"Jungle
hai to jivan hai, jivan hai to jungle hai" THEME: Minor forest products help tribal women feed their families and obtain an occasional small income.
Women's Collection of Minor Forest Products Between March and May of every year (the slow season in agriculture), the tribal households depend almost entirely on forest products for their livelihoods. Early every morning, groups of women set out towards the forest. Once there, they work individually, collecting such non-timber products as tendu patta, char and sal seeds, palesh, sarai, mahua/dori, harra, kusum, sisal, bamboo, chhind, mango, jamun, ber. Heat, lack of water, thorns and cuts to the hands make this work difficult, but the efforts produce income. From the products they collect, the women obtain foods such as fruit and oil, and medicines. Forest products also become raw materials for making a number of items for the home, such as bidi, brooms, baskets, mats, rope, home-made toothbrushes and leaf plates. Some forest products (such as char, lac, dataoon, leaf plates, marula fruit) are sold for a small cash income, which is sometimes used for buying clothing, oil or spices. Certain tribes collect forest products for their main occupations. For instance, along with farm labour, the Dhanwar make baskets and brooms out of bamboo. The main occupation of the Oraons and Pardhi is mat weaving, although these tribes farm as well. The Hill Korwa apparently still subsist entirely on hunting, gathering minor forest products and collecting fuel wood. Women's Activities in Tendu Patta Tendu leaves, an important forest product, are collected by tribal women during the "tendu season". The women rise at around 4.00 hours and spend 6-8 hours collecting the leaves, working without food or water. This is followed by 3-4 hours of counting and stacking the leaves in bundles of 50. (It is owing to this activity that illiterates in the village know how to count to 50.) Even if the men help out in the counting and bundling of the leaves, it is usually the women who take the leaves to the co-op for sale. This can take an additional two hours, as it involves queuing at the shop and spreading the leaves out for drying. If the woman goes out to collect tendu leaves and her husband stays home, then he cooks and looks after the children. When tendu leaves were sold to contractors in earlier days, women were paid RS.15 for 100 bundles. According to the women who spoke with the researchers, things improved when the Government took over, but the income is still low. At the time of the study the women were receiving RS.35 for 100 bundles. Women's Role in Protection of Forests To a limited extent, women also participate in forest protection activities. Ten to fifteen years before the Forest Department came up with the same idea, several village communities began to organize protection of the forests, as villagers saw outsiders come in and destroy the forests that were so vital to their livelihoods. Initially, the Gram Sabbha in one village called a meeting to discuss the problem. This led to protective action. Villagers decided to rotate forest-watching responsibilities. Thieves were caught and the timber they had cut was confiscated or the thieves were fined. The idea of forest protection quickly spread to other villages. One village acquired so much confiscated timber that it was able to construct a school from it. When the Forest Department came into the picture, it set up village-level van samities (joint forest management committees) and issued these committees registration certificates, which gave them the official right to protect the forest. The forest management committees have women representatives. In some villages, the study noted, the men see this as useful, in that allows women's concerns to be represented and also allows more control over women, to ensure that they do not break the forest protection rules. In other villages, women's membership is reported to be mainly "ceremonial". The study notes that, except in isolated instances, the role of women in forest protection has been minimal. But tribal women still speak of one case where a courageous woman committee member caught seven men stealing timber, and made sure they were fined Rs.100 each. The forests are an important livelihood system for tribal households. Tribal women collect forest products and also help protect the forests. The study reports that the official goal is to wean people away from dependence on forest resources, by promoting alternatives. But this could well result in weakening villagers' forest management commitment, with the result being that outsiders will once again come in and exploit this vital resource. Adapted from: Vettivel, Surendra Kumar. 1997. India: Madhya Pradesh Tribal Development Project - Participatory Development Framework, Community Institution Building, Indigenous Social Structure, Women's Participation, Role of NGOs. Rome: IFAD, June. |
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Forests
are a vital livelihood support system for people in the Chattisgarh tribal
area. Forest resources provide them with food, medicine, fodder and grass,
fuel wood and water for irrigation. A 1997 IFAD study found that even
though the forests were actually owned and controlled by the Forest Department,
tribal people viewed them as "theirs". Women rely on the
collection of forest products and also play a part in protecting forests.