Conserving Old Ways In A New World

• Despite the growing global acknowledgment of indigenous knowledge and practices in conservation, there is a lack of policies or legal frameworks to protect this knowledge and provide a supportive market economy for equitable benefit-sharing.
• Mongabay India examined the role of local communities in the sustainable conservation of natural capital, which is essential for economic growth, through grassroots stories on indigenous knowledge systems.
• The depletion of natural resources due to climate change poses an additional threat to nature-dependent communities, limiting their livelihood options and making it increasingly difficult to maintain traditional ways of life.

India’s indigenous communities, such as the Kharias, Kurumbas, and Irulas, are renowned for a skill that few would dare to attempt—harvesting wild honey. Equipped with only the most basic tools for protection, they undertake the daring task of climbing steep cliffs, smoking giant rock bees into a stupor, and carefully extracting honey from massive beehives, all while ensuring that the brood or hive remains undisturbed. They also employ ingenious methods to prevent revisiting the same hive within the same season. For example, the Kurumbas of the Nilgiris mark the colonies they have harvested, so other indigenous groups avoid them. This practice is a testament to sustainable harvesting and a deep understanding of their place in the ecosystem.

“The Kurumbas are angry,” my former colleague, who works closely with tribal groups in the Nilgiris, informs me. I was inquiring about interviewing Kurumba elders for an article on indigenous knowledge, specifically about the giant rock bee, Apis dorsata. The Kurumbas’ frustration stems from the repeated documentation of their honey hunting skills and romanticising of it. “What have we gained in return?” they ask. “We are still in poverty.”

Despite increasing global recognition of indigenous knowledge and practices for the sustainable management of natural resources, the communities often feel short-changed due to a lack of policy or legal framework to protect this knowledge or a supportive market economy for benefit-sharing. Adding to this complex layer of challenges is climate change that is amplifying resource depletion. It is a double whammy for the nature-dependent communities when nature itself turns its back on them.

At Mongabay India, we explored this composite interplay of traditional knowledge, climate change and the markets through a series of roughly 35 stories in the past year. Unlike in the West, where nature conservation often occurs in isolation, involving local communities in conservation efforts is essential in India. A significant portion of the country’s wildlife and biodiversity exists outside protected areas and along the fringes of human settlements. Our grassroots stories examined how conserving natural capital is integral to economic growth and highlighted the crucial role of local communities in maintaining these holistic connections.

Consumption vs conservation

India is a party to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), proposed in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Brazil and enacted the following year. The three cornerstones of the CBD are biodiversity conservation, the promotion of its sustainable use, and the assurance of access and benefit-sharing. The Biodiversity Act of 2002 established these principles as national policy. Many actions have been taken since then to comply with its terms.

The sustainable use of biodiversity requires an understanding of traditional practices, which are gradually diminishing in our increasingly consumer-driven world. Local communities, often the custodians of this traditional knowledge, play a vital role in conservation efforts. For example, in the case of wild honey hunting, consumption can drive conservation. Establishing a sustainable market for wild honey can significantly contribute to the preservation of giant rock bees, which in turn supports a richer, more diverse forest ecosystem.

Assigning a geographical indication (GI) tag, among other initiatives, emerged as a possible way to create a market for many locally-grown agricultural products as well as culturally significant arts and handicrafts. Through some stories on Kadaknath chicken, Chendamangalam handlooms, Gond art, Channapatna toys, we explored how far GI tags have helped the communities.

While GI tags offer legal protection to the traditional knowledge by preserving the cultural heritage, there are increasing concerns about the need for sustainable practices and conservation of biodiversity for the long-term cultivation, production and manufacture of these products. For instance, Assam’s Muga silk, arguably one of the most successful GI tagged products, faces the threat of climate change — the productivity, quantity and quality of muga silkworm in different parts of Assam are decreasing.

Traditional routes to conservation

The forest-dwelling tribal communities are masters in the sustainable use of biodiversity. Some, like the Soligas, are disgruntled that many indigenous forest practices have been controlled by law in the name of conservation. The practice of setting surface fires in the forest-controlled weeds and prevented the spread of invasive plant species and facilitated the growth of wild greens that supported the nutritional needs of the tribals for generations. We looked into the value of wild greens for food security and the tribal way of consuming it. Such explorations established our understanding of the importance of commons — biodiversity hotspots that carry cultural, daily-life and other significance for communities.

The loss of forest commons is affecting many tribal rituals and festivals in Odisha’s Koraput district which are rooted in the collection and consumption of shared natural resources — practices that have traditionally aided the conservation of commons. Integrating indigenous knowledge systems into newer administrative frameworks could be a solution.

Degradation of lands, depleting groundwater and surface water sources, changing rainfall patterns, global warming, etc are threats to global biodiversity. Local communities have historically developed ways to wade through weather vagaries—multi cropping methods of Ram-mol is a way to ensure food security in arid Kachchh; natural water storage facilities such as katta in south India and chhoskor in the northeast have provided solutions during water scarce summers; a new agricultural calendar being developed by Wayanad’s farmers is proving to be a true friend-in-distress as harsh monsoons repeatedly batter the region.

It is significant to note that despite evidence of its importance, there is a lack of recognition for traditional knowledge of biodiversity use or equitable sharing of its benefits. Exploring these interconnected issues underscores the need for greater administrative involvement in the conservation and promotion of traditional practices, as well as improved policy and legal frameworks to support benefit sharing.

With the added imperative of a changing climate, indigenous knowledge could provide key to climate resilience for many communities. But for the traditional knowledge to survive, it has to be of use and bring economic benefit for these communities. We hope these stories serve as a catalyst for advancing these discussions and lay the groundwork for a communication framework that connects the communities to policymakers, think tanks, and research organisations.

(Published under Creative Commons from Mongabay-India. Read the original article here)