A Study: Forestry as Safety Net:Listening to the Voices of the Poor – A Field Study of 15 Forest Villages in India

By Neela Mukherjee, Meera Jayaswal and Madhumita Parihari
(e-mail:neelamukherjee@gmail.com)

The paper highlights the role of forests in providing safety nets to poor communities for sourcing livelihoods, food security and well being and in the process creating scope for enriching its bio-diversity as nurtured by the poor and reducing its vulnerability to outside damage. The paper is based on PRA/PLA sessions in 15 sample forest villages in Paschim Medinipur district in the state of West Bengal, India. Based on people’s perspectives and indigenous knowledge, the paper adopts a sustainable livelihoods framework to show how the type of forest is a major determinant for food security and livelihoods-related strategies. The paper links NTFPs with reduction in vulnerability of poor groups and provides recommendations for enhancing food security, enriching livelihoods-related activities of women user-groups and also for conserving bio-diversity and encouraging pro-poor forestry practices.

Introduction and Background
The district of Paschim (West) Medinipur located in the South of the State of West Bengal (India) is a dry area and once thickly forested still contains large share of the forest lands of West Bengal. There are many indigenous communities (santhals, sabar/lodha, sardar and others) living in and around the forest areas of Paschim Medinipur and in the current year some cases of hunger deaths from sabar households received wide publicity in the media. Despite huge tracts of forests and the practice of joint forest management, the situation has remained pretty grim as far as the poor landless households are concerned. Based on people’s perspectives from 15 villages, the present paper adopts a Sustainable Livelihoods (SL) Framework to look into the role of forests as safety net for the villagers of Paschim Medinipur and the effectiveness of the institutional mechanisms to address such a role. Based on fieldwork in 15 villages the paper shows how forest is critical for such poor communities to survive. The paper contains a social analysis to show what resources the poor people have, which groups of people use forest, when and how and with what consequences and how such situation could be improved for sustainable development and localized poverty reduction.

Sustainable Livelihoods Approach and Field Study
A Sustainable Livelihoods (SL) framework was adopted to approach the topic of forests as safety net for the local communities. Such a framework accounts for the factors that contribute to poverty and vulnerability given the existing different types of resources for e.g. forests as natural resources and the institutional framework and policies. Some core concepts of the sustainable livelihoods (SL) approach are that it is people-centred, holistic, dynamic, building on strengths, links macro and micro and underlines sustainability (also see www.livelihoods.org ). Some core concepts of SL are listed below.

• People-centred: the SL approach puts people at the centre of development.
• Holistic: the SL approach attempts to identify the most pressing constraints faced by, and explores opportunities open to, people regardless of where these occur.
• Dynamic: SL seeks to understand and learn from change so that it can support positive patterns of change and help mitigate negative patterns.
• Building on strengths: the SL approach starts with an analysis of strengths, rather than needs.
• Macro-micro links: the SL approach attempts to bridge the gap between the macro and micro levels. It also stresses the need for higher level policy development and planning to be informed by lessons learnt and insights gained at the local level.
• Sustainability is the key to the SL approach.

Based on the SL framework as indicated above, the field methodology of Participatory Rapid Rural Appraisal (PRRA) (see UNDP: 1996) was adopted for interactive sessions with poor groups in the study villages. PRRA is a variation of Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), widely used across the developing countries, where information is required by external agencies but must be expressed by the communities themselves in their own way.
The 15 villages studied in Paschim Medinipur were selected based on criteria such as remoteness/nearness from pitched road; nearness to forests; tribal and mixed villages; villages dependent on forests for livelihoods, small and relatively big sized villages; and broad coverage of socio-ecological-physical features; The study villages in Paschim Medinipur were as follows.

Villages Lohamala, Belaijuri, Montipa, and Murakati in Jhargram block;; Villages Mulbandh, Tungadhua, Geriashuli, Krishna Rakshit Chak, Hariatara, and Bhururchati in Kharagpur –I block;; Villages Durganhari and. Bonkathi in Sankrail block; Village Dhangasole in Salboni block; Village Bagghora in Medinipur Sadar block; and Village Talpukuria in Binpur –II block .
Local Communities and Forests
In this study, communities are taken as relatively self – contained residential units while a group is a self – identified set of persons having some common interest (Uphoff: 1986). This study includes all the categories of local communities/groups, those who belong naturally to forest land and those who live in and around forest and are dependent on forest habitat and other local natural resources for their livelihoods. Many of the local communities in the study villages were indigenous communities who had long historical relationship with land and lived amidst the bounties of nature. They traditionally lived in close proximity to forests, forests being an integral part of their habitat, livelihoods and culture.
Degradation of Surrounding Environment
Degradation of surrounding forests, trees and CPRs and rigid forest laws have adversely affected food accessibility, livelihood options and quality of life of local (including indigenous) communities in many areas. Such degradation has often caused periodic phases of hunger and malnutrition in absence of supportive means of livelihood for acquiring basic needs of life. Forest plantations of eucalyptus and other species no longer provide the rich bio-diversity available earlier in natural forests. Common Property Resources (CPRs), in which groups of local people have co-equal use rights, such as community pastures, community forests, waste lands, village ponds, rivers etc., have declined at a rapid pace. Such phenomena has led to diminished role of local natural resources which have traditionally constituted invaluable asset base for meeting basic needs and livelihood requirements of local communities. In the present paper, the following aspects have been discussed based on fieldwork in Paschim Medinipur.

- Relationship between forests, local communities, livelihoods, food security, poverty reduction, well being and enrichment of bio-diversity
- Social analysis of study villages and forest user-groups
- Type/s of resources the poor people can access
- Types of livelihoods related to forests
- Use of forests, vulnerabilities and outcomes
- Findings from the field and policy recommendations

The Forest Communities in the Study Villages
In the 15 study villages, social analysis preceded discussion on the role of forests as safety net. While discussing social aspects, the poor groups in the 15 study villages arrived at different social categories of households, which were collated into 5 social groups. These were (i) the destitute household (poorest of the poor including women-headed household, (ii) the ultra poor household doing wage labour (iii) the poor household (iv) middle class and (v) the better-off household/s. Since the poor groups did not own much assets the criteria for social grouping included ownership of land and its size, period of food availability from one’s own land, type of dwelling, main livelihood activities, human resource, social inclusion/exclusion etc.

Poverty and Vulnerability - Proportion of poor households ranged from 44 % to 95 % in the study villages of Paschim Medinipur. Around 70 per cent of poor households in the study villages were engaged in wage labour. Women-headed households were the main constituents of the destitute group, proportion of which ranged between 5 per cent to over 12 per cent. The poor lacked money with literally no saving. Due to lack of money, they were unable to collect food ration at subsidized rate from the government. They were not in a position to purchase clothes and even children under 5-6 years remained without clothes and adult and grown up people had fewer clothes. It was very difficult for those people to invest even Rs.10/- monthly on any item. Children from poor households were not in a position to attend school unless the food was given and learning materials were free.

Livelihoods of Poor - The poor households pursued diverse sources of livelihoods, wage labour being the lifeline in the study villages. With separate domains of livelihood-related activities for women and men (with a few common ones), those done by women included making of Sal leaf plates, growing homestead vegetables, making puffed rice, backyard poultry, selling eggs, bamboo craft, weaving mats etc. Though agriculture was a critical livelihood, cultivation of Aman paddy (the major crop) was no longer profitable with an average surplus of about Rs. 200 /Rs. 230/- per bigha of land without adding the imputed cost of family labour and the cost of organizing such cultivation. Those with irrigated lands grew 3 crops, for e.g. rice, pulses/ vegetables etc. Contract cultivation or leasing out land on fixed rent was on the rise especially by those migrating outside the State.

Seasonality of Livelihoods - Most livelihoods-related activities were highly seasonal in nature (also see table 4 in Annex 1) and induced periodic vulnerability in poor households mainly in terms of food insecurity and health care. This was in addition to their endemic vulnerability through their continuous poverty conditions. In areas with rain-fed farming, seasonal migration was a pronounced strategy in the non-farming season. The women, men and children were all engaged in composing livelihoods depending on their asset base. Those ultra poor groups living near forests had high dependence on NTFPs from local forests. Forest authority had more emphasis on timber production (under JFM) and often restricted poor households from harvesting enough forest produce for pursuing livelihoods.

Bartering and exchange of labour were also prevalent. A social arrangement that helped poor households was advance wages provided by better-off groups against future labour. With breaking down of social safety net, those elderly women who were ultra poor/destitute – widowed, divorced, deserted, unmarried, handicapped etc. had a difficult existence. For them, work opportunities were not that easily available and migration as a strategy was also not feasible.

Dependence on Local Forests - More than 80 % of villagers in the study villages were directly dependent on NTFPs from local forests while others made indirect use – e.g. many households bought/exchanged forest products such as fuel wood, mushrooms and other items as and when required. On enquiring whether mixed forests were better, the local people, especially the women said that mixed forests made for better support for they helped in pursuing diverse sources of livelihoods. They yielded different types of forest produce (NTFPs) throughout the year and helped to tide over seasonal livelihoods’ problems. While mono-forests gave limited produce – such as Acacia plantation gave limited benefit – mainly branches and leaves as fuel. Many local communities faced acute hardship because their forest disappeared rapidly through felling. Others having Joint Forest Management (JFM) in their area were facing hardship for 9 months as and when their forest got felled under JFM and growing of new trees took time. Those with no access to forests faced hunger periods in the off-seasons. They were shouted upon when they tried to access others’ forests. Under such conditions some of them died of hunger while others were forced to migrate. Given the forest laws and the pressure on forest produce, the poor households had limited access to forest produce and hence both forest and livelihoods of such poor households were threatened in absence of suitable options.
Seasonal dependence on Local Forests - From mid – August to mid- October, babui grass grew in the forest, which could be collected and kept for making ropes throughout the year. One kg of babui rope could be sold for Rs.8/Rs.5/Rs.10 depending on the on-going market price. Both women and men did it. Some also cultivated such grass on their field and sold it for Rs.2/ Rs.3 per kg. A lot of it grew in the forest. From mid-July to mid- September, the poor households collected eggs of an ant call kurkut, they ate it as well by making it into chutney. It was food for fish and was in great demand in Calcutta zoo to feed birds. It was sold at Rs. 20/25 per kg. The ants could be sold in the market and were available throughout the year.

The problem was with accessing the forests for their livelihoods. The local people expressed that it was difficult to fetch wood from the trees since when caught they were taken to the police. There was also the fear of snake bite in the forest. There were problems in selling non-timer forest produce. For supplying kurkut to traders the Forest Department informed the police and the local people were caught carrying it. If they carried kurkut eggs from 2 kg to 10 kg they were caught. From mid- October to mid – December, the local people were busy in growing paddy. From mid – November to Mid- January, barha gum was available in the forests and around 300/500 grams of barha gum can be sold at Rs. 18/kg. From mid- January to mid – March, borums (a type of berry) and kachra fruits could be sold at Rs.5/kg.

Gender Issues in Forest as Safety Nets - For collection of non-timber forest produce, women had to do more than men. For example, women collected kendu leaves from forest, collected sal leaves and made leaf plates and took the sal plates to the market for selling. Apart from other items, they also collected other NTFPs, which helped in getting food for consumption during months of food shortage. Women were responsible for food processing and making food available to the households. Fuel wood was collected from the forests and sold by both men and women.

Benefits to Local People from Forests
The local communities in the study villages had historical ties with local forests, trees and CPRs, which provided both direct and indirect benefits to them. Some major benefits of local communities from forests, trees and CPRs are listed below. The benefits provided by local forests were basic to such communities and the following were included.

 Food such as nuts, wild fruits, vegetables, wild potato, leaves, flowers, roots, bark, stems, honey, mushrooms, snails, wild animals, insects, worms, ants etc.
 Habitat and shelter
 Raw materials like bamboo, canes, fibre, vegetable and non-vegetable oils, babui grass, waxes, resins, gums, dyes and wood for furniture and capital equipment for agriculture, artisanship etc.
 Wood for building, fencing, tool making etc.
 Fuel wood
 Timber
 Medicines and drugs
 Fodder such as grass, branches, twigs and leaves
 Grazing sites
 Means of livelihood, both seasonal and annual
 Shade
 Ornaments, religious items and cultural symbols
 Drought relief
 Watershed functions
 Peace and harmony

Forests as Sources of Food and Livelihoods
Sustainable livelihood requires a level of wealth, of stocks and flows of food and cash which provide for physical and social well being and insecurity against becoming poorer. Forest, trees and CPRs support livelihoods of local communities/groups in three ways (Chambers, Saxena & Shah: 1991) as indicated below.
 By providing for subsistence needs of fodder, fuel etc.,
 As a source of income, and
 As capital goods or savings to be cut and en-cashed to meet contingencies

Wherever, there is a local forest, which poor could access, they had some opportunity for getting food and income support. Traditionally forests used to be a major source of livelihoods but it was no longer so. In this category the most common livelihood was trading in timber, which was no more possible, at least legally. Now, the most common activity was collection and sale of non-timber forest produce such as collection of fuel wood, kendu and sal leaves, collection of Gethi kanda, Bendo Sag (leafy vegetables) and bamboo. In the study villages they collected date leaves to make mat, which they sold in the market. Livelihoods dependent on such localized natural resources were diverse from stitching sal leaf plates to collecting gum and seeds to hunting wildlife etc. Such livelihoods, generally, varied with seasons. The poor households earned by selling fuel wood, kendu leaves, sal leaves, bamboo etc. In addition, roots and edible leaves were collected from the forest, which were consumed by the poor households. Many village participants felt that there was need for training to process and make items from forest produce, such as bamboo and date leaves. Since the forest area was depleting and reducing in size, they suggested planting of more trees in the forest. They also desired economic support to start business from forest produce.

Though forests, trees and CPRs to a large extent provided livelihoods to local poor/ communities in the study villages, the major constraint faced in pursuing these livelihoods was the oppression of the poor by the “forest workers” (read forest guards) who often prohibited and prevented villagers from collecting fuel wood. By convention the villagers living in the vicinity of forests collect deadwood from the forests (which belong to the State) but are not allowed to cut living trees. In many cases, the villagers paid an informal tax for accessing the non-timber forest produce though returns from sale on such non-timber forest produce like fuel-wood and sale of sal leaf plates were quite low and the sale of kendu leaves as also collection of sal leaves were seasonal activities.

Vulnerability of Poor Households – Role of forest in providing sustenance to local livelihoods can be affected or disrupted with loss of forest cover, degradation of forests and CPRs or reduced accessibility to such resources. Such a process had serious implications on livelihood patterns for example, in case of village Krishna Rakshit Chak where the forest under JFM was felled illegally due to acute food insecurity during their hunger period. In some other villages, such loss of forest cover also led to increased migration to other areas and/or increase in poverty and hunger of local people, especially the women, children and elderly people who were unable to migrate. .

Livelihood –related issues - Some livelihoods-related issues in the study villages were as follows.

• The means of livelihood was mostly dependent on forest produce.
• The return from forest produce was abysmally low. One person’s income was not enough to feed stomach with rice.
• Collecting forest produce was not an easy job. For a sick or elderly person, it was nearly impossible to collect forest produce and sell in the market.
• The time consumed in collection of forest produce was very long. Each means of forest livelihood meant engaging 8 to 10 hands and the return was 10 – 12 rupees. Men folk get about 20 rupees.
• With the exception of few days in paddy related activities, there was no other work other than forest produce collection.
• Livestock could not be raised because of extreme poverty and also due to unsafe forest environment such as attack by wild animals.

Food and Its Security
One major function of forests, trees and CPRs in the study villages was that of providing food and its security. Local forest wealth and other locally available resources such as home gardens were the mainstay or backup to food availability in such communities. Such resources provided a wide range of food to local communities through roots, plants, leaves, flowers, fruits, vegetables, seeds, meat from wild life etc. Each season brought with it a variety of food, which shows seasonal availability of food for sabar/lodha community from their local forest, trees, bushes and ponds. Local communities often pointed out as to how their food insecurity increased over time with degradation of mixed forests, plantation of acacia and eucalyptus, depletion of trees and CPRs and/or reduced accessibility to forests due to repressive laws. Such natural resources provided a range of produce for eating, selling and exchanging. Many items of which were non-marketable, some items, however, act as substitutes for marketed produce. The communities could not purchase food, which was available in market or even ration shops due to lack of purchasing power. With depletion of forests food security was a major issue amongst the local communities. Selected issues related to food consumption were as follows.
.
• With exception of one – two months, the food consumed was half or much less than the normal food consumption.
• The food basket lacked nutritious items. When there was no income, they remained without food or they consumed wild potato and wild leaves from the forest.
• The children, pregnant and lactating women were not given supplementary nutritious food.
• Many nutritious food items – fish, meat and mushroom were not given to lactating women by culture.

Habitat
Forests and trees made available logs of wood, bamboo, grass etc. required by local communities for constructing their huts for shelter. Local communities were dependent on forests and trees for procuring such materials. Forests also provided shade-grazing space to them. However, it was becoming increasingly difficult for the poor households to procure logs of wood to construct, maintain and/or repair dwellings both due to strict forest laws and lack of purchasing power to access the market. Very few households got support under the government housing scheme, Indira Awas Yojana

Drought Relief
Forests, trees and CPRs also provide drought relief to the local communities during occurrence of droughts. Such support from forests, trees and CPRs during drought-period, helps in mitigating its disastrous impact on human lives

Forests as Providers

The role of forests as safety net in the lives of the local communities in the study villages was crucial given the weak institutional mechanisms, social exclusionary processes of the forest villages and the poverty conditions.
Forest management Policy affected local livelihoods. In the study villages, decisions taken by the Forest department to grow acacia, eucalyptus or sal trees or some other species had differential impacts on poor people’s livelihoods, especially the ultra poor. The richer the local forest (e.g. a Sal forest) and its access the easier it was to cope with difficult seasons. The Joint Forest Management (JFM) guideline no. 22-8/2000-JFM (FTD), Government of India, dated December 24, 2002 of Ministry of Environment and Forests, New Delhi, though general in nature, provided a broad framework for Forest Department for closely linking forests with local livelihoods for forest dependent communities. However, there were limitations of the framework in terms of the following.

 Bureaucratic procedure for establishing such linkages
 Encouraging one-way top-down communication channels and
 Absence of a pro-poor stance and inter/intra-community equity issues (by treating entire community as one and equal)

Attitude and behaviour of the government machinery was a major factor leading to social exclusion of poor households in the study villages and elsewhere. For the indigenous forest communities attitude and behaviour engrained in local governance, was a major issue. Able bodied youth form the indigenous communities felt discriminated against local employment opportunities, both government and private. Similarly they had problematic relation with local police. The attitude of the forest department officials and staff are also seen as problematic for the indigenous communities with regard to their symbiotic relationship with forests. Similarly approach of bank-institutions towards such communities is an important factor. Attitudes/ cultural beliefs/ social practices were loaded against forest communities, who were looked down upon.

Many amongst the forest communities were landless and lacked a minimum threshold level of asset structure for constructing livelihoods. Many poor households laced access to basic physical and financial capitals. Institutional linkages with the villages were lacking. In many study villages, road, health centre, functioning wells and tube wells and other basic services were not available. Finances were limited with no banks in the vicinity. Given the social exclusion from the mainstream development process, the low wage rate, spiraling prices, fall in real income, unemployment, sickness, reduced productivity from land, and periodic hunger periods, forests, trees and CPRs acted as safety net for local communities, protecting them from the harshness of market forces. They provided safety net against food and livelihood insecurity, drought attacks, pest attacks, illness, pollution, high prices, high rents etc. They often played a dominant role in providing alternative sources of livelihood and in offering coping strategies to the local communities.

In the study villages, forests, trees and CPRs provided a life-support system, which was often complex, diverse and critical to the daily living of such poor people. Whether in terms of food, habitat, medicines, air, livelihood etc. the value of such resources to the local communities was almost limitless and virtually immeasurable.


Selected Recommendations

Close focus is required on livelihoods of poor related to NTFPs especially during difficult seasons. The revised JFM guidelines recognize the importance of NTFP management for the success of JFM and lay emphasis on capacity building and institutional reforms. It further states that JFM Committees should be given authority to act and adequate monetary and other incentives to participate as genuine stakeholders. The guidelines clarify that JFM Committee's plan of action should be a holistic one including village commons and private lands apart from forest land. It also advocates JFM committee/s taking advantage of the administrative and financial strengths and organizational capacity of Panchayat/s.

In the above context some suggestions are as follows.

 User-groups of women can be formed and mobilized consisting of poor and ultra poor groups and can be linked with forest-based sources of livelihoods. FPCs have dominance of men and it is important to support poor women to come forward and be actively associated with forest management and have more ownership of forest resources.
 These poor groups of women can be focused upon to build their capacity, assess their needs and document their indigenous knowledge.
 Extension services can be offered to support such women groups for homestead gardening, growing trees and plants within their home, pisciculture etc. and also support can be provide for processing of NTFPs and their marketing.
 Concept of sustainable harvest could be developed with such women groups for different NTFPs and accordingly plan for such harvesting could be put to action.
 The poor and ultra poor groups can be consulted and involved in planning, implementation and maintenance activities such as regeneration and afforestation activities in local forest so as to increase the utility of the forest in terms of bio-diversity enhancement and livelihoods’ enrichment. The forestry can also be linked up and better integrated with non-forestry programmes and projects for more holistic development.