Page 2 - 2.Lesson Notes-Forests & Wildlife-Stakeholders

4. Wildlife and nature enthusiasts: those who want to conserve nature in its
pristine form.

1. Local People:
 The local people need large quantities of firewood, small timber and thatch.
Bamboo is used to make slats for huts, and baskets for collecting and storing
food materials.
 Implements for agriculture, fishing and hunting are largely made of wood,
also forests are sites for fishing and hunting.
 In addition to the people gathering fruits, nuts and medicines from the forests
 Their cattle also graze in forest areas or feed on the fodder which is
collected from forests.

2. The Government:
 The local had people developed practices to ensure that the resources were
used in a sustainable manner.
 After the British took control of the forests (which they exploited ruthlessly for
their own purposes), these people were forced to depend on much smaller
areas and forest resources started becoming over-exploited to some extent.
 The Forest Department in independent India took over from the British but
local knowledge and local needs continued to be ignored in the management
practices.
 Vast tracts of forests have been converted to monocultures of pine, teak
or eucalyptus.
 In order to plant these trees, huge areas are first cleared of all vegetation.
This destroys a large amount of biodiversity in the area.
 The varied needs of the local people – leaves for fodder, herbs for
medicines, fruits and nuts for food – can no longer be met from such forests.
 Such plantations are useful for the industries to access specific products and
are an important source of revenue for the Forest Department.

3. The Industrialists:
 Industries consider the forest a mere source of raw material for its factories.
 Huge interest-groups lobby the government for access to these raw
materials at artificially low rates.
 They are not interested in the sustainability of the forest in one particular
area.
 For example, after cutting down all the teak trees in one area, they will get
their teak from a forest farther away.

4. The nature and wildlife enthusiasts:
 They are in no way dependent on the forests, but who may have
considerable say in their management.
 The conservationists were initially taken up with large animals like lions,
tigers, elephants and rhinoceros. They now recognise
the need to preserve biodiversity as a whole.
 For example, the case of Bishnoi community living in western Rajasthan on
the border of the Thar desert.

2