Sreelatha Menon: Wealth beyond their reach

EAR TO THE GROUND

The forest is full of wealth, splurging on its dwellers fruits of tamarind, leaves of sal and tendu, mahua blossoms, the stems of bamboo... the list is endless.

But these seldom translate into wealth for the forest dwellers. Roshni Akka, a tribal girl from Jharkhand, walks to the weekly market three hours away from her home in Aurabahar village in Simdega district to sell tamarind and mahua. She does not have a single tamarind tree, for there is no land. But the entire forest is hers. Her mother plucks and picks the tamarind and cleans them through the week. Then, her father Anil Akka and Roshni would get ready a sack each of mahua seeds and tamarind for the weekly market in Thithaitangar block.

The rule of the market reigns supreme here. They get Rs 2 per kg of tamarind. In the beginning of the season it could fetch Rs 5.

Roshni ran away to Delhi to work as a domestic help and today earns nearly Rs 3,000 a month. In Delhi, she found that 200-gm tamarind come for Rs 20. It shocks her. She and hundreds of tribal girls like her working in Delhi want to go back but the poverty amid the abundance frightens them.

The forest dweller remains vulnerable to exploitation even when the government steps in to help.

In Chattisgarh, in Mahasamund district, the experience of an old couple, Bihari Yadav and his wife Lila Bai, in Bikehbarah village was a revelation. They get Rs 35 for 100 tendu leaves. And that is all they earn for they are too old for anything. The Government has its forest management committee in place here and even pays a bonus once a year, apart from paying these fixed rates. And the entire year is spent waiting for the princely bonus of Rs 400.

This year, the old couple was in for a shock when they were given a pair of shoes as bonus in place of cash. Yadav says it is unfair and breaks into tears of helplessness.

Who owns the forest and what grows in them? The 1996 amendment of the Panchayati Raj Act saw the rights of ownership over forest produce transferred to panchayats. The law does not ensure capacity building. Nor does it rule out exploitation. For the price of the produce includes cutoffs to the cooperative committee and the forest department staff, who eat away half the price between them. What can Anil Akka or Bahadur hope for? In Orissa, the rights of 68 non-timber forest produce have been with community based forest management committees . But recently the Government has been trying to foist its own committees leading to conflicts.

In Andhra Pradesh, NGOs have been teaching them how to manage themselves as a community. An attempt is being made to put together the practices and problems of at least three states, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Madhya Pradesh, vis-a-vis five specific forest produce.

A regional body for forest governance is also planned under this initiative spanning countries in Asia and Africa started by the NGO International Institute for Environment and Development. D Suryakumari, director of Centre for People's Forestry an NGO which pioneered efforts on forest governance in Andhra Pradesh heads this initiative.

According to Suryakumari, whose NGO has done pioneering work in Andhra Pradesh to empower communities in getting a good price for the forest produce ""its project has attracted funding from European Union and DFID "" would take the issue from the obscure local landscape to a more regional context. "We would be involving the Governments in all the states," Suryakumari says.Five NTFPs that are being studied specifically are tamarind, sal, tendu, mahua and bamboo.

Meanwhile, Bahadur and Akka sit in their forest homes in utter poverty but surrounded by the wealth of nature.

Will Roshni Akka be able to go back and have a flourishing business in mahua or tamarind operated from her home in Aurabahar? Suryakumari has her fingers crossed. But her sisters in the jungles want answers. Now.