BILIGIRI HILLS (India): A group of 25 leaders of the Soliga tribe in the isolated Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple Wildlife Sanctuary in the hills of southern Indian state of Karnataka sit in a semi-circle, discussing matters of concern to them.
The talk centres around rainfall which has been either delayed or erratic in recent years, affecting their small patches of maize, local millet, pigeon pea, beans and pumpkin grown for home-consumption.
Part of India’s amazing cultural diversity Soligas (children of the bamboo) were originally semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who have lived in total harmony with the wildlife and dry deciduous forests for millennia, subsisting on minor forest produce and shifting cultivation till the formation of the 547-sq km sanctuary in 1987.
Most were then relocated to the sanctuary’s fringes by the forest department (FD) and given an average of half-an-acre each to cultivate. They were also given access to non-timber forest produce (NTFP), such as berries, wild fruits, honey and tubers which could be sold to meet their daily needs. Collection of NTFP however has been banned by an amendment to India’s wildlife protection act since 2006, which, coupled with the delaying rains, has given rise to distress conditions amongst the tribals. Some 2,000 of these primitive farmers live in the deep interiors of this sanctuary.
Nearly 200,000 of India’s villages are located in or near forests and their inhabitants depend on forest resources for their sustenance.
“Previously, by the ‘Doddajatri’ festival in May, our crops would be this high”, says 50-year-old Konuregowda from the relocated settlement of Kannere inside the wildlife sanctuary, indicating his knee. “But now we can’t cultivate the land, because there are no rains till the festival.”
Another tribal says his village has not been able to till the land either because of lantana growth, an invasive weed that appears to have pervaded the sanctuary, throttling all indigenous forest-floor species.
The medical doctor H. Sudarshan, recipient of many awards for initiating health, education and livelihood empowerment schemes for the Soliga, agrees that climate change is becoming noticeable in these hills. “Rainfall patterns are now erratic and there have definitely been extremes in temperatures that we haven’t had in previous years,” he says.
As per India’s national communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 2004, the country would see temperatures increasing by two to four degrees centigrade in the southern region and possibly exceeding four degrees centigrade in the northern region, with decreasing but high-intensity monsoonal days.
Approximately 20 per cent of the 64 million ha of India’s geographical area is forested under 16 major forest types, from alpine pastures to dense tropical forests possessing amazing biodiversity.
More than 5,150 plant species, 16,214 insect species, 44 mammals, 42 birds, 164 reptiles, 121 amphibians and 435 fish species are endemic to India’s forests.
Senior scientists at the prestigious Indian Institute of Science (IISc) located in Bangalore have published preliminary studies of the impacts of climate change on these forests and biodiversity in India. Conducted by N.H. Ravindranath, Raman Sukumar, N.V. Joshi with A. Saxena of the Forest Survey of India, the study used the Hadley Centre Regional Climate Models and incorporated assessments of the current needs and dependence of forest communities in central India and the Western Ghats in southern India.
They have predicted a major shift in India’s forest types due to the increased temperatures and variable rains, especially on tropical dry forests, moist and dry savanna such as in the Biligiri hills.—Dawn/The IPS News Service
