The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Local people must manage natural resources: expert

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Mar 08, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Local people must manage natural resources: expert

Staff Reporter

It is the only way to "arrest degradation of biodiversity"

MAHABALIPURAM: The management of natural resources by local people is the only way to arrest the degradation of biodiversity, said professor Madhav Gadgil of the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

"People who have a stake in the ecosystem should be given the management," Mr. Gadgil said while presenting a paper on "Of rivers, Fish and Poison" at a three-day conference of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation, Asian chapter, at Mahabalipuram on Tuesday.

Pointing out the success story of Mendha Lekha village in Gadchiroli District of Maharashtra, the ecologist said the social and economic links between people and resources should be the basis for management of natural resources.

He said the tribal people of Mendha Lekha took the initiative to put in place a conservation plan. It included ban on encroachment of forestland, surveillance of forests and booking of offenders, ban on cutting fruit trees and burning wood.

The villagers also took over the management of bamboo cultivation, which was earlier exploited by paper mill owners, he pointed out.

Professor Gadgil, who was the Project Director of People's Biodiversity Register (PBR), a tool to set up a biodiversity information system for implementing the provisions of the Biological Diversity Act 2002, said Medha Lekha was an example of how a community could become self-reliant. He further said the Act gives tremendous opportunity for biodiversity activists to reach out to the people and create PBRs.

In his address, Professor Peter Shaw Ashton of Harvard University said sustainable development could only be achieved if human populations were brought to equilibrium. The equilibrium could be attained in rural sector by providing alternative employment opportunities. Otherwise, poverty alleviation could at best only be temporary, he added.

Jean-Pierre Muller, Director, French Institute of Pondicherry, Professor Priya Davidar, Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Pondicherry University, William Laurence, president of Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation and Jin Chen, Director of Xishuangbanna Botonical Garden, China also addressed the seminar.

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