Changing Nature of Forest Resources and Its Impact on Tribal Livelihood: A Study of Purulia District, West Bengal, India (original) (raw)
Related papers
Significance of Forests in the Tribal Habitation of Jangalmahal Area in West Bengal
The tribal communities of Jangalmahal in West Bengal are the oldest settlers of Chotonagpur plateau. They still bear the identity of tribes as they practice the rules followed by their ancestors following an independent route of lifestyle, but frequently facing the forces of market economy. They had been the icon of ecological balance and applied their own wisdom or logic in harnessing and consuming natural resources, their every step of life support was thus 'Eco Logic'. These tribal groups had a deep relation with the forest which controlled their material, social as well as spiritual needs. But gradual thinning out of forest cover has put forward a number of problems before these simple and less-consuming groups. This article is engaged to discern the interactions of tribal, specifically Santal with sub-humid deciduous forest tracts of Jangalmahal area of West Bengal. This paper is an attempt to re-evaluate the extent of symbiotic relation of the tribal community with forest of the area selected on the basis of available information.
Forest Dependence: A Study at Jangal Mahal of west Bengal
2018
Paschim Medinipur, Bankura and Purulia of Indian state of West Bengal is popularly known as Jangal Mahal. Historically, the area is forest surrounded. Dispersed villages within the area depend significantly on forest for their living. In this study, on the basis of a sample survey, features of forest dependence of inhabitants has been tried to be identified. Moreover, considering incidence of qualitative degradation of forestry, efforts are also made here to focus on the nature and causes of change in surrounding forestry.
Trend of Changes in Annual Forest Cover of South West Bengal, India
International journal of zoology and animal biology, 2016
With 21% of India's area under forests, and regular biennial satellite remote monitoring, there is an urgent need for rapid automated detection of forest loss locations. There have been numerous studies monitoring forest health but no single source of reporting data is completely adequate. Currently many state and private forestry agencies and government are implementing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) for monitoring the changing pattern of vegetation. The area of focus in this paper is south West Bengal covering 6 districts: Bankura, Burdwan, Birbhum, Midnapore (East and West) and Puruliya during 2001-2007. The study reveals that differential change in forest cover of the said districts ranged from unchanged to gradual increase. A substantial forest prevailing in this region vouches for sufficient shelter for the inhabiting animals too.
Current Science, 2019
Forest fragmentation and deforestation are major causes of biodiversity loss around the globe. Owing to high human and cattle population in India, the immense pressure on natural resources has led to greater degradation of natural ecosystems. The landscape-level changes have in turn resulted in changes in species diversity and composition. Adilabad district has the largest proportion of forest area in Telangana, India. We studied the impact of land right awards granted under the Recognition of Forest Rights Act (RoFR), 2006 in the Adilabad Division. We hypothesize that the forest area awarded to the tribal under RoFR and illegal encroachment in forests have adversely impacted the forest biodiversity. To verify our hypothesis, we calculated edge density (ED), patch density (PD) and core area index (CAI) of all the Reserve Forest areas using FRAGSTATS and compared the results with the pre-RoFR situation. Our results indicate that ED and PD increased predominantly across the Reserve Forest blocks where a large number of rights was granted under RoFR, whereas CAI decreased. Statistically for all the three parameters, pre-and post-RoFR values were found to be significantly different indicating that the changes due to i mplementation of RoFR have a significant adverse impact on the forests. Our findings are consistent with our hypothesis, and indicate that the continued use of forest areas for agriculture in RoFR and encroachment areas may further adversely impact the ecosystem. There is an urgent need to identify and implement conservation actions that would allow restoration of biodiversity of the Reserve Forest areas adversely affected by land rights awarded under RoFR. Measures such as aggregation of the scattered RoFR areas towards the Reserve Forest boundary and improved agricultural practices such as agroforestry may alleviate such adverse impacts.
Deforestation and Transition of Tribal Population: A Study in Kokrajhar district of Assam, India
The migrations of tribal people and their changing attitude towards the forests are often held responsible for persistent deforestation in different parts of the world. Even though this discernment is based on facts, analyzing the circumstances that drag tribal people to such situations is also equally important. As per Kokrajhar district of Assam in India is concerned, although the overall growth of tribal population is lower than the growth of other population over the period 1961-2001, there was significantly higher growth rate of tribal population in forest area of the district. Meanwhile the share of tribal population in the non-forest area of the district was decreasing gradually. While, during the middle of the period, growth rate of non-tribal population in the forest area notably declined, during the recent decade there was a slide increase in it. Conversely, tribal population increased erratically during the middle of the period, but during the recent decade it did not only declined all of a sudden, nevertheless the growth rate collapsed to reach a negative value. Despite diminishing of tribal population, deforestation is going on at large scale in the district in recent years too. On the other hand, owing to the too much profit-making attitude of the forest department and devious tactics of some clever outsiders, the attitude of the tribal people towards the forest, who were forest friendly in olden times, is found to deviate substantially and seen to involve in detrimental activities of damaging forests.
THE EMERGING ISSUE OF FOREST DEGRADATION IN PURULIA DISTRICT Introduction
West Bengal : Geoinformatics for Sustainable Environment Management (Vol-I), 2017
Despite recent achievement and progress in our economy, deforestation remains one of the important problems in developing country like India. There is no standard definition for forest degradation, but in this long term process, where human activity plays a vital role. The present study district Purulia is a economically backward with a huge forest cover of 797 sq.km. (Census-2011). The rural (87.3%) poor, mainly reserve category people, are associated and dependent on its forest cover for various purposes. During the last few decades (1971 to 2011), it is observed that 10.35% of forest cover of the district is degraded. The district has a high population growth rate with a noticeable population density of 468 persons/ sq.km. (2011 Census). As the work participation rate of the district is very low (42.6%), poor people nearer to the forest are much more dependent on forest for food, fuel, furniture, fertilizer and medicinal purpose. The present paper aims to review the condition of forest degradation in Purulia district. There is a high need to understand the consequences of deforestation on human being as well as the environment. Forest degradation or deforestation has a massive impact on climate change, which plays a key role to leads the many natural calamities like droughts, floods, severe cyclones etc. So, to protect the hydrological cycle, climate, soil and biodiversity, we need to protect the forest first. Therefore, in the present paper, an exploratory analysis is attempt based on some descriptive and quantitative methods, like review of literature work, cartograms representation and statistical applications and GIS techniques. The present attempt is also aiming to find out some possible way out to protect the forest cover and reestablish the global awareness among the locals to protect the forest.
Forest cover in the hill regions is essential to maintain environmental, economic and ecological balances. North Bengal accounts for 3,086 sq km (26 %) of the 11,876 sq km area of classified forests in the state, and for nearly 5,000 sq km (40 %) of all land under tree cover. Khumani is a Village (26.84o N, 88.60o E) in Gorubathan Block in Darjeeling District of West Bengal State, India. The survey work was done in December, 2014 by visiting the Khumani Forest Village (established in 1949) of upper Kumai and the primary data were gathered through field survey and direct contact with common people and authorized centers of the region. Surveys on the demography, agriculture, livestock management, water management, education, culture, health, waste management, disaster management, transport, biodiversity, human animal conflict were done in this area. Topographic map of the area was prepared by using the database of National Atlas and Thematic Mapping Organization (NATMO), Kolkata office. In every phase of the survey work, pictorial documentation was done. In spite of being positioned in a diverse and sensitive ecological zone, the village is not adequately managed. There is an urgent need for implementing sustainable management systems in the areas for the betterment of the socio-environmental structures. Some of the possible management strategies have been suggested for maintaining the social, environmental, economic and ecological balance of the region. Proper funds should be raised to conserve and manage these ecologically important zones of north Bengal, which should be one of the main focuses of future researches.
Drivers of Forest Ecosystem Change in Purnapani Area: Empirical Evidence and Policy Suggestions
Journal of Quantitative Economics, 2018
Purnapani area of Sundargarh district of Indian state of Odisha was primarily dominated by tribal people with natural forest ecosystems. The local tribal people were mostly depending upon forest and agriculture for their livelihood. During 1958 Purnapani Limestone and Dolomite Quarry (PL&DQ) started mining of lime stone and dolomite in the area. The total land contributed by Purnapani villagers for mining, township and railway line construction was 569.64 acres. In 2003, the mines were closed and about 2000 mine workers lost their livelihood. During the last 50-60 years, unsustainable mining activities and then their abandonment have degraded the forest ecosystem and livelihood resource base of local communities in the Purnapani area. Thus in order to identify the major drivers of degraded forest ecosystems we have conducted primary surveys in Purnapani area. Using regression analyses we find that both mining activities and passenger transport services are the drivers of population growth in Purnapani area. Livelihood of local tribal people is being positively impacted by mining activity and passenger transport services operating from Purnapani area. Fuel wood consumption increases over time due to population growth which put great pressure on forest ecosystems to change. Both mineral production and population size have impacted human well-being negatively by positively impacting health expenditure. The amount of decline of community welfare in terms of net present value derived by the communities from extraction of forest resources is due to mine spoiled degraded B Narendra N. Dalei
IARJSET, 2020
Forests are predominantly made of thick vegetation, medicinal plants and huge number of vegetation types and other forest economic products. These products boost the economy by providing food, fibre, timber and maintain a healthy environment by sequestering the carbon through regulation of gaseous and nutrient cycling. Geological landforms, climatic conditions, water regime, soil erosion are widely controlled by forest resources. Each forest type has its own uniqueness and together supports various socioeconomic , ecological, cultural and spiritual functions. Forest cover is associated with other land surface features which need immediate monitoring for its sustainability. Forests management, conservation and developmental strategies are an utmost important to meet demand and supply of environmental needs for upcoming generations. The study area holds 7.8% spread of forest cover which includes open deciduous; dense/closed deciduous; forest plantations and scrub forest according to 1999 assessment of the Karnataka Forest Department. The present study aims to map forest types and it's Change Detection Analysis (CDA) from 1978 to 2019 through geospatial technology. Thematic maps are prepared using Survey of India (SoI) topomap of 1:50,000 scale; geo-rectified multi-spectral & multi-temporal satellite images of IRS-1C/1D PAN+LISS-III of 5.8m resolution and Sentinel-2A of 10m resolution. The present study reveals the change detection in forest cover of over 4 decades using geospatial techniques for sustainable management of forest goods and services.
A forest is a large area of land with covered many trees and vegetation. Various animals need forests to live and survive. Forests are very essential and grow in many places around all over the country. The coastal region of Bangladesh is decorated with forest and forest resource. The coastal people are dependable on forest resource for their livelihood. The research study area Pathorghata union of Pathorghata Upazila under Barguna district is a coastal area including about 4964 population and a total area of 29 sq. km. The aim of this research is to find out the present status of forest resource dependency and to identify the alternative options for reducing forest resource dependency in south central coast of Bangladesh. During research period I surveyed randomly 105 households in the study area in three villages. The key findings of the study include about 89% of house's are made of wood which called as Kacha, about 8% are semi-pakka which are made by wood and concrete and about 3% house are pakka. Farming, Fishing and laboring are the major livelihood options for coastal community. More than 75% people are engaged with forest average in three villages. Community people use the forest resource for different purposes. As for cooking (79%), sheltering (15%), commercial (2%), made of medicine (<1%), food (1%), fodder (2%) basically. Timber, fish, honey and fruits, wild animal, fodder, cane, fuljaru and vegetable are the main resources. The people of Tengra earn average per month from forest resource 1436 taka, Padma taka 2883 and Horinbaria 3082 taka and average income is 2467 taka which about 31% from total income generation source. Some people hunt wild animal and they income per year 24,300 taka. Tourist spot, housing pattern change, cooking system changed, artificial instrument use, economical support, and occupation diversification are the alternative options. Cyclone, high wave, high intensity of salinity, storm surge and river erosion are the major disaster in Pathorghata. Coastal people are dependable on forest resource and they cut down forest for their daily life and it is causing damage to the natural habitat of animals and plants. For sustainable development of forest it should be improve the direct & indirect involvement of government and more movement of non-government organizations are essential.