Households’ Dependence on Protected Forests: Evidence from the Western Ghats

It is generally argued that in rural areas people depend more on natural environment like forest due to the economic compulsions arising out of poverty (Dasgupta and Mäler, 1995). A number of forest resources are complimentary in production and consumption to other goods and services and supplement household incomes especially in times of acute economic stress (Falconer and Arnold, 1989). The contribution of non-timber forest products to the total households’ income is found to be a significant factor that support rural livelihood (Nadkarni et al., 1989; Appasamy, 1993; Chopra, 1993; Mallik, 2000). To take the case of Orissa, the nontimber forest products contribute about 22.4 to 54.5 per cent of the total households’ income (Mallik, 2000). However, serious constraints on the access and appropriation of these products have been enforced by the state while establishing protected areas as a part of the forest policy. There is evidence to show that setting up of protected forest areas and managing biological resources has worked against the interest of the local population (Kothari et al., 1989). Sometimes, this has resulted in the illegal exploitation of resources and increased conflicts between local people and the State (McNeely, 1993). As a result, formulating strategies to reduce pressures on protected forest areas arising out of socio-economic reasons have become the prime concern of environmental policy makers and international donor agencies (World Bank, 1996). Among the various measures, the recent India-Ecodevelopment Project initiated with the assistance of World Bank aims to address the impact of the local people on the protected areas and the impact of protected areas on the local people merits special mention. The thrust of the project is on the improvement of protected area management with the involvement of local people and their welfare (World Bank, 1996). In order for the people to participate or involve in the management of protected forests, they ought to have or perceive a stake over the resource. Although forests are a source of livelihood, there have been only very limited attempts, so far to understand the stakes of the people living in protected areas where people’s participation in protected area management has been invited through the India-