By HH Mohrmen & Rajkamal Goswami
The tropical rainforests are the richest ecosystems in terms of biological and cultural diversity. Their benefits to mankind vary from tangible ones like supplies of food, timber, medicines etc to the intangible ones such as provision of watersheds, climate control, pollination and pest control. To be found today only in a few isolated pockets of South and South East Asia, Central Africa, and Central and South America, these forests represents a mere 6% of the earth’s total land surface and are perhaps the most threatened ecosystem with about 75% of the global biodiversity at stake (Schmitt et al. 2008). While some of these threats are obvious viz. the immediate visible ones such as logging, pollution, industrialization, conversion to agriculture, infrastructure development etc, there are numerous insidious threats that are often gradual and yet are dangerous as they often exert pressures synergistically viz. climate change, invasive species, hydrological alterations, pests and pathogens, hunting which leads to large scale species extinction (Laurance and Useche 2009). To counter such threats, the State Protected Area (SPAs) mechanism has emerged as the most essential and dominant strategy. But SPAs were not much effective in the tropics due to poor application and implementation of the legal provisions by the state agencies due to dearth of staff and money since most tropical countries are economically poor as well as partly due to its limited jurisdiction which exists over only about 10% of the total forest areas (Wittemyer et al. 2008). Therefore the future of the remaining 90% of the tropical rainforests and their biodiversity would depend on the effective management of human actors and their relationship with such forests (Harvey et al. 2008; Perfecto & Vandermeer 2008). Current consciousnesses and foci of conservation have seen a shift from ‘piecemeal’ isolated reserves approach towards more of an integrated social-ecological dynamic system (Liuet al. 2007).
In the Northeastern region of India, a global biodiversity hotspot and a cradle of great cultural diversity, 70% of the forests are beyond the current SPAs. The forests, conserved and managed by indigenous tribal communities through local or customary laws, provide important ecological, economical, cultural and aesthetical services. However, since most of these forests are beyond the jurisdiction of legal protection, they are either threatened or remain vulnerable to the human developmental pressures viz. hunting, deforestations, large agricultural activities, industrialization and economic growth.
Such is particularly true for Meghalaya, one of the 8 northeast states, where 90% of the remaining forests are located beyond the jurisdiction of SPAs. In the Khasi-Jaintia hills of Meghalaya, such forests are also the last few remaining repositories and nurseries of the traditional Khasi-Jaintia culture. These forests are also crucial for the survival of the last remaining wildlife in the state, particularly the charismatic and critically endangered hoolock gibbon (Hoolock hoolock) and few other endangered primates of India. The indigenous tribal communities of the state have managed and protected these forests since antiquity as they form a critical source of food, livelihood, income, culture and sacredness. These traditional forest governing institutions were granted legal and political status under the special 6th Schedule of Indian Constitution by the Indian State following independence and thus, were responsible for protecting, managing and regulating more than 90% of the forests. Unfortunately, these forests are also rich in mineral resources of high value and demand, namely coal and limestone. This has led to a virtual ‘gold’ rush whereby many large global corporations have acquired the rights to mine these areas either through ‘benami’ deals or through lease agreements. Apart from them, many local people also have high stakes in the mining and affiliated industry which mainly operates at a micro-scale level with thousands of small mines spread across the length and breadth of the state. Interestingly according to the Indian Coal Mines Act, 1973 (Nationalisation), coal is classified as a major mineral in India, implying that only a PSU or its associate bodies/sub contractors can mine an area once it obtains the mandatory license from the Central Government. Since there is not even a single coal mining license for the state of Meghalaya, it implies that practically all coal mines, since they are unregistered, are illegal. Yet the trade of this illegally extracted coal is under the indirect control of the Indian state since taxes and royalties are collected both by the central and the state government Thus, it becomes difficult to determine the precise legal legitimacy of the coal mining activities in Meghalaya. Since most of these mines are beyond the purview of the state, they are out of bounds of the pre-existing legal environment and safety regulatory mechanism. Thus large-scale unsafe and unscientific mining activities have proliferated, mainly in the last two decades which has seen an exponential increase in the demands and consumption of resources owing to the policy driven growth prerogative of the Indian state in the post-globalization era.
The above was to exemplify how, owing to drastic changes in the global resource use patterns particularly in the post-globalisation era, largely shaped by modern capitalist economic and political regimes, the erstwhile decentralized, small scale, subsistence level sustainable rural-forest Khasi-Jaintia societies and its institutions underwent major changes and upheavals. Thus today most traditional institutions, failing to cope up with such massive comodification of nature, are no longer sustainable nor are capable of managing and protecting these forests. Thus inability of traditional customary laws to present day socio-political and economic realities coupled with the aggressive pursuance of growth prerogative by the Central Government has led to the proliferation of large-scale unsafe and unscientific mining activities, illegal timber felling and deforestation in large areas of community forests of Meghalaya. Thus, in the last two decades, many forests areas have either disappeared or have been severely fragmented leaving, at the same time, many rivers and streams polluted with toxic effluents from the mines and its affiliated industries (Goswami & Jesudasan, 2012). Today much of these remaining community forests and other natural ecosystems are under severe threat (Gilbert, 2012; Karlsson 2011).
Examples from across the world have shown that a carefully chosen flagship or charismatic species can help preserve critical forest systems by mobilizing support and action, both popular and political, in favor of conservation (Home et al, 2009). Tiger Conservation in India is one prime example of what a popular symbol can do to boost conservation. For rainforest conservation primates have been established as highly desirable flagships since they are considered as umbrella species for rainforest, can be used in the flagship species campaigns effectively due to their charisma and which are commonly used to raise awareness about conservation issues, encourage habitat conservation, and act as a focus for community-based conservation (Caro 2010).
Since tigers are thought to be extinct from Meghalaya, there is no political motivation to protect these forests, which nevertheless are very important ramparts both for their cultural as well as natural diversity. Meghalaya, particularly the Khasi-Jaintia Hills, is an important nature and culture tourism destination of India. The state has a healthy model whereby tourism services were mainly catered by the decentralized local village communities, who were also one of the main beneficiaries of tourism. This industry is now under direct threat and conflict from the extensive industrialization that is being promoted, mainly in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills. Needless to say, such conflict might have detrimental impacts, particularly on the income and livelihood of the rural-poor indigenous tourism dependent communities and on the long term conservation of local natural heritage and culture. The Department of Environment and Forests, which is the key State Department responsible for conservation, management of existing forests and also regulation and control of forestry activities in the state, hasn’t been able to achieve much mobilization on the ground because it controls a mere 10 % of the total forest area and the absence of tigers in the state has denied the Forest Department adequate central funds to carry out regular animal census. Thus it has no estimate whatsoever for the wildlife in the state.
Preliminary investigations and dialogues with the forest officials and managers of Meghalaya revealed that plans of increasing the current SPA network haven’t been realized primarily due to lack of empirical information about the faunal diversity in these forests. In the absence of it, they have not been able to prioritise areas to augment as well as expand the existing forest area. What had been lacking was a charismatic symbol that could be used to mobilize support for these last remaining strongholds of biological diversity in the state.
Elsewhere in the state, gibbons have been used to increase cash-income by creating opportunities for primate tourism completely managed and regulated by local communities and monitored by the Forest Department. One such initiative was at a village called Selbagre in West Garo Hills, Meghalaya. Although hoolocks and capped langurs existed, the forest itself was just a small fragmented island amidst a sea of intensive swidden agriculture. This might not be particularly suitable for primates like the hoolock and the capped langurs who are canopy dwellers and needs large contiguous dense forest to sustain viable populations. One realized that such a thing happened mainly because there were no provisions for maintaining habitat quality, monitoring populations as well as maintaining corridors for movement and dispersal of populations. Apparently the agency which promoted this initiative mainly laid emphasis on the tourism aspect while marginalizing and discounting greatly on the long term conservation priorities and issues. And for the villagers a smaller island proved easier to ensure ‘sightings’ of the gibbons and langurs by the tourist.
It is therefore important to implement these crucial learning from the Selbagre example in order to create a system which would be resilient to long term developmental pressures. Thus, instead of merely highlighting the tourism potential of this initiative, the main attempt and focus should be to popularise the concept of ‘environmental stewardship’ since we strongly believe that the current state of both the forests and the traditional communities and its cultures have been shaped and influenced by a long history of a dynamic interaction between the people and the forests. These forests are not mere havens of natural biodiversity, but are also active cradles and nurseries of cultural evolution and diversity. The scared groves, or for that matter even the SPAs are best examples of such interactive models of forests.