Another case of mishandling vulnerable people's place in the natural environment

A few months back, I wrote about the policy and philosophical issues surrounding the tenuous access and rights afforded to traditional dwellers of a national park in Botswana. Similar issues were reported regarding the Ogiek in Kenya by the New York Times on 14th November of this year:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/world/africa/15kenya.html?ref=africa

The Ogiek are traditional dwellers of the Mau Forest in Kenya, wherein they have hunted and collected non-timber forest products (NTFP) for subsistence. The article reports that the Ogiek's lifestyle and livelihoods have been under threat from harmful forest policies since the time of British colonialism, when the British removed native flora from the Mau Forest in order to plant non-native tree species for the production of timber. This practice was common British forest policy and was certainly known here in India, where forest dependent peoples were similarly impacted by having their means of subsistence and livelihood diminished through timber-oriented forest transformations.

The ecosystemic changes caused by timber-oriented forest conversions have devastating short and long term impacts on forest dependent peoples since the goods and services provided to such people by well-functioning, native ecosystems are lost after such disruptions. Typically, the non-native tree species replacing the native ones removed from forests are scarcely beneficial to forest dependent peoples who rely on forests for food, energy, and other products to consume directly or sell. In the case of the Ogiek, honey is a mainstay. In short, when forests are drastically changed, the ecosystem dies and with it the livelihoods of people in those forests.

Presently, the Kenyan government is pledging to evict all inhabitants of the Mau Forest, which includes the Ogiek as well as other who were misguidedly given parcels in the forest in the past. Destruction of the Mao forest ecosystem has significantly decreased its productive capacity for water, a resource the nation relies on. The article describes the government's plans to evict forest inhabitants as a move toward conservation and restoration. This may or may not be true, as there is also speculation that renewed interest in timber activities could be also be behind the new policy.

Despite the government's intentions, there are clear lessons to be learned about forced exclusion of people from the lands they depend on. The most important of these lessons is simple: it doesn't work. For people who are highly integrated in direct dependence on ecosystems for subsistence and livelihoods, real exclusion from said resources is not often possible. People continue to use the resource, although in less sustainable ways and, under the exclusionary policies, illegally. Strongly supportive, participatory approaches to changing forest-dependent people's reliance have shown much more success throughout the developing world. These policies give people a stake in protecting and conserving resources such as forests while allowing them to use the forest in ways consistent with its preservation.

In this case, another, newer population of Mao Forest inhabitants are also stakeholders. These are not traditionally forest-dependent people like the Ogiek, but those who have been handed parcels of land in the past and have cultivated agriculture there - a practice that, along with timber extraction, has led to the Mao Forest's degradation in the first place. Although relocation and exclusion of these people may be more feasible given their shorter tenure in the forest and their status as agriculturalists, they too will resist and likely use the forest illegally after exclusionary policies are undertaken.

By all signs, this case is a mess created by decades of policies abusive to ecosystems and people. All evidence from the social and natural science of forest management points to the need for a new policy that will include forest dependent people in forest conservation and preservation, not exclude them. Let's now hope the government of Kenya can heed this evidence.

 

Gardenia Gummifera

In the course of my study of human and natural systems in India, I'm looking at the dependence on a particular tree species - Gardenia Gummifera or Bikki, its common name in Telugu. Endemic to India, it is listed as Least Concern by the IUCN, although it is sparsely distributed. It occurs as a shrub or small tree in dry, deciduous woodlands. Bikki produces a small, sweet fruit, which is collected by villagers in our study area to sell and for personal consumption. The wood is sometimes harvested for fuelwood, although less so than other species. Non-human fruit predators include slothbears, goats and sheep, and wild boars. Other threats include the extract of gum. It flowers in March and produces fruit between April and August. Like other trees in local forests, it is susceptible to seasonal fires, which pose a threat to regeneration.

Photo: Tiffany Knight