Sacred forests of India: a strong tradition of community-based natural resource management

Ormsby, Alison; Bhagwat, Shonil A.

doi:10.1017/s0376892910000561

Cited by 148 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Tribes are culturally linked to forests, and they are typically motivated by state forest department to jointly manage forest through protection, restoration of degraded forest, and enrichment plantations (World Bank 2005; Government of India 2007; Macura et al 2011) (notable exception of North-East India where tribes practice shifting cultivation). Sacred groves are typically protected by local community due to cultural/religious beliefs (Ormsby and Bhagwat 2010;Bhagwat et al 2014).…”

Section: Gross Forest Area Gainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics and determinants of land change in India: integrating satellite data with village socioeconomics

et al. 2016

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We examine the dynamics and spatial determinants of land change in India by integrating decadal land cover maps (1985-1995-2005) from a wall-to-wall analysis of Landsat images with spatiotemporal socioeconomic database for *630,000 villages in India. We reinforce our results through collective evidence from synthesis of 102 case studies that incorporate field knowledge of the causes of land change in India. We focus on cropland-fallow land conversions, and forest area changes (excludes non-forest tree categories including commercial plantations). We show that cropland to fallow conversions are prominently associated with lack of irrigation and capital, male agricultural labor shortage, and fragmentation of land holdings. We find gross forest loss is substantial and increased from *23,810 km 2 (1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995) to *25,770 km 2 (1995)(1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005). The gross forest gain also increased from *6000 km 2 (1985)(1986)(1987)(1988)(1989)(1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994)(1995) [1995][1996][1997][1998][1999][2000][2001][2002][2003][2004][2005]. Overall, India experienced a net decline in forest by *18,000 km 2 (gross loss-gross gain) consistently during both decades. We show that the major source of forest loss was cropland expansion in areas of low cropland productivity (due to soil degradation and lack of irrigation), followed by industrial development and mining/quarrying activities, and excessive economic dependence of villages on forest resources.to *7440 km 2 (

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Section: Gross Forest Area Gainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics and determinants of land change in India: integrating satellite data with village socioeconomics

et al. 2016

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“…The link between cultural practices, traditional ecological knowledge and biodiversity conservation has been widely noted (Barthel et al 2010;Ormsby & Bhagwat 2010;Maffi 2005), and it is striking to think that a change in drinking preferences (from mint tea to instant coffee) could have serious consequences on pollination networks in this region. The inclusion of plants and flowers of cultural importance alongside food crops seems to have both social and ecological benefits that likely apply in other homegarden systems.…”

Section: Seasonal Changes In the Importance Cultivated Floramentioning

confidence: 99%

Culturally valuable minority crops provide a succession of floral resources for flower visitors in traditional orchard gardens

2014

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Francis (2014) Culturally valuable minority crops provide a succession of floral resources for flower visitors in traditional orchard gardens. Biodiversity and Conservation, 23 (13). pp. [3199][3200][3201][3202][3203][3204][3205][3206][3207][3208][3209][3210][3211][3212][3213][3214][3215][3216][3217] Access from the University of Nottingham repository: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/34089/8/BioCons_Authors%20copy.pdf Copyright and reuse:The Nottingham ePrints service makes this work by researchers of the University of Nottingham available open access under the following conditions. This article is made available under the University of Nottingham End User licence and may be reused according to the conditions of the licence. For more details see: http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/end_user_agreement.pdf A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the repository url above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. ABSTRACTAgricultural intensification typically has detrimental effects on pollinator communities, but diverse cropping systems that contain sequentially-flowering crops have the potential to benefit pollinators through the provision of additional floral resources. In this study we investigate the importance of cultivated flora for flower visitors in ten agricultural gardens in South Sinai, Egypt. Insect-flower interactions in gardens and unmanaged plots were surveyed across a four-month period in two environmentally distinct years (pre-flood and post-flood). Despite containing an equal abundance and diversity of wild plants as unmanaged habitat, gardens supported a higher abundance and diversity of flower visitors due to the additional presence of cultivated flora. Visitation networks exhibited dramatic intra-annual changes in composition, with cultivated plants becoming increasingly important in later months. Trends were highly conserved across two years despite highly contrasting rainfall. Several key crop species were strongly involved in shaping the structure of the networks, the majority of which were herbs with strong cultural significance (fennel, rosemary, mint) and grown incidentally alongside the primary orchard crops. Minority crops are frequently overlooked in agricultural systems due to their low economic value, but we 2 show that they can have a dramatic influence upon the structure of visitation networks, increasing both pollinator abundance and diversity, and emphasising the link between cultural practices and biodiversity conservation. Key wordsdiversification, homegarden, Egypt, pollination, sustainability IntroductionMany agricultural pollination studies focus on the intensive agricultural systems that 2014). Understanding the drivers of pollinator losses is important for tackling future food security and it is unfortunate that the most at-risk nations are those lacking...

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“…Local people often participate in the management of community-conserved areas because they perceive such participation as a commitment toward their collective and customary rules (Méndez-López 2014). In India, spirituality and taboos underlie people's efforts to maintain customary forest management practices in sacred forests (Chandrakanth et al 2004, Ormsby andBhagwat 2010).…”

Section: Drivers and Motivations For Community-based Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Meanings, drivers, and motivations for community-based conservation in Latin America

Ruíz-Mallén¹,

Schunko²,

Corbera³

et al. 2015

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Indigenous and rural communities have developed strategies aimed at supporting their livelihoods and protecting biodiversity. Motivational factors underlying these local conservation strategies, however, are still a largely neglected topic. We aimed to enrich the conceptualization of community-based conservation by exploring trigger events and motivations that induce local people to be engaged in practical institutional arrangements for successful natural resource management and biodiversity conservation. By examining the history and development of three community conservation initiatives in Brazil, Mexico, and Bolivia, we have illustrated and discussed two main ways of understanding community-based conservation from the interaction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. First, incentive-based conservation policies can stimulate people's economic interests and mobilize individual and collective behavior toward the formalization of conservation-oriented actions. Second, environmental justice concerns, such as international and national movements for the recognition of indigenous peoples' rights, can support local people's sense of autonomy and result in increased control over their territory and resources, as well as a renewed conservation commitment. The results are useful from a policy perspective because they provide insight into the governance of conservation development by bridging the gap between communities' culturally based motivations for conservation, which are still embedded in customary institutions, and broader political and socioeconomic contexts.

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Sacred forests of India: a strong tradition of community-based natural resource management

Cited by 148 publications

References 37 publications

Dynamics and determinants of land change in India: integrating satellite data with village socioeconomics

Dynamics and determinants of land change in India: integrating satellite data with village socioeconomics

Culturally valuable minority crops provide a succession of floral resources for flower visitors in traditional orchard gardens

Meanings, drivers, and motivations for community-based conservation in Latin America

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