Regional Dailies

Participants at the national workshop on 'Community Conserved Biodiverse Areas,' being held at the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal, concluded that communities have been the strongest force in the conservation of biodiversity in several areas. However, in order to promote community conserved areas (CCAs) in other part of India, enabling conditions and support are required. This conclusion was based on a series of case studies overviews of the very many examples of eco systems and species being protected and conserved by communities across India.

The workshop was organized by Kalpavriksh (Environmental Action Group), Indian Institute of Forest Management, Winrock International India and Indian Social Institute. Participants came from 15 states of India.

During the workshop it was recommended that community conserved areas need to be given much broader recognition and support throughout the country. This could be through documentation, legal backing, institutional support and enabling conditions to secure the rights of communities to the resource they depend on and are conserving. In doing so, the tremendous diversity of approaches that communities have evolved, needs to be respected and supported.

It was recommended that CCAs need to be understood, documented, demarcated and highlighted at all levels including the mass media. Ecological, social and economic impacts of CCAs to be assessed at logical, regional and national levels. Simple monitoring and assessment techniques to be developed, which will include community perspective and parameters.

Existing community institutions, practices and knowledge systems should be recognized and build on and wherever necessary, modified based on lessons being learnt, rather than displaced by new institutions as part of development. Conservation programs efforts in organizing community institutions should be simple and practical.

It was also recommended in the workshop that great diversity of community institutions and approaches should be respected and strengthened. Neglected villages like Taungya villages, conservation and development initiatives should be seen as long term, dynamic process, rather than short-term target oriented projects. Such initiatives must provide special opportunities to underprivileged sections, including separate forums. Forums for dialogues and conflict resolution involving all stakeholders need to be created. The diversity of CCAs and a range of laws and policies, space for community conservation need to be used and given that the above might not be adequate to cover the full range of CCAs need to be explored such as heritage sites in the proposed biodiversity Bill, community reserves in the proposed amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act 1972, separate state acts for CCAs.

Other important recommendations are that citizens have a full right to information including efficient and locally accessible modes of dissemination; political parties, armed forces, donors, media and decision makers need to be sensitized to CCA issues. Tourism must be managed by local communities with sensitivity towards conservation and cultural dimensions. There is a need to provide clear and secure tenural rights to land and other natural resources to ensure a stake in conservation. All new policy initiatives including 10th Five Year Plan should integrate CCA as a strategy. Laws and policies need to be made accessible in simple and local languages. There should be focus on CCAs within official protected areas and there is need to urgently address issues leading to erosion of CCAs.

These recommendations will be sent to central and state governments. The participants decide to set up an informal network to further the recommendations, which will take up the following activities.

Documentation and highlighting of CCA initiatives across the country; exchange and dissemination of information amongst various sections of society. Training of CCA participants and facilitating agencies; creating a central database on CCAs and legal and policy advocacy to strengthen the enabling environment for CCAs, including the development of detailed guidelines for various laws and holding workshops.

Shantha Bhusan from Kalpaviksh proposed the vote of thanks at the concluding session of the seminar. From the side of participants Affifulah Khan thanked Kalpavriksh [and the Winrock India] team for organizing the workshop.

Institutions for community management and intra-community groups consisting of activists, NGOs, conservationists drawn from all over the country had detailed discussions on Thursday. It was recommended at the meeting that the purpose for which they are designing community institutions should be linked to the basic livelihood and survival of the various members of the community and the organizing efforts should be easy and simple. The group also recommended that community should be given right and recognition to frame their own rules, structure, benefit sharing and sanction mechanisms. There is tremendous diversity of community institutions protecting nature resource. Government policies must give due recognition to this diversity and not think of uniform structures.

Certain issues emerged out of the first day's presentation in the national workshop on community conserved biodiverse areas in India at Indian Institute of Forest Management. Issues that emerged were clubbed into four groups. Participants of each group after detailed discussions on these issues gave recommendations.

It was further recommended that any process of intervention and policy making should be done after consultation with community institutions. For this purpose the group recommended creation of a multi-stakeholder forum at the state level.

Recommendations for making and enabling environment for community conserved areas (CCAs) in India would be discussed and final recommendations would be given to the Ministry of Environment and Forests and relevant government agencies, research institutions and community organizations. Coordinator of FRLHT, Bangalore, G Raju talking to Central Chronicle said that most of the issues in the discussion were related to institution, hence it has assumed greater significance. During the discussion Madhu Sareen of Institution for Community Management group, said that in policy formation there should be greater acceptance of local knowledge and traditional wisdom.

She said that institution mechanism need to be put in place and there was need to evolve in a holistic manner for which community representation should be ensured. Ms Madhu added that development of new participatory a policy or programs need to be evolved through a process in which local people have say.

Findings of social and ecological impacts of community conservation are that there are paucity of scientific studies, wherever assessment has been done. It is mostly at local level - regional and national level assessments are not available. This group further recommended that community perspective was mostly missing. Most studies focus on higher plant taxa-faunal perspective was missing.

Group discussing major impediments and threats to community initiatives recommended that CCAs should be linked to larger people's movements, promote self sufficiency in finance, decision making, promote greater understanding / documentation of impact of larger context on CCAs, and response to these. The group further recommended that publicize and learn from CCAs that have successfully dealt with challenges in larger context, create larger network to support CCAs in responding to the context, including officials, people's movement, NGOs and individual experts.

Group discussing existing and potential spaces in laws and policies recommended that there is need to explore the role of Wildlife Advisory Board (state) in promoting CCAs. Provisions of section 24 ( 2 ) ( C ) needs to be used more innovatively, need to redefine the term 'Wild', 'Wildlife', 'Habitats', 'Community', said the group. This group further recommended that there should be community conservation as a cross-cutting issue in existing PA category, provision of village forests in section 28 needs to be utilized and guidelines drafted, concept of village forest needs to be incorporated in state forest acts and policies, experience of CCAs needs to be incorporated while drafting rules, legal teeth to VFCs and section 3 (2) (V) (ESAs) to be explored for legal backing to CCAs.

Project coordinator of Kalpavriksh (an NGO and environment action group from Pune and Delhi), Ms Neema Pathak elaborating the concept of community conserved bio-diversity areas from India and abroad presented an overview and said that people should be given chance to participate in decision-making regarding conservation of eco system.

She defined community conserved areas (CCAs) as those areas with substantial or minimal human influence being conserved by the communities either on their own or with the help of outside agencies. She cited an example of Medhalkeha village in Maharashtra. Ms Neema said that there were 300 Gond communities in the village protecting 1800 hectares of forests. She said that there were various examples where local people were protecting habitat as well as species. Neema said that communities were conserving forests so if people were given chance they could conserve forests.

Ms Neema Pathak was presenting an overview of CCAs in the three-day national workshop on community conserved biodiverse areas in India at Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal which was organized jointly by Kalpvraksh, IIFM, Winrock International India and ISI.

The workshop was informally inaugurated in which director of IIFM, Dr Ram Prasad introduced the workshop. He said there were parallel biodiversity conservation efforts, one by government and other by people. Director of IIFM said that we could also distinguish a third one, which was collaborative arrangement involving the state, the people and NGOs. While there are documents on the extent, type, management models, policy and legal frameworks etc for government efforts, to some extent for collaborative efforts also, but there is total absence of reliable data on individual / community efforts. Such community initiatives need to be documented and analyzed as to the requirements of institutional and other support, said Ram Prasad. He said that we were here in this workshop to appreciate these values and concerns.

Chief Wild Life Warden, Maharashtra, Majumdar and PCCF, Wild Life Madhya Pradesh, PF Mishra briefly spoke about the importance of community initiatives for biodiversity conservation. The inaugural session ended with vote of thanks by Dr Suprava Patnaik. Talking to Central Chronicle, director of IIFM said that looking at the diverse variety of participants from Ladakh to Kerala and Gujarat to Shillong and the variety of subjects the outcome of the discussion is bound to be fruitful. Alka Sabharwal from northern region said in her presentation that there was a remote area called Charythang in Ladakh where the people are called Changpas. She said that Changpas were pastoral nomads and survive on sheep, goat and yak rearing in high altitude pasture lands. There is a need to recognize their traditional system of sustainable resource utilization by the state, said Alka. She said that Charythang has been declared a wild life for sanctuary and with increased developmental activities, the ecological balance in which local community played an important role is disturbed and communities role is undermined.

Vijay Jardhan from Garhwal in his presentation said that villagers participation is must in conservation of forest. He said that if the work of conservation of forest is give to villagers then only forests can be saved. Vijay said that there are many villages in Garhwal where people have conserved forest without outside help. He said that jungles can be saved if responsibility of their protection is given to local people. Vijay said that condition of forests will be better if forest department does not exist. Vijay Jardhan has also worked for Chipko Andolan.

This was followed by presentation by Priya Das from western region who spoke on stop axe campaign talking about Kailadevei sanctuary in the northern part of Ranthambore Tiger Reserve. The Mohan Hirabai Hiralal from Maharashtra presented his views. In the post lunch session of the workshop Ruchi Pant from Arunachal Pradesh, Vincent Darlong from Tripura gave their presentation from the North Eastern Region.

A three-day National Workshop on "Community Conserved Biodeverse Areas in India" has been organized here at the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) from Wednesday.

The workshop is being jointly organized by Kalpavriksh Environment Action Group. Indian Social Institute (ISI) New Delhi, Winrock International India and IIFM Bhopal with additional funding from the Ford foundation. The objective of the workshop is to provide a forum for individuals, government and non-government organizations and other agencies to discuss community-based biodiversity conservation in India.

The world over, there are several initiatives by local communities in conserving natural resources on which they depend. These initiatives range from continuation of traditional practices such as sacred groves, to revival of lost traditions of conservation.

The two-day training program on "Financing for solar appliances", for managers of commercial and rural banks in the district was inaugurated by the former Chairman and Managing Director of Syndicate Bank, Mr N.K. Thingalaya, here on Saturday.

Addressing the managers, Mr. Thingalaya said the program, the second in the first series of 10 programs to be organized by Syndicate Bank in association with the Bharatiya Vikas Trust and Winrock International India (USAID), would focus on funding that would provide lighting to over 80,000 villages across the country.

Mr Thingalaya said the gap between demand and supply had become greater with every passing year. Although there had been a significant increase in power generation in the country from 4.6 billion kilowatt hours in 1950 to 82.7 billion kilowatt hours in 1999, the problem of power shortage continued. Quoting the report of the Human Development Index of the State, he said there was still a large number of villages that had not been electrified.

While attributing a part of the blame on the inefficiency of KPTCL, he said the losses made by the cooperation were much more than that of the regional rural banks. The transmission and distribution losses, along with pilferage, had caused huge losses to KPTCL. The solution to the problem would be to set up power generating units locally at a nominal cost. An effort to explore better ways of harnessing power from natural sources should also be thought about, he said.

The program manager, Ms Ayesha Grewal, Winrock International India (WII), said that there was enormous potential for solar photovoltaic systems to supply power to households. According to rough estimates, nearly 140 million households in the country do not have access to electricity from the local grid for various reasons. Winrock International India (WII), which has been organizing programs in the country since 1984, had been focussing on two critical areas, energy and environment and natural resources management. As part of its program, WII had supported Don Bosco to provide over 120 photovoltaic cells to the basket weavers of Kerala, and this had greatly increased their income generation potential, she said.

Ms Grewal said that the focus of the program was to reduce the constraints on, and increase the capacity for, financing solar home systems in India, while at the same time helping local entrepreneurs build sound portfolios of solar energy projects for investment. A few progressive government and quasi-government financial institutions offered limited technical assistance services and credit packages to support the sales of solar home systems (SHS) in the country, and the handicap in the successful implementation of the program was that the managers and local officers at the branches in rural areas lacked access to and the experience of the methodology to asses the risks of lending for the program.

One of the core elements of the Solar Finance Capacity Building Initiative (SFCBI) organized by WII, along with a team of local and international experts, and sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), has been the training program for finance professionals in the methodologies of lending.


The sessions in the first series will include a familiarization module designed to introduce finance professionals to the technical and economic aspects of SHS, finance and economic aspects of SHS, a finance module to give an overview of the methods of lending for SHS and a case study module that will detail actual structures and present experiences.

Ms. Grewal said that the first program at Udupi was well attended by finance professionals and it was too early to expect results.

Winrock International (India) will conduct a series of solar finance capacity building training programs, to make bankers feel comfortable while lending money for solar lighting systems.

Winrock has a network of partners ranging from USAID to the World Bank, UNESCO and UNDP.

With an estimated 80,000 villages in the country still having no access to power and over two-thirds of the 140 million rural households deprived of access to electricity from the grid, Winrock - with an eye on the potential market for solar lighting systems - now hopes to provide 1,000 bank managers with familiarity and experience. This, it hopes, would help extend the market for solar home systems.

Towards this end Winrock, in association with Syndicate Bank and Bharathiya Vikas Trust, had sponsored a two-day training program in Mangalore. It also plans a series of such program for branch managers in several districts of Karnataka and Kerala.

Addressing a press conference here, the Winrock Solar Finance Capacity Building Training Program Manager, Ms Ayesha Grewal, said Winrock International (India), an affiliate of Winrock International, is working with a team of local and international experts to implement the solar finance capacity building initiative.

The initiative is sponsored by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and is supposed to be designed to reduce the constraints on, and increase the capacity for, financing of solar home systems in the country while at the same time helping local entrepreneurs build sound portfolios of solar energy projects for investments.

One of the core elements of the initiative is the training program designed to train finance professionals in the methodologies of lending for solar home systems.

The course is targeted at providing branch managers with the information they need to make a loan for such systems including a module designed to introduce finance professionals to the technical and financial aspects of the systems, a finance module that instructs bankers in lending methods, and a case study module with details of actual experiences at the grass roots level.

The financial details of such a loan scheme, however, are yet to be worked out. However, according to Syndicate Bank, one would have to own either a house or a whole building to be eligible for such a loan which would cover 80 per cent of the cost of the entire unit.

The bank also requires security from a person acceptable to the bank. The loan could be repaid in monthly, quarterly or half-yearly installments but within a maximum period of five years.

On her part, however, Ms Grewal feels that the initiative could work if it were linked to 'income-generating activities.' Basket weavers, for instance, could weave an extra basket a day and make more money if they had a solar lighting system in the house. This, Ms. Grewal added, would enhance their 'financial capacity' to repay the money they would have to borrow to light up their homes.