between economic gains and conservation.

Third, the herbal medicinal plant unit has continued to suffer losses due to inadequate management and marketing of the products. A new management board has been established. Moreover, efforts are now being made to recruit an experienced manager and develop a marketing strategy.

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