Conservation Outside Protected Areas

A notable feature of the debate on conserving India’s wild biodiversity is the focus on national parks and wildlife sanctuaries (commonly referred to as protected areas – PAs). Virtually all participants – whatever their ideological positions and opinions on policy matters - discuss issues in the context of PAs.

Even among PAs it is a few that dominate. Virtually all studies and references come from a list comprising Gir, Bharatpur, Sariska, Ranthambore, Rajaji, Great Himalayan National Park, Kanha, Nagarhole-Bandipur, and a few others. PAs attract researchers due to their glamour value but also due to the availability of information, baseline data and superior logistics.

This concentration is reflected in the published work (among books see, for example, 1, 2, and 3). Virtually all analysis, criticisms and prescriptions come from a few sites.

Why are PAs so important? To one set of wildlife protagonists they (potentially) provide inviolate spaces where human beings or their activities can be excluded. To another set there is no contradiction between conservation imperatives and human activities and in fact, many argue, that human activities may promote biodiversity. This is not the occasion to visit the debate but ask a different question. Is the exclusive focus on PAs healthy? Desirable? Are we missing something?

Collectively the PAs make up a little less than 5% (16 million hectares) of India’s geographical area. The total forest area in the country is about 77 million hectares or 24% of the total land area. So approximately 19% or a massive 60 million hectares are other forests (OFs) which are not PAs. This is reason enough to look at more than just protected areas.

There may be another reason too. As Vasant Saberwal states in a slightly different but related context

“Human disturbances may increase floral and faunal diversity in a number of ways.” (pg. 55).

Fire, grazing, logging and extraction of NTFPs are examples of such human disturbances. Now it is a reasonable assumption that most of the OFs have “considerably greater” human activities than PAs. To the extent disturbance (albeit, up to a certain degree) promotes diversity, OFs are huge reservoirs of floral and small-faunal diversity. Thus OFs are extremely important conservation areas not only for their sheer aggregate area but also for the fact that they may harbour significant biodiversity which may match or exceed those in PAs.

But do we need to study the OFs or can we carry our insights from PAs to them. The OFs’ very different legal status and consequent ecological and social history probably implies very different patterns of resource availability and extraction.

Hence biodiversity studies in OFs and their inclusion in debates about conservation ought to be of utmost importance.

Leading researchers had in an essay, rightly argued, among other things, for greater encouragement, opportunities and access for doing research in wildlife areas. But they limit their case to PAs. It may well be time to look beyond parks and sanctuaries.

Earlier Post as a Letter

An earlier post on Sariska now appears as a slightly edited letter in the EPW.

Livelihoods in Sariska: A Comment

In a recent article Shahabuddin et. al. raise very pertinent issues regarding eviction and rehabilitation of people from the Sariska Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan. On reading the article my attention got drawn to the results of the fieldwork done by the authors.

To quote:

The average household economy, based on livestock grazing and milk sales, literally subsists on the edge. While the average gross annual income per household is approximately Rs 48,175 (Table 4), the average household spends approximately Rs 18,000 every year on farm fodder and commercial fodder. Therefore, the average annual disposable household income is approximately Rs 30,190. A significant share of the average gross household income goes toward healthcare (on average Rs 8,500 per household per year). That leaves approximately Rs 27,000 per household annually as expenditure on food which works out to an average of Rs 350 per capita per month. In terms of proportions, about 50 per cent of household expenditure is on food, 21 per cent on commercial fodder, 11 per cent on farm fodder and 16 per cent on medical care. The economy of the average household is debt-ridden and precariously balanced, highly vulnerable in the event of natural disasters such as drought.


Now if one subtracts Rs. 8,500 from Rs. 30,190 one doesn’t get 27,000 but Rs. 21,690. Maybe it is just a typo. However, neither Rs. 21,690 nor Rs. 27,000 is 50 % of the gross (48,175) or net (30,190) agricultural income. Similarly Rs.18,000 (the amount spend on fodder) is not 32 % of either 48,175 or 30,190. The numbers don’t quite add up.

The households also spend Rs 8,500 per annum on medical care which is unbelievably high – 28 and 18 – per cent of net and gross income, respectively. Even the absolute figure seems very high. Note that there is no expenditure on transport, clothing or any other household item. And though the households are debtors they don’t pay any interest and do not seem to repaying the principal as well!!

The numbers relate to one year, there is no measure of dispersion and no comparison with other villages in the district or in the state.

The authors describe the households as debt-ridden (no figures, though) and state:

By way of livestock, each household among the 190 surveyed owned nine buffaloes, one cow and 12 goats, on average. While goats comprise as much as 54.65 per cent of total livestock holdings, buffaloes make up 40.09 per cent. For the villagers, goats form a liquid asset because they can be sold easily at any time of the year. Herds are commonly doubled each year.

A simple calculation would show that the value of livestock alone, as listed above, would add up to a couple of lakhs of rupees. Add to it value of the house, land and other assets the households would have to borrow absurdly large sums to be net debtors. What on earth would they be doing with such funds? Trading on the stock exchange?

Finally, read the last line again. …………………. . it would put hedge fund operators to shame!!!

On wage employment the authors say:

People said that the income sources are more diverse today than about 15 years ago due to the fact that people have started going out of the area in search of employment. Most people spend four to six months of the year working in nearby cities – mainly Bhiwadi, Jaipur and Bharatpur.

For the 190 households surveyed the total wage income is estimated at Rs. 5,88,100. The number of adults (>18 yrs) in these households is 631. Assuming that only one adult per household works in the nearby cities and does so for 125 days (5 months @ 25 days per month) we get a daily wage rate of Rs. 25 which is an absurdly low figure.

Some of the problems in the study may due to carelessness. However, the article also highlights the pitfalls of relying on recall data using questionnaires without independent corroboration. The internal inconsistencies in such responses are not always as easily apparent as in this particular case.