Workshop Partner

Mountain ecosystems: a global resource

The leftover forests should be immediately protected. There is nothing like a 'pristine' ecosystem; 'relatively undisturbed' is a better term.

Water is an important resource and it is scarce throughout the Himalaya. Making water available will improve soil fertility, biomass, crop diversity and hence the quality of life of the people and the environment. Forests in mountains are fragile and any perturbation there should be avoided.

Traditional systems and societies are not responsible for forest and mountain degradation. The degradation is caused more by the urban people for their comfort and consumerism based life style.

Traditional societies know what their ecosystem can handle and their knowledge and consent should be taken while designing alternative systems.

Traditional societies view the mountain system as one in which they themselves are part of the cultural landscape and this is the approach taken by the UNESCO - World Heritage Natural Cultural Landscapes and Globally Important Ingenious Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) programmes.

Traditional mountain farming systems have much higher energy and economic efficiency compared to modern agriculture of India and West. It is not just producing economic goods but feeds into the minds of the people and that is what the cultural landscape is all about - a window for development and livelihood for sustainable societies.

We need to look at mountain systems not as ecological or social but as socio-ecological, and the most important connecting link is the traditional ecological knowledge available in the communities - the determining of the processes that go into the system, soil fertility management, water conservation, nutrient cycles etc.

Connectivity needs to be established between traditional and formal systems, as a developmental pathway is given to mountain communities that is totally divorced from their value systems. The tools available to do so are the traditional knowledge base and their traditional institutions.

A detailed analysis of 200 research papers over last 50 year shows that there is no evidence that internal population pressure is responsible for deforestation and land degradation.

R&D institutions work in isolation and do not mix with local people and understand their viewpoint. We need to learn and get the scientific needs from these communities themselves.

Modern education system is very wrong. It is high time we started going into innovative pathways. What we need is to arrive at a compromise between the two systems - traditional knowledge and formal education.

Trans-boundary co-operation for conservation in mountains

In implementing trans-boundary projects, there are problems with culture, religion and socio-economic back grounds. A common language and value system will be helpful in such situations.

Most of the mountain areas are under armed conflict. It is an area of deep concern and it has an impact on the environment. This can't be quantified economically and it also has a cultural impact. The women are left when the men fight and, apart from the responsibilities of looking after the household and children, must provide for the economic needs too. Trans boundary protected areas are therefore very important.

There should be an end to the militarization of eco-sensitive and fragile mountain areas and the cessation of conflicts in them. Trans-boundary protected areas needs to be set up with Inter-government action ensuring the preservation of cultural landscapes.

Carrying capacity and sustainable livelihoods

Education needs to be done for all sections of society - including IFS and IAS officials, policy makers and decision makers. There is a need for educating our elected representatives. For determining carrying capacity standard, procedures need to be laid down. Most carrying capacity studies are done using observation. In protecting and conserving eco-sensitive areas legislation and litigation are important; the use of a combination of reports and court cases, but warned against opposition from entrenched interests.

A public hearing is important but can be exploited by political and other interests to turn the result of such hearings away from what is expected of them.

We need definitions of sustainable development and carrying capacity, that these are different in ecological, economic and social contexts, and that community needs are often ignored.

An unsustainable political economy has important bearing on sustainable development.

Organic farming and vermicomposting can provide important livelihood avenues.

Most of the hill stations are very stressed under this paradigm of carrying capacity. Tourism is being put forward as an alternative but there is the feeling that it will contribute to cultural erosion. The important issues are now the development of organic farming, finding solutions for the water crisis, looking for and implementing waste management techniques.

Resource degradation and sustainable resource utilization in the mountain region

Indigenous technologies are being abandoned. We need to identify and popularize them.

Biodiversity of the mountain region is rich and unique and needs to be protected with the participation of local communities especially the women folk.

Biodiversity is the use of the forest and habitat by people and wildlife, the intention is not to make it conservation-oriented. It has to have utility value, to be used. The need is to use it sustainably. There is a need to bring the institutional research into applied research now.

People, more so the children, need to be educated about environment. The need is not to create a rut through our education work, instead a series of experiences. The connection between the urban child and resource is today severed. Education should be through experience that generates relevant information. Time should be given to learner to reflect. Children should be told about their own lifestyles and not about issues. Education is not giving answers but creating inquisitiveness to find answer. We need curiosity and interest to grow. Feelings need to be cultivated whereas conventionally feeling is not treated as education. Students can actually change their lifestyle - some children have told their parents not to install air-conditioners in homes and cars. Cognitive outcomes are becoming clear through role-playing abstract concepts became real.

Besides natural, social and cultural environments are also important. Children should be told about them and the current life styles and lives and to refrain from being the big consumers. Biodiversity rich areas world over are poor. The need is to get people the benefits of conserving the rich biodiversity else they will loose interest in conservation and the world community will have to pay heavy price for it.

Capacity building of various stakeholders

Traditional communities and other guardians of the biodiversity need to be compensated for their traditional wisdom and the efforts they have contributed to the conservation. Corporate needs to keep this in mind and do profit sharing with the community from the knowledge is gathered. Value addition should be done at local level to benefit the community and retain their interest.

There is the over-emphasis on the perceived benefits of tourism, without taking into account the need for not just capital but human and social infrastructure building on the ground, the need for institutions that can adapt and accommodate such change. Tourism is a volatile industry and communities cannot afford to rely on it. Where this has been done communities have been bankrupted or been forced into highly destructive activities in order to stay solvent. Capacity building needs to be put into place for a range of economic alternatives of which tourism is one? Youth needs to be motivated, organized and capacity built.

We tend to ignore the major cause of problems which is population growth, and all the consumption-related problems that go with it.

Strengthening networks and partnerships

We need networks and partnerships to work as best as we can. Having offices is useless in terms of efficiency. We need to build the capacity with a local NGO; don't create anything new and add to the skill set locally. We need networks to cater to our clientele more effectively.

Through networking mountain communities needs to be brought together for sharing their ideas, resources and concerns. We need learning based on the beliefs of the local people, learning systems using traditional knowledge.

The information is plenty in all its forms, but how to make it usable? The challenge is to create the information that is available into a knowledge object and make it accessible?

Click here to view the concept paper that formed the basis for the workshop discussions...