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Interdisciplinarity in Action Research:
An enterprise-based conservation project in the BRT Wildlife Sanctuary of Karnataka, India
Sharachchandra Lele and Kamaljit S Bawa |
Traditional approaches to biodiversity conservation have
focused on eliminating human presence from biotically
rich landscapes. More recently, attention has been
focused on an alternative approach that seeks to involve
local communities in conservation by enhancing their
economic stake in the biological resource and enhancing
their capacity to manage and monitor sustainability of
resource use. One such effort was undertaken in the BRT
Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka state in the southern
part of India by a multi-disciplinary team of scientists
working in collaboration with a forest-dwelling
community (the Soligas) and a local non-governmental
organisation (VGKK). The project was initiated in 1995
with support from the Biodiversity Conservation Network.
We report here the key achievements and limitations of
this effort, and reflect specifically upon what we
learnt from it in terms of fostering interdisciplinary
research.
The central aim of this project was to increase the
economic stake of the Soligas in the conservation of
their biotic resources and increasing their capacity to
ensure the ecological sustainability of these resources
and the larger ecosystem. The former is to be achieved
by increasing their income from non-timber forest
products (NTFPs) by processing several of the extracted
products at the collection site and marketing them
directly so as to capture a greater share of the final
value. The latter is to be achieved by, on the one hand,
establishing a community-based biological monitoring and
feedback system that would regulate NTFP extraction and
ecosystem health and, on the other hand, strengthening
the local community's access to and control over the
biotic resource.
The main achievement of the project has been a) the
establishment of an economically viable honey processing
and sale unit, leading to a small but steady flow of
profits and wage employment to the community, b) an
increase in prices received by honey collectors, and c)
some changes NTFP harvesting practices. At the same
time, the project has faced many challenges. These
include not just fluctuating markets and complex
ecologies of the NTFPs, but also the lack of secure and
adequate tenure for the NTFP collectors to devise and
implement sustainable forest use practices, differing
perceptions about community involvement amongst the
implementing partners, and difficulties in building the
capacity of the local community to engage in forest and
enterprise management.
The research team sought to foster interdiscpilinarity
through the joint formulation of research questions
involving social and natural science research and often
participation of natural scientists in collecting
socio-economic data and vice-versa in the field. RS/GIS
provided another tool for integration of some of the
datasets. Our experience highlighted some of the
challenges that can constrain interdisciplinary action
research, including limited exposure of scientists to
applied cross-disciplinary issues, limitations put by
funding agencies in action projects on research as such,
and methodological issues in matching scales and
variables across disciplines. |
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