0432-A1

Ethnoforestry and Indigenous Fallow Management Practices of the Wancho Community of Arunachal Pradesh, Northeastern India

Archana Godbole^[1]

Abstract

Indigenous knowledge of local communities has provided various options for the use and management of forest resources on a sustainable basis for many generations. Over the last few years researchers and policy-makers have realized that sustainable use of forest resource could only be achieved if the local communities became an integral part of the protection and management planning, as well as implementation. Indigenous knowledge systems of local communities from northeastern India are a prime example of use of indigenous knowledge for forest resource management in today’s context.

The significance of indigenous knowledge is recognized in theory in all recent development approaches; but the application of indigenous knowledge in community development and conservation has been understood only recently. Our failure to probe into the historical, socio-cultural and rational account of local knowledge has been the root cause of its poor understanding. (Tyagi and Rao, 1997).

This paper deals with traditional forest management practices of the Wanchos of Arunachal Pradesh and their links with conservation. Shifting cultivation is the main subsistence activity of Wancho community. During the documentation of natural resource management practices, a system of Honeyem and Loham has been identified (Godbole, 1998) which is in fact the traditional ethnoforestry system used for sustainable management of fallows, thereby decreasing pressures on the community forests not used for shifting cultivation.

Area

North Eastern State of Arunachal Pradesh is the eastern corner of Indian Himalayan region. Arunachal Pradesh is very rich in natural resources and biodiversity along with diversity of cultures and indigenous people of various origins. More than 80% tribal population of Arunachal is primarily dependent on shifting cultivation and forest resources for their subsistence needs. Small land holdings yield very meager produce and tribals collect many plants and animals to supplement their diet from forests.

Thorough literature survey indicated the need of documentation of IK based strategies used for NRM by Wanchos. Tirap district is rich in biodiversity and ethnobiologically unexplored (Sakalani and Jain 1994) area of Arunachal Pradesh. Wanchos of Tirap district are most underdeveloped among the tribals of Arunachal Pradesh. (Datta, 1990).

Literature survey and review of situation based on preliminary field visits suggested that once very rich forests of Tirap (Woodthrop 1876); are depleting very fast and forces of modernization adding to the problem.

Note: The maps of India showing Arunachal & Tirap district showing Zadua are not included in the paper due to problems in Electronic transmission.Will be send in a hard copy and show during Presentation.

After a thorough survey of Wancho villages in the district; Zadua village has been selected for detail analysis. Various criteria for selection included long shifting cultivation cycle, better preserved community forests, strong community organization and leadership by knowledgeable elders along with enthusiasm among villagers to participate in the research process. Zadua is a medium sized village with a population of 700 distributed in 78 households.

The Natural Resources Management

Natural resource management systems of Wanchos are closely linked to their understanding of forest resources and limited availability of forests to them. Along with shifting cultivation fields Wanchos have fallows of various stages of maturity, specifically protected community forests and home gardens as important resource areas.

Among Wanchos of Zadua mainly two agro-ecosystems i.e. terrace cultivation and jhum or shifting cultivation are prevalent. Out of which terrace cultivation is of recent origin and started just 30 years ago. Jhum is practiced for generations and developed through hundreds of years.

Shifting cultivation or ‘ Zhang’ of Wanchos

Zadua village is still maintaining 10 years jhum cycle and total village resource area used for jhum is divided into 9 resource areas. Each jhum area is cultivated for two years. The major crops of the first year are millet, kochu, tapioca, beans, leafy vegetables, mustard, potatoes and few varieties of rice. After harvesting of these items, rice is sown as the 2nd year crop without mixing. After harvesting this crop field is abandoned as fallow. Every year two jhum areas are under cultivation.

Jhum fallows

Fallow is necessary for continuous and successful jhum cultivation. It allows natural regeneration and succession, allows the soil to replenish its natural fertility through litter decomposition, organic matter deposition and nutrient recycling.

Mature Jhum fallows are important resource areas providing continuous supply of livelihood needs like fuelwood. Sufficient fallow period not only help to minimize the pressure on community reserved forests but also helps to get the NWFPs from the fallows.

Honeyem: traditional agroforesrty practice for Fuelwood

Practices like Honeyem are traditional fallow management systems. Community forests are small forest patches spread over the village resource areas and generally non-exploitable. Only large timber with community’s collective decision could be harvested.

Therefore for NTFP needs and daily requirement of fuelwood people rely on regenerating fallows of varying maturity.

Practice of selection and maintaining seedlings; starts from second year of cultivation in jhum fields. Second year crop is pure rice; but field ready to sow rice is kept empty for a month or two after harvesting of Kochu, millet, vegetables and other first year jhum crops.

In these empty fields natural regeneration of Puak i.e. Macaranga denticulata and Puakmi i.e. Mallotus tetracoccus takes place profusely. These seedlings are kept and rice is sown in between these seedlings and allowed to grow. Automatically seedlings are nurtured properly during first. This management system of allowing these species to grow with rice is called ‘Honeyem’. Keeping and maintaining these two species is very important, as these two are Most used fuelwood species of Wanchos, they are fast growing and giving yield within 4 to 5 years. Overcrowding of naturally regenerated seedlings of this primary colonizers is managed and only healthy seedlings are kept.During one full season of rice cultivation in the jhum fields; these seedlings are nurtured along with rice.

The fallow management system Honeyem serves three purposes

a. it increases soil quality

b. it checks soil erosion

c. Gives fuelwood and timber very quickly i.e. within 4 to 5 years.

Loham

In the jhum fallows another system of maintaining palm groves ‘Loham’ (Livistona jenkinsiana) is prevalent among Wanchos. Dried Livistona palm leaves is the very important house building material.Wancho know cultivation of this palm traditionally. Each family or clan maintains the ‘Loham’ ranging from 15 to 20 trees to 50-100 trees in each. In the community forest areas, after the timber extraction certain areas are available, palm cultivation is done on such areas for the community. Zadua village has got such very large Loham consisting of more than 200 palm trees. In ‘Duthongling’ community forest area such palm groves are maintained permanently. But before cutting a palm grove for jhuming another fallow or opened up forest area, is planted with Livistona jenkinsiana plants.

Quantitative Analysis of fuelwood Species

The use of pair wise ranking to understand Wanchos preferences and maintaining preferred species to get continuous supply of quality fuelwood, has been proved useful to confirm the validity of Honeyem. Use of pair wise ranking to understand the ik knowledge based system is widely accepted and it is a simple method.

Ranking has been used to obtain information about the preferences of local people, to know their priorities for fuelwood species use and maintenance through the system of Honeyem. Data collected from preliminary formats for the use of fuelwood species, their availability, time and place of collection and characteristics revealed that, there are 42 plant species used as fuelwood out of which 10 species are mainly used as timber but are also used occasionally as fuelwood. Fifteen species are most commonly used as fuelwood (Annex I) To find out the preferences of Wancho women for collecting and using different species as fuelwood and its relationship with the IK used for their management, pair wise ranking has been carried out.

For pair wise ranking 15 most commonly used species were selected. All the combinations of these 15 species have been tried using three different criteria decided previously. These three criteria include overall preference for use as fuelwood, seasonal availability for collecting as fuelwood, and quality of burning or heat producing capacity.

This ranking has been used to establish the priorities for fallow management practices of Wanchos. Matrix used for pair wise ranking is given in Annex II & III. Only women were interviewed because only women are engaged in fuelwood collection as well as various cultivation activities in the jhum fields. Women from different age groups were selected.

Two comparisons based on the responses of 23 women for three questions clearly indicate that the overall preference is dependent on availability rather than heat producing capacity. Which in turn indicates the appropriateness of Honeyem i. e. maintenance of Puak and Puakmi. Only in case of Hen i. e. Sterospermum sp. preference is based on heat producing capacity.

It is clear from the pair ranking exercise that the Ethno forestry system of Honeyem has been carefully selected by the Wancho community for maintaining fallows and to make their use for continuous supply of quality fuelwood. This simple technique involves the careful selection of most valued fuelwood species and their maintenance during the two years of shifting agriculture. It is ultimately helping to conserve the community forests and are not face the common cause of depletion that is demand of fuelwood.

Indigenous Forestry knowledge of Wanchos

The existing resource management practices like Loham and Honeyem indicate that the Indigenous Knowledge extends to the biological relations between various natural, resources like land, forests and crops. This practice shows the knowledge of Wanchos about regeneration and growth pattern of particular species like Puak and Puakmi. Such practices also strongly indicate that the Indigenous Knowledge is being used effectively.

Conclusion

• This research provided an opportunity to test simple participatory quantification methods like pair ranking and its significance in short as well as long term research projects.

• Quantification exercise showed that Indigenous Knowledge based NRM is functioning and proved to be economically, socially and environmentally sound.

• The utilitarian approach of Wanchos in maintaining Loham, Honeyem along with careful selection of useful crop varieties clearly demonstrates a fairly elaborated process of selection.

• It is necessary to check these systems carefully from other areas as well as for other tribal communities from the Northeastern India. Neighboring state of Nagaland is also rich in traditional Ethnoforestry systems like maintaining Alder trees in fallows. A comparative analysis of such systems and importance of the species selected for the natural resource management practices would be useful to develop a strategy for sustainable utilization of forest resources using the traditional knowledge.

• It is necessary to introduce community agroforesrty systems using traditional practices in these remote areas of Tirap district. Such agroforesrty systems would help further to improve the fallow management system by introduction of economically beneficial indigenous species and their management. It will get positive response and participation from Wanchos; as it will be an acknowledgment to their traditional wisdom. Introduction of agroforesrty systems would help Wanchos to use their fallows more effectively if the cultivate certain fast growing timber or fruit trees to support their livelihood. It may help further to provide better livelihood options to Wanchos.

Acknowledgements

I am greatful to ICIMOD, Kathmandu,Nepal for providing fellowship to work in Arunachal Pradesh to document the Indigenous Knowledge and resource management practices of Wancho tribals. I am thankful to Prof. Pei Shengji, Head MNR Division, ICIMOD for his valuable guidance and encouragement throughout the research work. Thanks are due to Wancho informants and interpreters from Zadua village for their interest and participation. I am grateful to Dr. K. Haridasn Senior scientist, State Forest Research Institute (SFRI) Itanager for his help and guidance for identification of plants. I would like to thank my colleagues in Applied Environmental Research Foundation Jayant Sarnaik and Swapna Prabhu for their interest and help in fieldwork.

References

Datta Parul 1990: The Wanchoos, Govt. of Arunachal Pradesh

Godbole Archana (1998): The Use of Indigenous Knowledge in mountain natural resource management: A case study of Wancho community, Tirap dist. Arunachal Pradesh, India. ICIMOD, Nepal Research Fellowship Report; PP 65

Martin Gary 1995: Ethnobotany,a methods manual. People and Plants Initiative. Chapman and Hall. 129-132.

Sakalani Arvind and S.K. Jain 1996: Credibility of Folk - Claims in Northeastern Himalaya and Northeastern India. In Ethnobotany in Human Walefare, S.K. jain (Ed.) Deep Publications, New Delhi: 136 - 139.

Tyagi L.K. and D.U.M. Rao 1997: Indigenous knowledge System: An integral component of New Paradigm of development. Paper presented at International Conference on Creativity and Innovations at grassroots, IIM, Ahemedabad, Jan. 1997.

Woodthorpe. R.G. 1878.: Report on Topographical Survey in India, Assam Survey, 1877-78, Simla,

Annex I

fuelwood secies used in Zadua,Tirap dist. Arunachal Pradesh.

Bold names indicate the species selected for pair wise ranking.

Annex II

Selected fuelwood species and their code

Annex III

Matrix for Pair wise comparison of fuelwood

Questions

1. Which wood do you prefer?

2. Which wood gives more heat?

3. Which wood is more available?

4. Which wood burns slower?

5. Which wood on burning produces more light?