Community stewardship for conservation in Western Arunachal Landscape,India

WWF-India
Publié: 30 mars 2016
Dernière modification: 02 octobre 2020
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Résumé

Community Conserved Areas (CCAs) formed with the help of WWF India in Arunachal Pradesh have helped local communities to better manage forests. Factors such as excessive use of forest resources and setting up of large infrastructure projects have led to forest loss across the region. CCA have helped reverse this trend with local communities setting aside large portions of the forest as conserved area and managing these areas for conservation and sustainable livelihood purposes.

Classifications

Région
Asie du Sud
Ampleur de la mise en œuvre
Intranational
Ecosystème
Forêt de feuillus tempéré
Écosystèmes forestiers
Thème
Accès et partage des avantages
Acteurs locaux
Culture
Fragmentation et la dégradtion de l'habitat
Gestion des bassins versants
Indigènes
Sensibilisation et communications
Services écosystèmiques
Tourisme
Défis
Dégradation des terres et des forêts
Perte de biodiversité
Développement d’infrastructure
Manque d'autres possibilités de revenu
Extraction de ressources matérielles
Changements dans le contexte socio-culturel
Manque de sensibilisation du public et des décideurs
Mauvaise gouvernance et participation

Emplacement

Western Arunachal Landscape, Arunachal Pradesh, India

Défis

forest loss/ degradation, hunting, large-scale infrastructure developments Two-third of forest cover of the state falls outside PAs and de-facto remains under control of local communities. It harbours an assemblage of wildlife including threatened species. Traditional forest management practices are gradually eroding leading to unsustainable harvest of forests further compounded by development of large-scale infrastructure projects resulting in biodiversity loss.

Bénéficiaires

Local communities (Monpa, Shertukpen), 14 villages, ~400 households

Comment les blocs constitutifs interagissent-ils entre eux dans la solution?

Recognizing the fact that large tracts of the forest are under community jurisdiction and are continuously being affected by forest loss and degradation, a community-based approach to arrest the loss of forests, associated biodiversity and linked livelihoods was envisaged. Key to ensure that a community based initiative becomes successful was the recognition that the process is democratic, participatory and inclusive in nature. A necessary and desirable outcome of this is a sense of ownership across the community. Institution building is key to sustaining the processes leading to forest and biodiversity protection. Given growing aspirations of local communities, especially youth, the need for incentivizing conservation through sustainable livelihood options including community based tourism is crucial. The entire community-based conservation process and finally, putting up a management plan through participatory approach helps long-term conservation of forests under community jurisdiction.

Impacts

1. The CCA maintain ecosystem services while securing key wildlife habitats (the CCA covers significant habitat of red panda, Himalayan goral, serow, mishmi takin, marbled cat and contains high altitude lakes). Since 2007, community members have voluntarily declared four CCAs, which together cover an area of roughly 1,000 km2 of forests. 2. The CCA model and approach has been successfully endorsed by the government of Arunachal Pradesh. Collaboration with developmental agencies including line departments at district, state and national levels have been integral part of this effort. Apart from substantial support that this project received from the state, one of the CCA management committees now receives an independent three-year long grant ($ 40,000) from the Department of Science & Technology, Government of India to strengthen its work. 3. The Community-based Tourism (CBT) initiative in Thembang, one of the CCAs, is now in its seventh year with revenues increasing four-fold since inception, amounting to $ 23,000 as of March 31, 2015.

Histoire

Changing attitude towards conservation: The community-based conservation model has had an organic growth over last one decade. Today, there are roughly 1,000 sq km of pristine forests fall under this management regime where community decides management rules and implements protocols on sustainable resource harvesting practices. These changes have come throughout the years of rigorous and regular engagement with the local community. “We have been working very hard to conserve the red panda, the black-necked crane and to preserve forests for our future generation” said Rinchin Wangdi, one of the executive members of Pangchen Lakhar CCA management committee while attending an award function held recently. “The award is a prize but we will also take this as a responsibility to perform better” he added. This positive attitude of the community has come over the period of time with successful implementation of CCA processes and with due recognition and appreciation. This positive vibes reflect in other villages too. Recently, the Socktsen village, one of the villages of the valley, came forward to declare some of their pristine forest as CCA. The villagers decided to undertake this conservation initiative after experiencing the model of their neighbouring villages. Ironically, this is the same village that has refused to take part of the conservation initiative way back 2011 with a suspicion notion that this will lead to alienation of their rights over natural resources and forests. Of late, this has been clarified, understood and finally, the villagers decided to declare their own conserved area and set up a management committee. This is the tip of the iceberg and there are many instances of how the people have shown their positive attitude towards conservation in the landscape. “We have been sighting red panda since our childhood but barely had any special feeling about it. If someone would have hunted a red panda before, it would least bother me. But, today, my perspective on red panda is changed, I feel pride and concern about them and of course, I will not let anyone hunt or let hurt them” Lham Tsering expressed his feeling about the red panda in one of our field conversations. Lham Tsering is one of the local community members undertaking red panda survey in Zemithang valley in a couple of years now. This model has already touched few hearts however there is a long way to go to make really a difference.

Contribué par

Portrait de kmedhi@wwfindia.net

Kamal Medhi World Wide Fund for Nature - India

Autres contributeurs

WWF India
Jaya Upadhyay
Pema Wange
Rajarshi Chakraborty