Browsing by Author "Vyas, Vivek"

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Comparative Study Across Four States of India - Belgaum District, Karnataka State
(Swiss Development Cooperation- Intercooperation, 2007) Smith, Connie; Tiwari, Shailendra; Vyas, Vivek
"This paper explores the current problems faced by pastoralist communities in Belgaum District, Karnataka, as they try to sustain their semi-nomadic lifestyles in the face of modernising agriculture and changing land use. In Karnataka, pastoralists originate mostly from two communities, the Gollas and the Kurubas (also known as Dhangars). Gollas are mainly from the southern part of the state, but there are many Kurubas in Belgaum district, where their estimated population was 866,267 in 1984. Their traditional occupations are rearing sheep, weaving blankets and agriculture. Most pastoralists in Belgaum District are Kurubas; 80% of them are landless shepherds or labourers, whilst around 20% own land and keep large ruminants. Pastoralists form an important sub-section of the animal husbandry sector in this district, predominantly herding sheep and goats. Pastoralists in this area tend to migrate for short periods of a few months, combining nomadic animal husbandry with small-scale crop cultivation in their 'base' villages."
Comparative Study Across Four States of India - Nilgiris District, Tamil Nadu State
(Swiss Development Cooperation- Intercooperation, 2007) Smith, Connie; Tiwari, Shailendra; Vyas, Vivek
"Given the close relationship between water security and the native forests as well as the reliance of tribal groups on forest products, environmental conservation is clearly not a discrete issue from humanitarian development. However, the total protection of biodiversity sites through the creation of reserves can come at the expense of the socio-economic development of those who rely on such habitiats for survival, since they may be denied access to the forests and/or their products. In our field observations, this was clearly apparent in villages adjacent to the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary (a part of the Biosphere Reserve) where tribal people have been restricted to a small fenced area and have no rights over the forestland. The community has been totally alienated from the forest, not being allowed even to enter the land that until recently was the centre of their livelihoods. Compelled to live within the fenced area, their situation has become prison-like and has resulted in a total loss of traditional forest-based livelihoods. "In addition to this, the creation of the biosphere reserve has massively increased tourism in the district. Yet this expansion has occurred with no proper planning and has brought its own pressures, causing significant environmental degradation which is threatening the long term viability of tourism in the hills. Thus there is a possibility that the deep emphasis on conservation is simultaneously restricting the opportunities for adivasi groups reliant on the forest areas as well as encouraging levels of tourism that cannot be sustained without inducing environmental degradation. Tribal communities thus face two inter-related obstacles: firstly the appropriation of much of the forest area for plantations, which has dramatically increased pressure on remaining resources and compounded environmental degradation, and secondly new legislation restricting access to the forest and grasslands, which whilst attempting to protect biodiversity has also emphasised conservation at the expense of adivasi livelihoods. "In the face of such alienation of livelihoods, the work of the Keystone Foundation seems to offer some viable alternatives. Subsistence livelihoods based on shifting cultivation and migratory herding are clearly no longer sustainable in the modern context of the Nilgiri Hills; with few accessible forest areas such practices can only lead to widespread exhaustion of the natural resource base. Keystone work with tribal communities to diversify livelihood opportunities through income generation activities as well as capacity building, which in the long term will help to provide sustainable alternatives in the changing landscape of the Nilgiris."
Comparative Study Across Four States of India: Gajpati District, Orissa State
(Bangalore, India, 2007) Smith, Connie; Tiwari, Shailendra; Vyas, Vivek
"Orissa is the second poorest state in India with one fifth of the population classed as Scheduled Tribes and thirteen tribes have been classed as Primitive Tribal Groups. Such communities are traditionally reliant on livelihoods derived from forest products. In the south of the state, 87% of the scheduled tribe population live below the poverty line, compared to a state average of 50% for the population overall. Gajapati district is situated in southern Orissa, a district characterised by a low literacy rate and very low standards of living for many of the people. The region is notable for its high population of primitive tribal groups inhabiting an area of undulating terrain, where traditionally they practised shifting cultivation in addition to hunter-gathering practices. Approximately 93% of the rural households in this district have legal title on only 9% of the district's land area. Therefore, one of the major development issues facing the rural poor of the district relates to unsettled landholdings, which has left many tribal communities classed as encroachers on lands that historically they inhabited."
Conflicts in Joint Forest Management
(2006) Bhise, S. N.; Vyas, Vivek
"The paper attempts to document the experiences of Seva Mandir in the field of JFM and the various conflicts that arose in the process. These conflicts recounted here illustrate: - Firstly, the constraints to community based natural resource management options such as JFM at the level of policy formulation as well as implementation that fails to address issues like encroachment and boundary disputes. - Secondly they bring to the fore the limitations of a framework like JFM at the level of the community itself due to conflicts arising between external players like the forest department and the FPC or between two or more FPCs. - Thirdly, Capacity and leadership development in the FPC for management of the developed resources can get weakened sometimes due to intra-institutional conflicts triggered by politics or erratic benefit sharing mechanisms."
Forest Land Entitlement Study
(2006) Vyas, Vivek; Bhise, S. N.
"State Forest Departments have taken steps in the past to overcome the issue of encroachment on forests. During the past they had sought to legalize encroachments prior to 1980. Comprehensive surveys have been conducted to map pre and post 1980 encroachments by the forest department as well as by civil society agencies like Jangal Jameen Andolan. These surveys report the extent of encroachments to the policy makers. However, discrepancies exist between the government and NGO figures. The various attempts to mark pre-1980 encroachments and regularize them have failed miserably. The government has proposed a Forest (Tribal) Rights Bill 2005, which has laid down a framework to deal with this issue. It has provisions to empower the Gram Sabhas to determine the encroachments eligible for regularization and forward such cases for approval. Whether the village level committee can take up this responsibility has not been tested as yet. "This study attempts to do a pilot test of the bill in a micro village context. Most importantly this study is a means to gauge the ground realities associated with this issue and to highlight the complexities that can surface during implementation."
Forest-Based Communities in Changing Landscapes: A Comparative Study Across Four States of India
(SDC-IC Intercooperation, 2007) Smith, Connie; Tiwari, Shailendra; Vyas, Vivek
"Traditionally, indigenous communities in India have been dependent on forest and common lands to fulfil their livelihood and cultural demands. However, land use, access and governance have altered dramatically over the last century, often resulting in conflict, degradation and privatisation of such areas. "Yet beyond this generalisation, processes such as colonial rule, population pressure, land tenure patterns and changing access have had different meanings in different regions and cultures of India. In this way, current common land issues faced by each region and community are the consequence of a unique history, demanding that development initiatives must necessarily be context-specific. "This study is an attempt to understand the specificity of common land-based issues across four Indian states. The four participating NGOs (Non-Governmental Organization) have a shared goal of working towards sustainable rural livelihoods and income security in their reference communities, but work in very different environments. "These diverse contexts have shaped the organisations' distinct approaches and strategies to development work. This study has been an opportunity for each NGO to step outside of its field of reference, to share understanding on the different concerns related to commons and forests as well as the diverse approaches required to address these issues."
Operationalisation of Forest Rights Act
(2009) Vyas, Vivek; Tiwari, Shailendra
"Common land and the resources derived from it is the primary source of survival for the resource poor communities in India. After independence, the access of poor communities to common lands was legally denied by the state through different policies. The forest dwelling communities who live in the forests are the worst affected. Therefore, the right to access land is the key determinant both for the deprived and the ecology. The recently declared Scheduled Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, is a step aimed to compensate the historical injustice meted out to forest dwellers, scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dependent communities whose forest rights on ancestral lands and their habitat were not adequately recognized in the consolidation of state forest during colonial period as well as in independent India. Soon after the Act was promulgated, rules were enacted which were notified in the gazette on 19th June, 2007."
Operationalisation of Forest Rights Act 2006 in Udaipur
(2009) Tiwari, Shailendra; Vyas, Vivek
"Progress in programme villages is no different though a significant amount of planning and capacity building was achieved under the project.As an output from the project, following are the salient features and questions that have come out from the project as mentioned below: 1. How to make balance between land se changes and local hydro ecology and issues related to livestock and grazing. 2. There is an urgent need to educate the people regarding the provisions of the act. 3. Not only Individual rights but Community Rights should also be focused upon. 4. Ecological aspects should be taken into account while allocating land titles as this act has the potential of getting transformed into a land distribution scheme. 5. Role of JFM Committees should be clarified. 6. Role of the Forest Department should be that of Facilitation/Sensitization and Verification of the claims through their expertise. 7. Recognition of habitation of Other Forest Dwelling Communities. 8. Shall the 'adhikar patra' be entered into the revenue records? 9. Technology (satellite mapping, GIS) needs to be harnessed to demarcate boundaries. 10. Should we look at this phenomenon of settling claims as a one-stop activity or an ongoing process? 11. How to respond to changing macro-micro landscape (forest land being used for cultivation). 12. Lastly Are We (Communiy--State--Civil Society) prepared for planning ecologically sound land use and environmentally sustainable practices?"
Status of Implementation of the Forest Rights Act in Rajasthan
(2009) Vyas, Vivek
"The paper tries to do a comparative analysis of the forest governance in terms of dealing with the issue of encroachments on forest lands in the state of Rajasthan. Previous studies done by Seva Mandir have shown that enroachments as a phenomenon have had severe impact not only on the ecological health of the forests as common lands but also dilutes the community stake on the same. The paper examines the physical context and the various legislations enacted since the colonial times (both at the centre and state level) to deal with this issue and also the status of the implementation of the same. "The paper also tries to analyse the status of the implementation of the recently enacted forest rights act 2006 that overrides the previous legislations. Surprisingly a total of about 35000 claims have been received in the State of Rajasthan as a result of the act which does not match the actual ground reality in terms of potential claims. Thus somewhere there is lack of understanding as well as capacities at the level of the gram sabhas and forest rights committee. There are also many other hanging issues with the act such as what will happen to the inheritability of the land, will it be entered into the revenue records, what will happen to the community forest rights act provision, deciding upon the non-tribal forest dwelling communities etc. Lastly the paper tries to analyse the various lobbies that are working towards this issue and the way forward. "As against the given topic of Forest Tenure Rights we do agree that recognition of tenure rights is fundamental to the productive use of land, but also that legislative changes such as the forest rights act are fraught with the danger of becoming Land Distribution Schemes. Secondly the capacities at the ground level needs to be enhanced considerably before people/gram sabhas/forest rights committees become capable of deciding upon the legitimacy of the claims and are able to decide upon the judicious land use practices that safeguard sustainability of ecology and livelihoods in the future. This was also evident during one of the pilot projects of Seva Mandir wherein operationalisation and implementation of the Forest Rights Act in a few pilot villages was analysed in the year 2008."
Study of the Feeding Practices through Lopping in Barawa
(2006) Vyas, Vivek; Sharma, Radheyshyam
"According to farmers perception, lopping is a good practices, which contribute to cattle health and milk production of animals. Thus, it may be recommended that:Farmers should be encourage to mix green leaves in dry fodder to increase the palatability and digestibility of the dry fodder. Efforts should also be made to preserve the green leaves by drying in the shade for utilization during the scarce period; There is a need to plan the lopping excercises so as to get maximum output. Lopping of neem should be done before flowering and under fall of leaves to obtained higher productivity per plant; The neem trees are preferable species in the village so plantation of neem tree should be done in community pasturelands. Likewise neem, subabul (Leucenea leucocephola) may be planted, because this is good tree for green leaf fodder; Large cattle depend on the grass/ crop residue that is obtained from the beed/Wasteland of the individual farmers, while the fodder obtained from the charnot/ pastureland is used during the lean period and for the small ruminants. Therefore it once again proves the criticality of the commons for the marginalised people; Farm boundary plantations may be encouraged to improve the availability of green fodder as well as to improve the income of the farmer with surplus as leaf bearing trees have definitely emerged as a saleable commodity (are usually given on lease to needy farmers); Seva Mandir's Pasture land and Afforestation program can learn from the findings of this study and the same can be implemented in other areas as well. The concerns regarding small ruminants will have to be incorporated in the other works if the work has to have sustainability."
Whither Common Properties: Learning from the Field
(2011) Vyas, Vivek
"This paper examines four case studies, both longitudinally over several years of development intervention and latitudinally across four villages in Udaipur district, southern Rajasthan, India, to explore the links between the health of Common Property Resources (CPRs) and community institutions and leadership. CPRs cover at least 15% of the landmass of India, with another approximately 25% of land under forest cover serving as additional uncounted CPRs and ecological buffers. CPRs represent a critical source of biomass in the form of fodder, fuel wood, timber, etc. for the livelihoods of the rural poor, while also maintaining the integrity of numerous important ecosystems. Aside from the economic and ecological importance of CPRs, we argue that their successful management can strengthen community solidarity among rural peoples by creating or revitalizing village-level institutions and local ecosystems. Vibrant leadership and village institutions in turn become a powerful tool for undertaking participatory development in other areas where trust, solidarity, and cooperation are necessary for success. In these cases, we examine the processes, successes, and failures of management of common properties like pastureland development and Joint Forest Management (JFM). The cases are examples from the ongoing programs of Seva Mandir, an Indian NGO with over 40 years of experience in grassroots participatory development among the tribal and village communities of Udaipur district. Seva Mandir has worked to rehabilitate the commons over a period of 20 years on more than 13,000 hectares of community lands."