ICSSR Newsletter

7/28/2019 ICSSR Newsletter

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V o lu me X V (1 )k I N L V V 3 L E I I E K )

Apr i l -September 1984

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Erkay'LLWALk---,

The Role of Ecological Destructionin the Emerging Patterns of Povertyand People's ProtestsI T looks as i f envi ronment is anidea whose time has come. News-papers give prominent display toenvironmental horror stories. E d i -torials demand bet ter managementof ou r natural resources. Gov ern -ment statements on t he ne ed t opreserve the environment are nowcommonplace. Gov ern ment p r o -grammes t oo ar e quite numerousand increasing in number day by day.There ar e massive schemes f o r

afforestation, f or instance. I n t helast four years, some 1,000 croreseedlings are s aid t o ha ve b ee ndistributed o r planted. The re arenew laws f or contro l o f a i r andwater pol lut ion and for the con-servat ion o f fo rests . I nd ia ha sreceived plaudits all over the worldfor what i t has done to preservetigers. N ea rl y 3 per cent of India's

giant land mass is no w und er pr o-tected national parks and wildl i fesanctuaries, and there are demandsto strengthen their protect ion an dincrease their area. P la n documentsand party manifestoes are equallycareful t o me nt ion t he importanceof environment.

But there is a major problemwith this entire range of activitiesand concerns: i t does not appear to

FI FTH VI K RA M SA RA MAI ME MO RI AL LECTURE byA n i l A g i t / t w a t

be based on a holistic understandingof the relat ionship between environ-ment and the development processtaking place in this country . Th eprogrammes ar e a d hoc, with outany sharp priority and there is toomuch of a policeman's att i tude.They seem to be based on the beliefthat concern f o r the environmentessentially mea ns . protecting a n d

The Fifth Vikr am S M-a b b a iM e m o r i a lL e c t u rew asd e l i ve r e datNe

August 1984 under the auspices of the Indian Council of Social Science Research." D r . Anil Attarw al is Di rector, Centre for Science and Envir onment, New Delhi.


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i l e S O U L l i f i l y,-inselves. Th e r e i smodify the develop-in a manner thatin greater ha rmony[the people and withmaintain ecologicalincreasing the pro-ir w a t e r and

Sopulent is no t justd tigers, threatenedystems. I t is literallywhich we all subsist,

Crail'e agriculturallevelopment depends.an take place at thevironment only up tond that point i t wil ldish person who wasthe very branch onMting. Development:ern for the environ-be development f or

In the long term, itIntl-development andonly at the cost o fan sufferings, inerea-ind oppression. W ely approaching th at

e hundreds of volun-orking at the micro-ecountry, there hasbly rapid growth ofronmental problems.Fact, has been t hi s;ometimes we e ve n

describe i t as the

I L I L I VI 1 1 , 1 1 t . I I I L P f lthe las t y ear, i n the process ofproducing a c itizens' report on t heState of India's Environment, wehave had the fortune and opportu-nity to interact w it h these groupsand learn f rom them their growingunderstanding between environmentand development an d i t i s th isunderstanding tha t I would like toshare with you this evening.

There are hundreds of field-levelgroups in the c ountry today taking akeen interest in env ironmental issuesand their experiences an d interestsare extremely diverse: whi le someare interested i n preventing defore-station, there are others which areonly interest ed i n afforestation.There are many which wan t t oprevent the construct ion o f onedam or another. The re are otherswho want to prevent water pollution.There is the famous Chipk o Mov e-ment in the U.P. Himalayas, probablythe oldest and most f amous o f allthe groups, w h ic h has played amajor role in bringing the issue ofdeforestation t o t he fore of publicopinion. A n d n ow there is i t scounterpart in the south, the ApikkoMovement in the Western Ghats ofKarnataka. Darns l ike t he Sile ntVal ley and Bedthi have al readybeen stopped because o f st rongpeople's protests a n d n o w t hewell -known soc ia l wo rk er Ba baArnie, who has never before beeninvolved i n a n y campaign' all hislife, is leading a majo r campaign

,of Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradeshand Maharashtra. The Kerala SastraSabitya Parishad h as had a lon gacrimonious battle over the pollutionof the Chaliyar River in Kerala bya rayon mill. Th e India Develop-ment Service finds itself embroiledin another case of river pollution bya rayon mill in Karnataka. Me an -while, the Shandol Gro u p hasworked for long against the pollu-tion of a river in the Shandol districtby a paper mill . Th ere is, of course,the Mi t t i Bachao Abhiyan t oorganize th e farmers ag ainst th ewater-logging cause d b y fa u lt yirrigation systems.

While all these are relatively wellknown groups and have attractedvarying degrees of media attention,there are many, many others in thecountry who are doing excellent workin mobilizing people, both to preventfurther ecological destruction, oftenin the face o f determined govern-ment policies, and t o bring aboutecological regeneration. O n e thing,however, th at binds most o f thesegroups is th ei r concern to put theenvironment a t the service and thecontrol o f the people, the peoplebeing defined a s t he loca l co m-munit ies who l iv e w ith in t h a tenvironment.Environmental protect ion per seis of least concern t o most o f thesegroups, includ ing th e well knownChipko Movement, f o r example.Their main concern is about the use

who should use it and benefit fromit. I t is this growing understandingof the relationship between thepeople and their environment, bornout of a concern f or a more equi-table an d sustainable use o f th eenvironment, that is probably themost fascinating development f o r areporter of events like me,

ENVIRONMENTAL DESTRUCTION BYTIIE RICH

To understand the nature of theenvironmental prob lems i n Ind ia,it may be useful to compare an dcontrast certain environmental trendsand concerns in India with those inthe We st, especially since the envi-ronmental concern first began inthe Western world and since manygroups in India, including politicalparties, have for long dismissed theenvironmental concern a s a pettyWestern concern. Th ere has alwaysbeen th is argument that t o o muchconcern f o r th e environment ca nonly retard economic and indu stria ldevelopment. Th e U N Conferenceon the Human Environment heldin Stockholm in 1972 was the land-mark conference that created world-wide consciousness about the envi-ronment, N o U N conference ha sever been able t o collect so manyluminaries at one place.

Many delegations from developingcountries attending th at conferencehad argued that the solution to envi-ronmental problems lay in economic


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-azilian delegationen representing aan economic boom.Mister, NIrs. Indira; a major impress-nee, is still remem-.-quotedstatement:

tgest polluter'. I nne from the Thirdists and rightists,cing suspicion thattries may be up toWest may simply be;-onmentalconcern

Aing Third World to)gical modernization;velopment. I t wast having go t their

affluent 1 i restyles,now simply asking

cc: clean air, cleantracts of nature forecreation, man y of;t o be preserved inIs and savannas of

South America.at years later whenred a meeting t ole Stockholm con-

non-governmentillThird Wo rl d werete in favour of the:Tess as it is. Th eday faces both anand a developmenthese crises seem t od interacting to reiOn the one hand,-2emtobeanye

inequality, poverty

blems that the development processis meant t o solve. O n the other,environmental destruction has grownfurther apace. B u t what is interes-ting is that while many environmentalproblems, especially those related t oair and water pollution, have tendedto become less severe in many partsof the industrialized world, becauseof the introduction of highly capital-intensive pollution control techno-logies, these problems have continuedto grow and become critical in manyparts of the developing world. I nother words, while the economicdevelopment process in the world isonly worsening our environmentalproblems, it is tending to solve themin the West.. Michael Heseltine, thenMinister o f Env ironment i n t h eanti-environment government of Mrs.Margaret Thatcher, ev en wen t sofar in a UN meeting in 1982 as tosay that all environmental problemsin the West have been solved andthey now remain in i n the ThirdWorld.

Heseltine indeed h a d a point.London, f or instance, has not seenfor years any of those smogs it sawregularly i n t he 1940s a nd 1950s,which le d t o thousands of deathsannually, and the Thames now evenboasts o f sa lmon. B ut Mich ae lHeseltine, lik e all representatives o fvested interests, wa s on ly hid ingsomething of deep significance: t herole o f t h e W es t e r n W o r l d i ndestroying the Third World environ-ment.

C I IV IA L AI J Il i c i l ta k p i t , I P M A L P L I A,are those aris ing ou t of waste dis-posal-problems o f a ir an d wat erpollution and of disposal of highlytoxic, indus tri al and nuclear wastes.Though problems of acid rain havedefinitely increased and there doesnot yet seem to be any solution tothe problem of toxic wastes, it is truethat some cities and rivers do lookcleaner.

In the Third World, however, asits own industrialization proceeds,these water disposal pro blems ar egetting worse day by day but theyare s t i l l no t t he ma j o r o r on l yenvironmental problems. In the ThirdWorld, the major environmentalproblems are c learly those whi c harise out of the misuse of the naturalresource baseout of th e misuse ofsoils, forests and water resources.These proble ms ar e created t o agreat extent because o f the pres sureto produce raw materials for modernindustry. The Third World's environ-ment not only provides raw materialsfor its own industries but also for theindustries of the West.

For instance, the Japanese andWestern timber industries have beenthe biggest source of forest des tru-ction i n Southeast Asia . Hav ingturned countries like Thailand fromnet exporters o f wood i n t o n et

importers o f wood, Japanese co m-panies are n ow t urning t o t he lastgreat wooded fr ont ier of the world:the Amazon basin of South America.

V V , . 1 L,-he lands o f the Third World. N ostatistics o n t his ar e available, butif someone d id collect t hem, I a msure we wil l find that despite Hieworldwide process o f decolonization,there is today many times more landbeing used in the developing worldto Meet the food needs of the westerncountries than -in the I 940s, beforethe process of decolonization began.More than a quarter of all CentralAmerican forests have been destroyedsince 1960 f or cattle ranching; 85 to95 per cent of the beef produced as aresul t has gone t o t he US whi ledomestic consumption o f beef i nCentral America ha s fallen drama-tically. I n the US this beef has beenmainly used to make tinned and petfood and cheap hamburgers becausethe Central American beef is halfthe price o f the grass-fed beef pro-duced in the US . The price of theCentral American b ee f does no trepresent its correct ecological cost.Cattle ranching has proved to he theworst form of land use for the fragilesoils on which these tropical moistforests existed. W i t h i n 5 t o 7 yearstheir productivity dropped dramat i-cally and cattle ranchers have had t omove on.

The Sahelian drought of 1968-74which hit the world headlines andclaimed the lives of approximately1,00,000 nomadic people was causedby not hing less than the French colo-nial policy t o drive these countriesinto peanut far ming t o secure its


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)olicies, the FrenchLies forced the Westto grow groundnuts[ subsistence c rops .ation rapidly deple-)on spread t o t radi-ad forest zones andland prev iously usedsetting t he delicatethe farmers and the

The expansion of.itcouraged by artili-es but when the US

began to h i t thet and vegetable o i lfal l , the newly in-African countriesve but t o increaserea to keep up theire reserves. As t hisy leaps and bounds;me o f governmentminds were slowlyrid further north intovhich they were nottraditional relat ion-ttled farmers havingsturbed. Whe n t heirought set in andnimals and humanlie, the nomads and:ing was blamed .the French or theLich worked hand in'tench.

country, th e f irstthe forests o f thewith t he establish-

tations. The currentIndia's coasts, as on

Asian countr ies, i s tak ing placebecause of the heavy demand f o rprawns i n West ern and Japanesemarkets. Th is over-fishing is leadingto considerable tensions bet weentradi t ional f isherfolk and trawlerowners, a n d v iole nt encount ersbetween the two are regularly repor-ted. Recently, Indonesia completelybanned th e operation o f trawlersf ro m i t s c o a s t a l w a t e r s , a n dseveral count ries inc luding I nd iahave se t up regulations t o preventtrawler operators from fishing in thefirst few kilometres f ro m the coast.This zone is reserved for the tr adit i-onal fisherfolk, But policing trawlersover such an extensive coastline isan_ expensive propos it ion and regu-lations a r e , the re fo re , se l domobserved o r enforced. Th e exporto f f rog s' l e gs t o c a t e r t o t h epalates of Western cons umers an dits .impact on the agricultural pestpopulations i n affected areas is no wa well known story.

The patt ern o f envi ronmentalexploitation that we see on the globalscale simply reproduces itself on thenational scale. Exactly wha t t heWestern industry does to t he Thi rdWorld environment, the Indian indus-try does to the In dian environment.Nearly half the industrial out put i nIndia i s accounted fo r b y industrieswhich can be called biomass-basedindustries: th at is , industries l i kecotton texti les, rayon, paper, p ly -wood, rubber, soap, sugar, tobacc o,jute, chocolate, food process ing and

*

I I I Isure on the country's cultivated andforest lands. Th e y need crop lands,they need forests, and they needenergy and irrigation.

The Indian paper industry hasruthlessly destroyed t he f orests o fIndia. Paper companies in Karnataka,having destroyed a ll t he bambooforests, are now getting t heir ra wmaterials from the last major forestedfrontier of India: the Northeast. Thegovernment's own public sector papercompanies ar e c oming u p in theNorth-east itself. The A ndhra Pradeshgovernment has meanwhile set itssights on the forests o f Andamansand Nicobar Islands for a paper millthat it wants to build in Kakinada.The shortage o f raw materials fo rwood pulp has already f orced t hegovernment to libera lize import o fpulp for the country's paper industry,thus, adding to the pressure on theforests of other Third World coun-tries.

The first lesson is, therefore, clear:the main source o f environmentaldestruction in th e wor ld is the de-mand for natural resources genera-ted by the consumption o f the rich(whether they are rich nations or richindiv iduals an d g ro up s w i t h i nnations) and because o f their ga r-gantuan appetite, it is t heir wastesmainly that contribute to the globalpollution load.

'DIE POOR AND TIIEIR ENVIRONMENTThe second lesson, however, is

lion. T h e field experience of volun-tary groups shows clearly that eradi-cation of poverty in a country likeIndia is simply not possible withoutthe rational maaagement o f ourenvironment and t h a t converselyenvironmental destruction will onlyintensify poverty. T h e reason i ssimple t ho ug h seldom recognized.The vast majority of the rural house-holds meet their daily household needsthrough biomass or biomass-relatedproducts, which are mostly collectedfreely from t he immediate env iron-ment . I n short , they l i ve wi th innothing other than a biomass-basedsubsistence economy. Fo o d , f ue l(that is, firewood, cowdung, cropwastes), rockier, Fertilizer (t hat is ,organic manure, Forest litter, leafmulch), building materials (that is,poles, thatch), herbs and clothing arcall biomass products. Water is ano-ther crucial product For survival.Water is n ot biomass itself, but it savailability is closely related t o thelevel o f biomass available i n thesurrounding environment. Once theforest disappears, the local pond siltsup, the village well dries up, and theperennial stream gets reduc ed t o aseasonal one. The water balance getstotally upset with the destruction ofvegetation: in a monsoonal climat elike ours with highly uneven rainfallover the year, i t means greatly in-creased run of f and floods during t hepeak wate r season a n d great l yincreased drought and water scarcityin the lean dry season,


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SSJOr mee t ing cruc i a ls can be appreciatedthe energy s ituation.ove to point out thatvorld's tenth larges tt, or something like

then over 50 peroonsumption in Indiadamental activity foriking. I n developedrig consumes less thantotal national fuel

e important for Indiaover 90 per cent ofin India is biomass:, cowdung and cropthan households areont on firewood as

energy plannersofficials alike, had

oently o f the dimen-_'rat-urban fuelwoodurban purchase o f1over Rs. 500 croreshe last t en years,

the only state leftdia with any _reason-

forest cover, hasior supplier of fuel-des o f nor t h andtit as t he slate getseforested every year,

have been risingr. Ma dh y a Pradeshe India' s f irst statele world's first stateexport of f irewood.which uses aboutirth of firewood on

firewootl, and an increasingly higherproport ion f r om as f ar away asAssam, the same place f rom whic hpaper mil ls are now getting theirbamboo. Firewood prices in Delhiare today higher th an ev er beforeand according to FAO figures areamongst the highest in t he world.This firewood is used by the poorestof the poor in Delhi, by constructionWorkers and others, an d when t heeffective heat provided by firewood iscompared t o kerosene, because of thelow efficiency chulhas in which fire-wood is used, f irewood becomes f ourto five times more expensive thankerosene. L P G , incidentally, a fuelused by the richest sections of thesociety an d supplied entirely b ygovernment sources, is the most con-venient and cheapest fuel available,Which s ta te w i l l be the next t oban firewood exports is anyone'sguess? What happens when Assamalso says no?

Biomass resources not only meetcrucial household needs bu t th eyalso provide a range of raw materialsfo r traditional occupations and craftsand are, hence, a ma jo r source o femployment: firewood and cowdungare important s ources Lof fuel f orpotters; bullock carts and catama-rans are made from wood; bamboois a vital raw material for basketweavers, and so on. Tradi t ionalcrafts are not just being threatenedby the introduction of modern pro-ducts but also by the acute shortageof biomass-based ra w materials, A

changing market o f bullock c arts reports that people in Ungra villagein Karnataka can no w no longerafford to buy new bullock carts withthe t radit ional wooden wheel becausewood has become ext remely expen-sive. A recent repor t f ro m theMurugappa Chettiar Research Centrefrom Madras reports that traditionalfisherfolk n ow f ind it very difficultto make new catamarans because thespecial wood they us e i s ex tremelyscarce and expensive.

Several reports from all over thecountryfrom Ma dh y a Prades h,Maharashtra an d Tam i l Na d u portray the extreme di ff icul ty o fhundreds o f thousands o f basketweavers in eking out a bare existencebecause of the acute shortage of bam-boo. I n the Bhandara and Chandra-pur districts of Maharashtra, nearly70,000 mat and basket weavers hav ebeen protesting against the discri-minatory prices and small quota ofbamboos given to th em whereas bigpaper mills have been leased outlarge bamboo forests.

In Karnataka, Madhav Gadgi lundertook a study of the use o f thestate's bamboo forests by paper mills,after a series o f protests by basketweavers. Ga dg i l found t hat whereasbamboo was available to paper millsat Rs. 15 a tonne it was available tobasket weavers a nd other amal lbamboo users in the market at Rs.1,200 per tonne. So c ia l activists in

now been depriv ed o f their earliersources of hhabbar grass. Th e U.P.Forest Development Corporationdiscriminates in fa vo ur o f papermi l ls and this pol icy has turnedthousands of these baan workers int odestitutes, landless labourers andurban migrants. Wo o d is now diffi-cult to get f or making even agricul-tural implements l ike the plough,especially wood that has been tradi-tionally used for these implements.Few people kn ow t hat one o f thethings that led to the Chipko move-ment was the anger of the localpeople over the Forest Department'srefusal to provide ash wood, woodthat has been tradit ionally used f ormaking ploughs, whereas the ForestDepartment happily al located thesame wood to sports goods IIMMI-fac tu re rs .

Even biomass resources l i k ethatch have become so diffic ult thatmaintenance and repair cycles of mudand thatch huts have increased consi-derably. A government report fromBastar, of all places, as i t is s til l oneof the heavily forested districts i nthe country, points out to a villagewhere no new hut has been builtover the last two decades because theentire area around the village hasbeen deforested. Tr adi t ion al mudroofs have almost disappeared f rommany parts of the country becauseof the large quanti t ies o f t imberneeded by them. Th ey are beingreplaced by t iled roofs, bu t baking


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!wilier vital resource!ute shortage. Wi t hecut o f th e world'sM supports 15 perle, 52 per cent o f its15 per c ent of i ts

!se animals pl ay anrtant role in the jute-of agricul ture and

,dry that Indian far-Shortage of f odder,public lands, means,in the t ribal areas o f

, that poor landlessmarginal farmers do:Jh fro m the milk co-animal improvementregion..tiation where milli onsheavily dependent ons for their daily exis-tction of the environ-policy t ha t reducesAss resources l ik e t hebill will have an ex-impact on the daily

)ple.tNIATION OF NATUR E

s near-total reliancemrces for bare survi-India has steadilytajor transformation,major pressures ope-country's natural re-

The first, generatedgrowth and thus by

l la res ou rc es , ee n v vi u -tytalked about. Th e po or often getblamed f o r t he destruction o f theenvironment. B u t the second set ofpressures, generated b y moderniz a-t ion, i ndus t r ia l iza t i on a n d t h egeneral penetration o f t h e casheconomy, are seldom talk ed a bou teven in policy making circles.

Modernization affects na t ure intwo ways. Fi rst ly, i t is extremelydestructive o f t he environment i nits search f o r che ap biomass-basedraw materials and in it s search fo rcheap opportunities f or waste dis-posal. Un le s s there are strong lawswinch are equally strongly imple-mented, there is n o att empt mad eto internalize environmental costs,both public and private industrialistsprefer t o pass t hem o n t o thesociety. S t at e governments are alsohappy to give away large tracks offorests f or a pi ttance and t hro wwater pollution con trol laws t o t hewinds to get a few more factories.

Other th an the destruction o f theenvironment, modernizat ion affectsnature in yet another way: this is bysteadily transforming the very charac-ter of nature. I n physical terms, thetendency is to reduce the diversity innature and transf orm it into a naturethat is full of high-yielding monocul-tures_ Th e ecological ro le o f theoriginal nature is also usually dis-regarded in this transf ormation. I nsocial terms, the transformation isgenerally away from a nature that has

hold and community needs and to-wards a nature that is geared t omeet urban and industrial needs, anature that is essentially cash genera-ting. Excellent examples o f suchtransformations are the pine forestsin place o f the old oak forests in theHimalayas, t he teak forests in placeof the sal forests in the ChottanagpurPlateau, eucalyptus plantations inplace of natural forests in the West-ern Ghats and now the proposals togrow oil palms in place of the tropicalforests in the Great Nic obar Islands.Both these phenomenathe destruc-tion of the original nature and thecreation of a new, commercially ori-ented naturehave been taking placesimultaneously in the Indian environ-ment and on a massive scale.

The effect of this massive environ-mental change has been disastrousfor the people, especially when werealize that in a country like India,where o n one ha nd we have anextremely high level o f povert y andon the other a reasonably high levelof population density, there is hardlyany ecological space left in the phy-sical environment which is not occu-pied by one human group or anotherfor i ts sustenance. No w, if in thename o f economic development, anyhuman activity results in the destruc-tion of an ecological space o r in itstransformation w hi c h benefits t hemore powerf ul groups i n s ociety,then inevi tably those wh o wer eearlier dependent on that space willsuffer_ Development in this case

sion and will inevitably raise ques-tions o f social injustice and conflict.The experience of mierolevel groupsshows clearly again that it is rare tofind a case in which environmentaldestruction does no t go h and i nhand with social injustice, almostlike two sides of the same coin.

Let us look at a few cases o f howthe destruction of nature has affectedthe l ives o f people. I n one verydramatic area where governmentpolicies have consistent ly increasedconflicts is forests. T h e entire tribalpopulation, and mil l ions o f otherforest dwelling people depend on theforests for their very existence. Des-t ruc t ion o f f o res ts ha s me an tsocial, cultural and economic des-truction of t he t rib al populationsin particular. Beginning with theBri t ish a nd continuing wi l ls freeIndia, the government has decidedto control the forest resource itself,leaving l i tt le or no control i n t hehands o f t he forest dwellers. T h egovernment control over forestshas definitely mean t a reallocationof forest resources away from theneeds o f local communities and in tothe hands o f urban and indust rialIndia_ Th e end result i s bo t h in-creased social conflic t and increaseddestruction of the ecological resourceitself.

Yet another major componentof the country's physical environ-ment is grazing lands. T h e destruc-tion of the grazing lands has meant


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the nomadic groupsty. Fe w people knowas nearly 200 castespastoral nomadism,

dded up number up toal-India'spopulation.

que in t he wor ld i n:diversi ty o f animalsth pastoral nomadism.terders o f camels i nI in Gujarat, of donkeysra, o f yaks in Ladakh,tdhra Pradesh and evenanthem India. Sheep,ttle are of course the

used f or nomadism,r of factors, includingand development pro-

ch have promoted ex-riculture on to marginalsteadi ly led t o a ngrazing lands. T h e

nal is a l ine examplecut progr amme that hasaitensive grazing landstral lands. N o ef fo rt

the government t ohe nomads who us ed; lands earl ier wouldhe canal on a priorityRost every v illage, t he.ds, traditionally usednds, have been enc roa-by powerful interestprivatized. No m a d i cbeen increasingly i m-iver the last 30 yearsincreasing number isto give up their tradi-aations, t o bec ome

Riverine fisherfolk constitute an-other group that has suffered immen-sely with environmental destruction.Riverine fisheries are being seriouslyaffected wit h increasing water pol lu-t ion. La rge sca l e f i sh k i l l s a reregularly reported. I n th e 158 kmstretch of the Hooghly, t he averageyield of fish is just about a sixth inthe pollut ed zones as compared t othe unpolluted zones. Growing waterpollution is, thus, affecting thousandsof riverine fisherfolk in the countrybut little data is available on theirplight. Rivers have now become a -resource for urban and industrialIndia t o be used as cheap dump-yards f or their wastes and all th isis sanctioned i n the name of econo-mic development.

The new, commercial nature thatis being created is also of lit tl e helpto village communities and their dailyneeds. Th e r e are people's protestsin many parts of the country againstthe conversion o f oak forests in t opine forests and of sal forests intoteak forests. Ne it he r pine no r teakis of any interest to local communi-ties. In the Singhbhuin area o f Biharthere is even a movement to destroythe new teak forests. E qu al ly , thereis a strong protest i n Karnatakaagainst the planting of eucalyptus onfarmers' f ields.

The planting o f eucalyptus o nfanners' fields and even on so-calledbarren fields is an excellent example

modernization. W h a t happens t othe poor people when eucalyptus isplanted on a farmers' field? We havea concrete example from a village isPunjab, where a ric h f armer withover 100 hectares o f land an d aformer Governor, has stopped grow-ing cot ton an d ha s swi tched t oeucalyptus. A s lo ng as he grewcotton, enormous quanti t ies o fcotton sticks would be available fo rthe landless labourers in the villageto use as f uel. Because of the shor-tage of f irewood, c ro p wastes fr omthe landlord's fields are the majorand almost the only source of' fuelfo r these poor landless villagers. Nowwith eucalyptus growing, their mainsource of fuel has dried up, puttingthem in a precarious position. This isa case where afforestation has actuallycreated a fuel famine for the neediestcommunity.

What happens when eucalyptusis gro wn on a barren piece of land'?Usually no land is barren unless o fcourse it is highly erode d i n whichcase eve n eucalyptus c ann ot b egrown on it. Generally barren 'landshave large quant ities of weeds grow-ing o n them. Wi t h the destructionof our original vegetation, a f ewaggressive weeds l i k e Lant ana,Parthenium an d i pom oea hav el ite ra ll y s tar ted tak ing ov er t hecountry. N o n e o f these weeds ispalatable to animals and they there-fore survive the pressure of grazing.

If we look at the firewood stall-

The off ic ial ly produced f i rewooddoes no t account f or even one-fifthof the t otal estimated demand o fsome 130 million tonnes o f firewooda year. When this was first discoveredin the early 1970, i t was immediatelyconcluded that the rural peoplemust be steal ing wood f ro m theforests on an enormous scale. Later,however, i t was fou nd that overthree-quarters of the fuel used in therural areas is in the f orm of twigsand li t t le branches a nd there neednot be any f elling o f trees to get thiswood. B u t even today we do notknow what vegetation i s act uallyproviding this massive quantity oftwigs and branches. My guess is thatweeds are now playing an extremelyimportant role in the vital supply ofcooking fuel for the poor.

A weed is defined as a plant whichhas no economic value but in thesocio-econotnic r e a l by o f I nd in,Lantana, Pa rt hen i urn an d I po mo eaare weeds onl y f or revenue earningForest Departments of the govern-ment. For poor households, whohave no lands o f their o wn, weedsgrowing on public lands are extre-mely useful, because o f the very factthat they ar e n ot wanted by th emodern sector o f th e economy.Once they acquire an economic value,they will go out of their hands likebamboo, which was f or long descri-bed as a weed by foresters.

Thus when a patch o f barrenland is planted wi th eucalyptus,


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, crisis intensifies. No tforesters al l o v er the)lain th at women eveneucalyptus leaves f rom

intations for use as fuel,ing any chance o f theng down into humusthe soil. But what elseenergy-starved wome n

t we see in India todayconflict over t he use o f:rces and, in particular,between the two sectorsry's economy: t he cashhe modern sector on thead the non-monetized,cl subs is tence e c o -raditional sector on the

ming stock of biomassie demand fo r biomasseconomy goes u p and

sto exceed supply, andexploit the remainin gIcreases en or mou s ly ;:s rise, and destructivederate because o f sheer,

Illegal t imb er fellingmajor activ i ty in thertaken wi t h t he f ul llitical interests. Stealingtrucks of timber is thesiest way t o b ecomethan a Chief Ministerto resign because o flIvolvement i n timber

, ,, ,commercialized, t he access o f thepoor to those biomass sources getsautomatically reduc ed because o fl imited purchasing powers. T h etrend towards commercialization offirewood has been so rapid in thelast 15 years that it is now rare tofind poo r households using muc hfirewood, especially in the shape oflogs. Fi re wo od is no longer a fuelof the poor but o f the relativelyr ich . Th e po or n ow subs is t o nquali tat ively inf eri or sourc es o fbiomass fuels : c ro p wastes, weeds,twigs, cowdung and whatever organickachra that they can find. I n fact,if one goes to a village, one will seethat even firewood, crop wastes andcowdung are fuels used according tothe family's econ omic statuscropwastes usually being' at the lowestof the order.

Unfortunately, several scientificagencies, t hinking that 'c rop wastes'are act ually wastes, have begun toundertake research o n commerc ialutilization o f crop wastes. Tec hno -logies like fuel briquetting plants andsmall scale pa pe r mil l s basNl oncrop residues are being heavily pro-moted by t he government. Th i sraises prices o f fuel and fodde r anddirectly hits po or landless peasants,who now have to rely heavily on themercy of landed farmers t o al lo wthem t o tak e these wastes away,which they Will do only as long asthey are non- commercial entities forthem.

insisting t hat cr op wastes be takenby their labourers i n exchange f orwages. I n one district of Haryanawe found t hat a common practicenow is to let a woman pick an acreof cotton in exchange for the cottonsticks f ro m that acre. Th er e is noaddit ional payment. T h e co mm-ercialization o f biomass and i t sdrain towards those who have thepower t o purchase wi l l inevitablyharm the poor and erode the non-monetized, biomass-based, subsis-tence economy.

ENVIRONMENT AND WOMEN

The dest ruct ion o f the environ-ment c learly poses the biggest threatto marginal cultures and occupationsl ike that of tr ibals, nomads a ndlisherfolk whic h hav e always beenheavily dependent on their immedi-ate CIWir011111CM f o r the ir surviv al.But the maximum impact o f thedestruction o f biomass sources is onwomen. Women in all rural culturesare affected, especially women frompoor landless, marginal and smallfarming fami l ies. See n from t hepoint of view of these women, i tcan even be argued that all develop-ment is ignorant o f women's needs,at best, and anti -women, a t t heworst, lit erally designed t o increasetheir work burden.

Given t h e c ultu rally accepteddivision of labour within the family,the collection of household needs like

grades, a nd t hi s becomes increas-ingly di ff icul t t o obt ain, womenhave t o s pend a n ex traordinaryamount of time for foraging for fuel,fodder and water i n addi t ion t ohousehold wor k , agricultural wor kand caring for animals. There isalmost no data which shows how thetime spent by women on their dailyhousehold act ivit ies is increasingand how this increase differs acrossdifferent eco-climatic zones of India,But t he avai labl e da ta o n t heexisting work burden is downrightshocking. I n many parts of India,women work for 14 to 16 hours every-day and it does not matter whetherthey are young, old or pregnant andwhether it is a Sunday or any otherholiday. Da y aft er weary clay theroutine repeats itself and year afterweary year fuel and fodder collectioni Inc per iods increase. I n man y

pacts the women may have literallyreached their 'carrying capacities'.The worst situation is in the arid

and semi-arid parts of the country andin the hill and mountain villages. I nall these areas trees and forests havebeen steadily destroyed. O n accountof a numbe r o f factorssoil andclimatic conditions, small size of landholdings, lack of irrigation, etc.--t heGreen Revolut ion has no t reachedthese areas whereas in Punjab andHaryana, t hough trees are f ew, t heGreen Revolution has brought a nenormous increase in biomass f ro mcrop lands. As a result, there is n ow


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as 5 to 6 hours everyiseholds even 10 hourscollecting fue l a ndcontrary, in a statere eco-climatic condi-

ich green cover, thein women i s muchlv the least in thethe minimal landch landless familiestributed 1110 o f an

access t o a f ew[ices, which helps t olialf the fuel require-

est of the country,on, t he increasingwomen is affectingI their lives, A studylist title of Manage-bad shows that menat at primary health

Myles m or e I ha ndo not have time toyen when they are ill.)perat ions Researchwestern U.P. t ha t

omen work f or 14y do this almost tillre the delivery and.k3-4daysthere-

tan told the ORGire too much loadedhores. Hos pit als ,re too much time.ss for us' .from rural Punjabthe problems faced

from agricultural labour householdsin the vi l lage who had undergonetubectomy complained about post-operative pains. A l l of them wantedto take rest but none of them could.Collecting fodder alone took threehours. There was hardly any sourceof freely avai lable fodder in thevil lage. Most women had t o b ringgrass and other weeds from betweenwheat plants i n the f ie lds. Ma n yfarmers would no t al l ow this an dlandless women had t o go. f rom onefield to another. Firewood meantstill more work and another journey.The bending and stretching increasedthe pain, The women wanted to passon their work t o others , especiallytheir children. They then ran intoconfl icts with t he ir husbands andtheir children who wanted t o pla yrather Ulan work. One woman kickedand punched her daughter so hardror not working with her that shedied. Su c h viciousness 'nay be rarebut increased family tensions arecommon place.

The penetra t ion o f t he casheconomy is affecting the relationshipbetween the men and women in apeculiar way and is cr eat ing a realdichotomy in their respective relat ion-ships with nature. Me n have becomemore involv ed wit h the cash economythan women. W om en c ontinue todeal with non-monetized, biomass-based subsistence economy o f thehousehold. Ev e n wit hin the samehousehold, we can find cases o f men

cash even thou gh it would creategreater hardships for the women incol lecting dai ly f uel an d f od de rneeds.

The Chipko Movement has givenus numerous examples o f t h i sdichotomy in male-female interests,and the role of the women in preven-ting deforestation has been p ar a-. mOunt in the movement. Even t heChipko experience with afforestationconfirms t hi s d icho to my betweenmen and women a nd stresses t herole o f women in ecological regene-ration. Ev en t hough many c rucialhousehold needs co ul d be me t byrehabilitating t he local v illage eco-systemby planting fuel and foddertrees, for instancethe men do notshow any interest in doing so. I t isWomen w ho a re do i ng a l l t heafforestation wor k organized by theChipko Movement.

The new culture created b y thepenetration of the cash economy has,slowly but steadily, psychologicallyalienated the men from their ecosy-stem. E mplo yme nt fo r them meanswork which can bring cash in theirhands. Thi s employment c a n b efound mainly in the city and hence,mass male migration. E v en whenthe men are in a vi l lage a job isstill s omething that must earn cash.

There are few o f those caste andclass barriers i n t he Himalayanvillages whic h prevent people f ro mworking together as a community to

continue t o walk miles and milesover arduous paths t o f etc h fuel,fodder and wate r everyday, wh il emen sit idle without doing anythingto plant trees in the denuded areasaround them.

I t i s no t su rp ri s ing tha t t heeucalyptus based social forestry,trot ted ou t to be such a great successby the World Bank and the forestdepartments, is all in the hands ofmen, all planting trees with the cashmotive. O t h e r t h a n e m p l o y i n gwomen as cheap labour in nurseries,these agencies have nothing to showin terms of involvement of womenthe very people who deal with fueland fodder and t he government t oosti ll gives this t he name of SocialForestry. B u t maybe this shouldnot be surprising. Mak ing a fas tbuck, ev en at the expense o f societyand ecology, is probably the mostsocial thing we c an do i n a casheconomy.

Male migrationanother majorphenomenon i n mo der n societyalso increases the wo rk bur den o fwomen, who then have to take carenot only of household needs but alsohave t o devote more ti me t o t hefamily's agricultural fields. B u t asthe time needed to collect fuel andfodder grows, agriculture gets neg-lected. A study of three villages inthe Kumaon region of Utt ar Pra-desh, fo r instance, shows th at t heratio of human energy spent i ncollecting fuel and fodder is already


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s me o r ue anm grows and f irewood-2er,thetraditional

alluring fields w il l bewdung wi ll be used asplains, but w it h theng, these fragile soilsed very soon. I t willus situa tion bo th fo rand the environment.

:amc across anot hersakes the same point.on Ratnagiri district,eof male workers forombay. Rat na giri i sfew districts i n th ethe sex ratio is innen. I t has far moremen. Say s Ra jan i;ond acted the study:,many o f th e BICII'S

t i:CN,ortheylearnto

it the f ruits of suchland must somehowlowed t o li e fa llow.waste is as high as 21total land under cu tti-ng to the agricultural) whereas it was 3.7tharashtra as a whole.is that it is not fa rve found w it h inte r-view, land cu ltivation) b c les s intensiveid than desired), orI, because manpowerfemale power) inadequate'..e increasing intensitylas been considerable

watershed management in the Hima-layas and in the Ghats. Th e Hima-layas are be ing described as one ofthe mo st threatened ecosystems i nthe world, wh ich in t u rn determinesthe fate o f several hundred millionpeople in the Indo-Gangetic plains.But i f any action f o r ecologicalreconstruction has to b e taken inthe hills, it cannot be done withoutthe involvement o f women. T h ecensus data o f 1981 shows that a llthe districts in the country which havehigh rates of female work participa-tion are situated in the Himalayas orin the Ghats. In the Himalayas mostwomen workers are also classifiedas cultivators. Therefore, any p ro-gramme which aims a t ecologicalrehabilitation i n the se areas w il lhave to involve heavily overworkedwomen, unless, o f course labouris brought in to these areas fr omoutside, which will Create tensionsof another kind.

Fortunately, th e experience o fthe Chipko Movement shows thatwomen in these parts, despite their14-16 ho u r back-breaking wo rkschedule, a r e ext remely keen t oparticipate in such work, especiallyin tree planting. Once the women areorganized and mobilized, they wo rkwith grea t keenness and the y figh tany obstacles that may be created bymen, and as a result, some of thehighest tree survival rates in affores-tation efforts are obtained. I t hasalso been found that when women getinvolved in afforestation, th ey tend

trees w c c an me e t ouse oneeds, whereas men demand tre esthat can generate cash. Th e biggestally in the demand f o r a n ecolo-gically and socially sound natureis, therefore, womankind.

As exactly similar experiences havebeen noted in East and West Africa,in Kenya and in the Sahelian coun-tries, there is every reason to believethat this differential interest in naturebetween men and women is cross-cultural i n character. Ma le tree sand female trees is now even becom-ing something o f a jargon amongstthose interested i n involving co m-munities in afforestation.

All th is should n ot be taken toconstrue that poor rural householdsdo not have a ny need f o r cash.The unfortunate thing is that muchof the cash generated by the ma ledoes not get spe nt o n householdneeds. A reasonable proportion o fthis cash ge ts spe nt o n p roductslike alcohol and tobacco and ar te -facts of modernization like transistorradios.

This situation i s creating a newdemand on the time o f the po orwomen and in some cases, it is resul-ting in a new militancy againstnature. Women now have to go outand also earn some cash. Mill ions ofrural women today sell firewood inthe towns and cities. I f we lo ok atthe quantum rof firewood consumedin the cities, we can say that at least

ea oa ng r ng ng woo on e rheads to sell in the townsmakingthe firewood trade the largest empl-oyer i n th e commercial energysector of the country. Surveys showthat selling firewood is a p rofessionthat has grown rap idl y in the last10-15 years w it h t he g rowth inlandlessness and joblessness. M o s tof these headloaders are women, andmostly triba l women. Se lling fire-wood i s back-breaking wo rk a ndbrings extremely little money. B u tthe women d o th is because th eycannot rely on th e ir men to brin gany cash back home. T h e bi gadvantage with headloading is thatthis wor k i s ge nerally availableround the year. S o when no otherwork is available, heaclioading a tleast provides some income.

The life o f th e headloaders o fRanchi shows how difficult thisentire business o f headloading is .The women wake u p early in themorning, at about 4 a.m. and soonafter they begin their trek to theforest. On reaching the forest, some8-10 kin away, they begin collectingfirewood. B y the afternoon, havingcollected the firewood, they do notreturn home but go o ff to Ranchion a train. They spend the night atthe Rancid railway station, whichthese days is an extraordinary sight.Then early morning they sell thewood, a load of some 20-25 kg . Fo rthis entire load th ey get Rs. 5-6, athird o f which the y lose in bribingthe forest guard on a fixed weekly

L C I L I W I


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free r ide. Wi t h t heney, th e wo men buyosene f or light ing andIsehold necessities and[hat evening they cookhe first freshly cook edLys. Nex t morning thebegins afresh.loading woman knowswill be soon destroyed

; horrible occupationii end. B u t they arehey do not take advan-est n ow, the forestersto a c ontractor soon.i rtmenlsa r ee x tr em e ly

headloading b anned .Me no study o f theIf headloading. Th e ye any plans t o meetJells o f the cities. They, not made any ef for ttwo issues. Foresters

i ioiuiicntal isis. TheyNomen destroy youngexcessively; therefore,wonder forests are amost tribal agitations.a head count at thisdid that the destruc-mvironment and it sis already affecting onnd on a daily basis atMg groups: artisans,fisberfolk, a n dmost landless, margi-farming households.Id up to no less than!e-quarters o f t h e

And un l i ke th e s ituat ion i n theWest, the question of environmentaldestruction is not an issue relatedto quality of life but it is a questionof survival,

TOWARDS HOLISTIC MANAGEMENT

If these be the problems, t he nwhat do we do about t hem? Fir s tof all, there must be a much moreho lis t ic th ink ing regard ing t h emanagement o f our land and wat erresources. A n d this wi i i-n o t b ee a s y ,unless a determined effort is made.For all the talk about the need for ascientific temper, i t must be recog-nized that the c urrent methodologyof scientific analysis carries withinitself an extremely unscientific prac -tise, that of, reductionism. I t is thisreductionist approach that has todayproduced bot h nat ural and s ocialscientists who know more and moreabout less and less: who know howto cure a disease but create anotherdisease in the process. Ecology is thefirst scientific discipl ine that hasactually force d people t o integrateand not reduce.

Let me illustrate this by describingwhat i s happening t o t he t hreemajor components of our land: ou rforest lands, our crop lands and ourgrazing lands.

The destruction of forests has amajor impact on the productivity ofour crop lands. Th i s happens in twoways. So il erosion increases manif old

floods an d droughts. B u t equallyimportant is the impact of the shor-tage of firewood on the productivityof crop lands. Wh en firewood be-comes scarce, people begin t o bu rncowdung and crop wastes. I n manyplaces cowdung and crop wastes arenow the major sources of cookingenergy. Th us , s lowly every par t o fthe plant gets used and nothing goesback to t he soil. Over a period oftime, this nutrient drain affects cropproductivity. Add to this, the techno-logy of the Green Revolution: thetechnology of growing high-yieldingvarieties on a limited diet of chemi-cal ferti l izers l ike nitrogen, phos-phates and potash. The tot al biomassproduction goes up and so does thedrain of the nutrients f rom the soil.Plants need some 25-odd elements togrow, not just N, P and K . Th eykeep taking o ut these nutrients fr omthe soil and t he more intensive t heagriculture, without any manure andcrop wastes going back to the soil,the fas ter i s t he nutr ient dra in .Today, the district of Ludhiana hasthe highest yields o f many cereals butit has also the highest deficiencies ofmany micro-nutrients i n it s soil. I nPunjab, many farmers have begunto use zinc rout inely a s a fertilizer.Soon it will be sulphur, manganeseand iron deficiencies, T h e mic ro-nutrient fert i l izer industry, alreadya Rs. 10 crore industry, i s definiteto become t he boo m industry o fthe future. But the net result is thatIndian agriculture, because of this

is showing a consis tent ly decliningtrend in output when compared t othe rapidly ri sing levels of inputs.

If existing crop lands and irri-gation water resources are no t usedwell, then faced with a rising popu-lation, t he demand fo r c olonizationof marginal lands f or agriculturewil l g row. A s la rge par ts o f thecountry have excellent soils andenormous sunl ight an d t he onl yshortage is o f water, governmentprogrammes have also promotedthe cultivation o f marginal lands,especially th rough spread o f irr i-gation. Fortunately, t he r at e o fexpansion o f the cropped area hasnow come do wn as c ompared tothe I 950s and 196fis but enormousecological damage has al ready beendone. Ev en more than forest lands,crop lands hav e expanded on t ograzing lands. Th e result i s t hatgraziers have been pushed o n t olesser and lesser grazing lands.This has i n t urn led t o the over-stocking of grazing lands, destroyingtheir productivity and impoverishingthe graziers in the process.

The graziers have taken recourseto two strategies in such a situation.As the environment becomes moreand more hostile, they get rid of themore vulnerable cattle and start keep-ing goats. Th e number of goats i nRajasthan has expanded dramaticallymuch faster than any other live-stock. Environmentalists ma y howl


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animal to the hostilethat we human beingsin Rajasthan, Gujaratshim, I t makes eco-Tor the grazier to reducerig a period of drought,mon in these areas.ers try to solve theiryet another way: theyforests as grazing lands.tes foresters w h o seeattic as the worst evilIt is true that India'smong the most heavily,ts i n t he world. A snow disappearing i nd Gujarat, nomads fromnow enter Madhya

large numbers, still a,ted state,

;Leis in Madhya Pradesh,yithisinvasionbanned

gn' invaders b u t the.irt struck down the banndians cannot be res-going from one stateSo the inter-state move-,but clashes are accelera-

resters killed 5,000 sheepnely brutal event on thetan border la st yearIlliticians rushed to rouseinst these nomads, andffiart to break down thegistic relationship thatd between the nomads,d farmers. T h e noma-would bring manure to

mals would gather nutrients fromall over and dump them on to thefarmers' fields where they would restand the nomad would even be paidfor this service. B u t today there isopen hostility.

M.P.'s fores t secretary recentlywrote an article in the Times o fIndia saying: 'Fo r t h e love o fMike, please keep these animalsout o f o ur forests'. I f only theanimals could be kept out, theforests would regenerate themselves.But such despair i s n o answer.Animals cannot obviously be keptout witho ut creating extraordinaryconflicts.

Meanwhile, however, the forestershave found an ingenious solution:plant trees l ik e eucalyptus wh ich'cannot b e browsed b y animals.Eucalyptus i s lo ved b y forestersexactly f o r t his reason. Th ere aremany who d oubt th e abi l i ty o feucalyptus to produce mo re woodthan many indigenous species. B u tit is indeed ironic that when thecountry faces an acute fodder crisis,the forester can only plant eucalyptusand produce non-browsable biomass,that is, we must do exactly theopposite o f what the peop le need.In fact, eucalyptus is the true weedfrom the point of view of the landless.It is non-browsable like all fast-spreading weeds and does not benefitthe poor unless they own land.

departments have destroyed forestsby selling off timber to the industrialand urban interests. Th e firewoodshortage and the resulting soil erosionis keeping the productivity of Indianagricultural lands low. Cr o p landshave expanded on to marginal landsand have reduced grazing lands.Animals have moved into forestsand are preventing regeneration. A l lthe chickens are coming t o roost.Meanwhile as landlessness and job-lessness grow, even groups like thetribals who from times immemorialhave lived in tot al harmony withforests are tu rnin g a gainst forestsand want to sell them off as fast asthey can,

Experts si t i n g rand isolation.Foresters have no interest in fuetwoodor in crop lands. Ag r icu l tura lexperts have no interest in animals orin grazing lands. A n im a l husbandrypeople neve r t el l foresters t ha tthey must produce fodder banks.

In the life of the proverbial lastman of Gandhior as I would prefer,the la st personall t hi s isolatedthinking brings havoc. L if e for thepoor becomes terrible. Fina ll y, evennature tu rns against itself. Oncedenuded, the high so la r energy andtemperaturesthe very factors th atcan bring hig h productivity an dhigh prosperitybegin to bring highdesiccation, erosion, destruction, andsocial and ecological poverty. F A Ofigures show that the effect of un-

the world given the ecoch inaneconditions o f South and SoutheastAsia.

IMPROVING TDB COUNTRY'S G R O S SN AT URE PRODUCT

Nothing could be more importantfor planners and politicians tod aythan to rebuild nature. B u t thiscan on ly be done i f we re-establisha healthy relationship between th epeople an d t h e ir environment.Then only a nature that is usefulto the mill ions, n ot fo r makingmillions c a n b e re-established.Regardless o f what happens in theWestits electronics revolution, it sbiotechnology inventions, it s com-munications satellites, its efforts tomine the oceans and its efforts t obuild solar cells and win d millsand regardless o f ho w much wemay want to catch up with theWest in the name of modernizatiOn,rebuilding nature and rebuilding itsrelationship with the people willremain the o nly way t o solve theproblem o f poverty and po ssiblyeven unemployment. W it h s o me100-150 mi ll io n hectares o f wasteand n e a r-w a s t el a n dsa ndw it hthe

crying need t o produce biomass,this country can never get a betteropportunity to harness the power ofits people to the power of it s land,to strike at the roots of landiessness,poverty and unemployment, a ll a tthe same time.


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)nomists an d b y t heat ion, w i l l no t d is -definitely th e rigour sthe increasing s u s -natural emergencies

d droughts, and deft-creasing rigo urs o farrested by creating

In fact, conventionalof poverty based onor on food caloriesdequate in a situationof the biomass needsincreasingly difficultcollecting t he m o nconstitutes the worst

drudgery humankind,nank ind, ha s ev er: calculations are no tequate but they alsogender bias because

ly with those aspectsck of cash) that theIdly concerned wi t hose aspects of povertyIn deals with (lack ofvater, etc.).,o construct a conceptire Product, we wouldthe poor i t i s th isis many times morein t he c onventionalProduct. I n fact, we

that those who do7rom the c onvent ional,raretheonesw

ically dependant o nature Product . T h e1Product cannot be

The economists get very worr iedabout t he structure o f the GrossNat iona l Product . I t i s equa l l yimportant, if they have the poor inmind, t o get worr ied about th estructure of the Gross Nat ure Pro-duct. I t i s n ot jus t the quant i tyof biomass that is important formeeting basic household needs butalso its diversity: sources of biomasswithin any village ecosystem mustbe diverse enough to meet the diversehousehold needs o f Net , fodder,building materials, etc., an d o f arti-sans. The diversit y in nature has alsoacted as an insurance during periodsof emergency by reducing societal vul-nerability. Duri ng periods of droughtand resulting c rop fai lures, whic hare recurring phenomena i n manyparts of India, roots, leaves and wildanimals i n t he forests, generallybecome a n importan t, alternativesource of nutr it ion. I n 1983, th etribals o f Chotanagour survived adrought not because of governmentassistance bu t des pite gove rnmentcallousness. I t is the forests whi c hgave them their nutrition. Survivingon the forests during a drought iscommon in Bastar. A study f romAfrica found that in times of drought,traditional societies had nearly 150responses. Th e y even fed the thatchof thei r huts t o the goats. B u t ina modern vi l lage there were onlytwo responses: prayer to God (whicheven the Tamil Nadu governmentrecommended durin g t he Mad ra s

grasses, crops, animals and ponds,which we found in almost everyvillage was an extraordinary inter-active and resilient system to emer-gencies. Ins te ad of destroying thiscomplex a n d inter-relat ed system,science must be used to build on it.

In other words, it is not enoughto preserve biological diversity injust those areas o f our countrywhere the flora and fauna are gene-tically ric h an d diverse by settingup biosphere reserves and nationalparks, but that biological diversitymust be preserved and/or recreatedin every village ecosystem. Con c en -trating on the production o f a fewcommodities (cereals, f or instance)is tot al ly inadequate i n a societywhich i s o n l y p ar t l y monet i zedand where the vast majori ty st i l lhave t o depend o n access t o f reebiomass resources f r o m t he im-mediate environment. Ev er y villagehas t o bec ome a biosphere reserve.

Unders tanding o f t h e G ros sNature P roduc t and h ow i t i schanging within the national eco-log ical space ( or sha l l w e say ,national eco nomy) i s extremelylimited, despite its crucial importancefor the poor . W e know noth ingfor instance, about the importanceof the so-called weeds. T h e reasonwe know so l i t t le about the GrossNature Product i s because t he'growing stock' of biomass does notget reflected i n Gros s Na t io na l

s oc v es o r es , ex s s o rdisappears, does n o t mak e a nydifference t o economists. M o s teconomists, not surprisingly, have noclue of what happens to a subsistenceeconomy when its biomass resourcesare affected. Th e growing hardshipsand tensions only get reflected instudies o f ' political economy' whi chrecord growing -c o n f l i c t so v e rl a n d,

forests, fodder, grazing lands, wat ersources, etc., or in totally unexpectedindicators l ike t he sex ratio of thecountry. Just why did 22 mi l l ionwomen fai l to show up in India's1982 census i s anybod y' s guess.Surely t hei r extraordinary wo r kburden, in a situation of malnutri-tion, must be an important factor.

I t i s f o r t h i s reason tha t anindicator like Gross Nature Product,and changes in that indicator, wouldp robab ly re f l ec t f a r be t te r t hechanging reality i n th e substancesector o f a country l i k e Ind ia .-Unfortunatelywedonotknow

how to construct such an indicator.But I am sure i f we did, w e wi l lf ind that whi le the conventionalGNP has gone up, tile Gross NatureProduct has steadily gone down,the former acting as a parasite ontile latter.

The answer t o I ndia's immediateproblem of poverty lies in increasingthe biomass avai lable i n nat ureand increasing it in a manner thataccess to it is ensured on an equitable


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Dud probably requireic thinking that plan-ts and scientists haveThe conflicts andLies in th e existingashave to be extremelyI, Otherwise land-usemtinue to be chaotic.its will continue tog trees on communitythe so-called so cia lammes because t heywill take away th e ir

Forest departmentssants will only planthick animals cannots) even though thereler crisis al l around.take us close tocept of gram swaralyato create village eco-la ar e biological lyIf-reliant in their local:o the maximum extent; will clearly demandintensive use o f ou res like land and watere and diverse growingas. Any science which:o do this will trulyto be called a people'sindeed i t wi ll havelhe knowledge o f the

get challenge is beforesa nd workers andhave to play a crucial

ing that people canthis biomass-based

the involvement o f the people, es-pecially women, without whom thiswork cannot be done.The ro le of women in recreating

a healthy and useful environmentcannot be overstressed.Immediately, at least, the countrymust recognize that a clear biomasspolicy i s desperately needed, wh ichrecognizes th e compet ing uses f o rbiomass in society, especially betweenbiomass-based ind us try , and p o o r

households and sets clear p rioritie son the use o f biomass in a situationof scarcity. Th e needs o f the po ormust b e specified as a prio rity useof biomass in the ex isting situationof environmental degradation,

If we fail to recreate nature ona massive scale in a manner thatgenerates employment and equity,n'ot only our villages but also ourcities will become unlivable. M a n ypeople prefer t o ca ll th e u rbanmigrants economic refugees f ro mthe countrysideto my mind, manyof them are really ecological refugees,displaced by dams, b y mines, b ydeforestation, b y de struction o fgrazing lands, by floods, by droughts,and what not. W e are today theworld's fourth largest urban popu-lation. B efo re the end of the centurywe will be the largest. Managingthis huge urban population wi llcall for extraordinary political andmanagerial sagacity, something wecannot learn fro m the rest o f the

rates to create th e same demandson our rural environment it willonly accelerate t h e destructionof the rural environment and inturn make the urban e nvironmentimpossible to manage. Ind ia cannotsurvive witho ut a low-energy, lo w-resource inpu t urbanization. I n itsabsence, no law o r laws which t ryto turn the incoming ecological and

ar t o t e toc o m on erencethat i f ecology teaches us anythingit is that we have only one earth, inwhich everything is related to every-thing else. I am today tempted toparaphrase her: we, too, have onlyone nation, whe re everything isrelated t o everything else. O n lya holistic approach t o our problemswill work.

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