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Forests People and Livelihood
Many
communities in India remain critically dependent upon
forest resources to meet their livelihood requirements.
We document some of these dependencies, particularly in
the context of restrictive policies that aim to deny these
communities access to forests. We have also explored the
links between such use of forest resources, the forests
themselves and the kinds of products that ultimately make
their way to urban centres.
FOLLOWING
THE RHYTHMS (33mts)
A Moving Images Production
The
Van Gujjars are nomadic pastoralists, who make their living
out of rearing buffaloes. They follow an annual migratory
cycle between the foothills of Uttaranchal and the high-altitude
pastures in the Himalayas. Their nomadic existence is
justified by the logic that both, the forests in the foothills
and the pastures in the Himalayas, get time to regenerate
due to their transhumance. They claim that there is an
inherent link between lifestyle and conservation of natural
resources because their
livelihoods are solely dependent upon forests. 'Following
the Rhythms' tries to capture the unique facets of the
Van Gujjars' life, their emotional & functional linkages
with forests, their prescriptions for protecting the resources
that govern their existence and their life patterns that
would seem anachronistic to the modern imagination but
are suggestive of a symbiotic relationship between man
and his surroundings. "Modern" society has however made
its demands from the Van Gujjars. Institutions like the
Forest Department, which have a mandate of conservation,
perceive the Van Gujjars as "negative pressures" on biodiversity.
Over the last decade and a half, there have been calls
from several quarters for relocating the Van Gujjars outside
the forests. The Forest Department boasts of successful
relocation efforts at Pathri and Gaindikhatta in Uttaranchal,
but the Van Gujjars are critical of this resettlement
policy. And not without reason! For long, the Van Gujjars
have been demanding citizenship rights & a just resettlement
policy that have been denied to them on grounds that they
are not part of the "mainstream". Recently, they have
successfully initiated several education & health programmes
in collaboration with a Dehradun-based NGO, the Rural
Litigation and Entitlement Kendra (RLEK).
'Following the Rhythms' is an attempt
to document the contours of this debate - between the
Forest Department and the Van Gujjars, between scientific
and indigenous modes of conservation. It attempts to study
the complexities involved in relocation and the role of
non-governmental organisations in advocacy and the facilitation
of basic services to the Van Gujjars, who, despite having
lived here for centuries, are yet to be acknowledged as
citizens of India.
Forests for a few…a living for many
Client / Financial Support: DFID, UK
Duration : 48 minutes
Community
participation in forest management has been a key part
of forest policy, both India and Nepal over the past few
decades. There have been numerous reviews of these programmes,
yet few have adopted a comparative framework across these
two countries. The drivers of change are of course different
within each of these two countries, including significant
differences in the administrative, political and economic
contexts within which such decentralization has occurred.
We have recently finished a project exploring the impacts
of these differing contexts in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa,
West Bengal and Nepal.
Forest Dialogues
Client / Financial Support: Cambridge University
in association with Moving Images
Duration : 35 minutes
The Joint Forest Management movement in Harda, in the
central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh has been termed
as role model internationally. However there have been
serious problems between the local communities' adivasis
and forest department staff relating to access to natural
resources. In the past few years new stakeholders like
Mass Tribal Organizations (MTOs) have also emerged in
the region with their own agendas and issues. What started
as a democratic, participatory approach between the tribal
communities and the Forest Department is now in the midst
of controversy.
This film documents the successes and failures of the
Joint Forest Management experience in Harda. It serves
as a platform to provide a comprehensible voice to the
views and opinions of academicians, adivasis, MTOs and
forest officials of Madhya Pradesh. It highlights the
debates and seeks to capture the positive attributes of
the Joint Forest Management with the concluding scenes
recounting the achievements of an alternative forest management
programme in the same region as a viable option.
Tale Of A Forest - a street play by Bharat Gyan Vigyan
Samiti, Madhya Pradesh
Duration : 26 minutes
A film documenting the street play put up by BGVS in
collaboration with the Cambridge Harda Project. The street
play evaluates and analyses the relationship between the
government and the adivasis in the context of community-based
management of forests. The project has sought to acquire
a deeper insight into and convey a closer understanding
of how the adivasis perceive the forest and the government.
Pastoral
Politics
A
film about Gaddi Herders of Himachal Pradesh, India
Duration
: 29 minutes
Language : English and Hindi with English sub-titles
Migratory and nomadic pastoralism continues to be practiced
in many parts of India, particularly the dry lands of
the Indian Thar desert and the high ranges of the Indian
Himalaya. Over the past century and a half, these herding
communities have had to deal with restrictive policies
of various state forest departments, which see their grazing
practices as responsible for large scale land degradation.
Whether or not this is the case is difficult to tell,
in part owing to a lack of evidence for such degradation,
but also owing to the difficulties of establishing what
constitutes a state of degradation.
Pastoral
Politics examines the issue of land degradation in the
context of the land use practices of the Gaddi community
of Himachal Pradesh. The 'Politics' in the title refers
first, to the politics that influence individual herder
access to grazing resources, and second, to the politics
of land degradation, particularly with regard to who frames
the discourse on degradation, which particular lands are
identified as being degraded and the cultural stereotypes
that have historically informed forest department attribution
of degradation to herding communities such as the Gaddi.
The
film suggests that despite the depiction of herding as
primitive and inefficient, the Gaddi have continued a
successful commercial herding tradition, and that some
combination of cultivation and herding may in fact be
the most productive uses of these mountain lands. The
film calls for a rethinking of Indian conservation policies,
and the development of policies that are more accommodating
of life-styles such as those of the Gaddi.
Devta Activists
Client / Financial Support:PSBT, Prasar Bharti
Duration : 28 minutes
"Devta Activists" is an exploration of the role of traditional
deities (Devtas) belonging to the Kullu valley, in the
conservation and fight for access to forest resources.
It is a study of how local traditions negotiate with contemporary
discourses of scientific conservation and national development.
By acceding control over natural resources to Devtas,
several informal conservation practices of local communities
in the Kullu Valley have constituted themselves over time.
These practices find their authority threatened today
because of the presence of two looming symbols of modernity
in the area- the Great Himalayan National Park and the
Parvati Hydro-Electric Project; the former representing
the scientific principles of exclusionary conservation
and the latter that completely demolishes any principles
of environmental conservation. The film explores the implications
of these "modern" initiatives vis-à-vis local conservation
practices while delineating the inner logic of the Devta
tradition and its relationship with conservation.
Bountiful Nature
'Bountiful Nature' is a series of films that explore
the complexities and beauty of so much that is a part
of Indian rural life. In particular the film focuses on
unique lifestyles that ultimately result in the production
of everyday commodities that all of us use in our own
daily lives. Most of us are unaware of either the physical
beauty of the locations from which some of these common
products come from, or of the complex dynamics that underlie
the actual production and processing of these commodities.
The films bring a sense of this complexity and wonder
to the Indian and international viewer.
Colours Of Nature
Duration : 28 minutes
Colours of Nature documents the age-old techniques
in vegetable dying in various parts of the country. Many
of these dyes continue to be used in a wide variety of
contexts, including in the colouration of butter, in a
great deal of cooking, in the cosmetic industry, in the
dyeing of clothes that are now ubiquitously used, both
within and outside the country. A lot of these colours
come from plants, such as the pomegranate rind which gives
yellow colour, majith which has a natural pink/red colour,
and so on. The katha extract is used in the colouration
of lipsticks, while the seed of Anatto (grown in Kerala)
is used to colour Amul Butter. The film particularly focuses
in western India, where a large variety of communities
are engaged in the production of natural dyes.
Something To Chew On
Duration : 24 minutes
Something to chew on is the story of the areca
nut or supari as it is more commonly known. All of us
have experience of this condiment, yet few of us know
of where it comes from, and how it is produced. The film
takes the viewer deep into the valleys and forests of
the Karnataka Western Ghats, where the areca palm is grown
in plantations that are complex composites of many different
species of spices. Production of supari today combines
the modernity of drip irrigation systems with the antiquity
of specialist tree-climbers jumping from one tree to the
next, high above the ground, as they harvest the ripe
nut. The film is set within the magical context of the
Western Ghats - the swirling mist a constant reminder
of one's presence in the Indian rainforest.
Himalayan Herbs
Work in Progress
The alpine meadows of the Himalaya, above 13,000 feet
in elevation, are home to some of the most diverse plant
communities in the world. Over the centuries, local communities
have used this diversity of plants for all manner of purposes,
including the healing of minor ailments, spices in food
preparation, and mushrooms as food. In more recent times,
many of these plants have found a market, both nationally
and internationally. A large number of these plants are
now harvested to meet this demand and many species find
their way into myriad pharmaceutical and herbal cosmetic
companies around the world. The film proposes to explore
this environment in which these plants grow, along with
a documentation of the methods used by residents of high
altitude villages to find and harvest these herbs. We
will then follow the routes that the herbs travel, as
they move from alpine meadow to local and regional markets,
before reaching export centres in Amritsar and Delhi.
Keepers of Genes
Client / Financial Support:FAO, Rome
Duration:28 minutes
For many parts of rural India, livestock forms the backbone
of the economy as 70% rural Indians own livestock. But
in recent times curtailed access of traditional pastures
and intensification of agricultural use of rural landscapes
has interrupted traditional grazing routes, forcing pastoralists
to make alternate decisions, sometimes even forcing them
to sell their herds.
The film Keepers of Genes charts the difficult times
faced by the Indian pastoralists whose animals are being
restricted from accessing their traditional grazing areas.
www.pastoralpeoples.org
www.fao.org
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