Current World Environment

Introduction

Natural resource management (NRM) has been considered as one of the important social-cultural practices of the local community since time immemorial. It has been practiced worldwide for meeting the social, cultural and economic needs. The eastern Himalaya is world widely renowned as a biodiversity hotspot.¹ The traditional knowledge system (TKS) of local people is unique and  is used for managing the valuable natural resources.^2,3 However, resource utilization is mostly done at sustenance level.^4,5 Traditional forest management is an important aspect of NRM that has direct or indirect link with other land use systems like farming system, agroforestry, etc.,⁴ The informal institution, locally known as village council, plays a significant role in the management and resolving inter/intra village conflict in NRM practices.^6,7 The traditional knowledge of ethnic community helps in the utilization & conservation of natural resources.⁸

Arunachal Pradesh is one of the 29 states of India, which is an integral part of eastern Himalaya.⁹ It has diverse ethnicity, biological diversity, endemism and unique natural resource management practices. The Shedukpen tribe is one of the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh and mainly settled in the West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh.¹⁰ The agriculture is the main occupation of Sherdukpen tribe.¹¹ and they also practice terrace cultivation for agriculture.¹² The main agricultural and horticultural crops raised are tomato, potato and apple.¹¹ The faunal resources are conserved at the regional level through imposing taboos, totem and establishment of sacred sites.^13,14 The religious practices of the tribe also help in the conservation of biological diversity by utilizing certain plants.¹⁵ The village council of Sherdukpen is called Jung and it play an important role in the management and conservation of natural resources.¹⁰ Hunting has been considered as a traditional practice of Sherdukpen tribe and the village council played an important role in its regulation at village level.¹³ The forest has been classified into five types: Blu dongsek (Community forest), khik donsek (Village forest), Sangthing dongsek (Individual forest), Donsek achok (Sacred groves) and Nyor see (Grazing land).¹⁰

The present study aims to document the NRM practices of Sherdukpen tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, which may help in the conservation of biological resources and also assist in finding the gap in the existing NRM practices, which will collectively contribute in the attainment of sustainable development through NRM.^16,17,18

Materials and Methods

Three fringe villages of Shergaon Forest Division, Arunachal Pradesh viz. Membachur, Mukhuthing and Thongre have been selected for the study. The study site was located in the West Kameng District of Arunachal Pradesh. It is situated between 91⁰30’ to 92⁰40’ E longitude and 26⁰56’ to 28⁰01’ N latitude. The land use pattern of the West Kamang district consisted of cultivable land, forest land, pastoral land, etc. (Table 1). The household survey was done with standardized questionnaire through random sampling and 97 households were interviewed. The information related to social aspects, economical aspect and ecological aspect were collected from the respondents based on age groups, educational status, gender, village head (Gaon Bura), etc. The data was collected for a period of 4 months i.e., December, 2011 to April, 2012.

Table 1: Land use pattern of West Kameng district.

Source: Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of agriculture, Govt. of India (2011-2012)

Results and Discussion

Socioeconomic Condition

Sherdukpen tribe is found to be the dominant tribe among the selected villages viz., Membachur, Mukhuthing and Thongri. About 90% of the respondent follows the Buddhism religion. The prevalent family type found is joint family that ranges from 78% to 86%. The highest number of family members per household is found in Membachur village, which is 6 (six), followed by Thongri (5) and Mukhuthing (5). The highest literacy rate is found in Thongri village, which is 61%, followed by Membachur (40%) and Mukhuthing (35%). In all the selected villages, traditional village council and Panchayati raj institution are co-existing and plays an important role in the management of natural resources (Table 2).

Table 2: Socio-cultural status of Shedukpen tribes of fringe villages of Shergaon Forest division.

The average annual income of the household of the selected fringe villages varies from Rs. 47,000 to Rs. 1,35,000. Farming is the main occupation of the tribe and ranges from 90% to 95%. However, merely 5% to 15% of the populations are under government job (Table 3).

Table 3: Economic aspect of the Shedukpen tribe.

The highest average agricultural land holding per household (HH) is found in Thongri village, which is about 1.2 ha, followed by Membachur village (0.8 ha) and Mukhuthing village (0.72 ha). The highest average forest land holding per HH is found in both Mukhuthing village and Membachur village which is about 0.8 ha (Table 4).

Table 4: Landholding of the villages.

Documentation of Natural Resource Management of Sherdukpen tribe

The NRM practices of the Sherdupen tribe consists of traditional maize cultivation, community forest, individual forest management, etc. (Table 5).

Table 5: Documentation of traditional natural resource management practices of Sherdukpens tribe.

In the present study, agriculture is reported as a the main occupation of Sherdukpen tribe, which is similar to the findings of Shimrah et al.¹¹ The leaves of Quercus sp. is traditionally utilized for Zea mays cultivation, which help in replenishing the nutrient loss, mulching, etc., and similar finding was reported by Dollo et al.,¹⁰ Forest played an important role in meeting the needs of social, cultural and religious aspect of Sherdukpen tribe. It has been classified based on ownership, such as (i) community forest and (ii) individual forest. The community forest (CF) is further classified into two sub-types based on the function such as (i) CF (exclusively for religious purposes) and (ii) CF (meeting the requirement of the local people). However, five types of forest have been reported based on land use viz., community forest, village forest, individual forest, sacred groves and community grazing land by Dollo et al.,¹⁰ Hunting has been reported to be traditional practices of Sherdukpen, which is similar to the finding of Mazumdar et al.,¹³ The village council is a traditional institution, which played an important role in the management and conservation of forest resources, which is similar to findings of Mazumdar et al.,¹³

The NRM practices of the Sherdukpen tribes are diverse and this practice not only helps in meeting the basic needs of the community but also helps in the protection of biological diversity. At present, the traditional land use systems are under constant anthropogenic pressure due to change in land use pattern. In Arunachal Pradesh, the area of maize cultivation has been declining gradually from 15.1% (1990-91) to 12.07% (2013-14).¹⁸ A similar trend has been found in the studied fringe villages of the Shergaon Forest Division. Although, the traditional maize cultivation provides various goods and environmental services viz. staple food, supplements the fodder requirement during the winter, soil and water conservation, conservation of Quercus sp., etc. This form of farming need to be preserved and restored as it fulfills all the aspects of sustainable development principle. At present, the area under horticultural crop in Arunachal Pradesh has tremendously increased from 7.4% (1990-91) to 22.86% (2013-14).¹⁸ Both cash cropping and horticultural crop are also exerting pressure on the Community forest land, which are gradually converted due to better economic return and scarcity of land resource. Moreover, the use of inorganic chemical inputs in these land use systems is a matter of concern, which needs to be replaced with organic farming and complimentary land use systems.

Conclusion

The NRM practices of Sherdukpen tribe consist of traditional maize cultivation, cash cropping, horticultural crop, individual forest and community forest management. These natural resource management practices meet all the needs of the community viz., social, cultural and economic needs. However, change in forest and traditional agricultural land use system to cash cropping and horticulture may affect the traditional NRM practices of Sherdukpen tribe in the long run and is a matter of concern from the conservation of biological diversity point of view. At the transaction stage of state development, the interlinking of sectoral policies should be emphasized and there should be a synergy between development activities and conservation of biological diversity at all levels.

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to the villagers of Membachur, Thongri and Mukhuthing village of Rupa, West Kameng district and DFO, Shergaon Forest Division, Arunachal Pradesh for extending their cooperation.

References
 

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