Forest and Tribal Life (Study of a Micro-Region)Socio-Cultural Traits Sustaining Tribal Ecology A Case Study of Danta Taluka, Banaskantha District, North Gujarat

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About the Author Rohit Shukla (h. 1939) is working as Professor of Economics, Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research, Ahmedabad. His research interests include droughts and famines and rural poverty, social forestry and wasteland development and tribal development in the general theme of agricultural economics. He has published a large number of articles in national and international journals as well as books in English and Gujarati.

Ambubhal T. Desai (b. 1932) is working as Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad. His main research interests are rural studies and geography of education. He has published several textbooks and articles on Geography and reviewed and guided a number of dissertations.

A.B. Vora (b. 1933) is Professor and Head of Botany Department, Gujarat University. His main field of specialization is ecology environmental biology, including air and water, soil pollution eco- physiology, salt, stress, palaeo-ecology and palaeo-climatic. He has to his credit over 125 publications in national and international academic journals.

R.B. Lal (b. 1935) is working as a Senior Faculty in Tribal Research and Training Institute of Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Ahmedabad. He has a wide and rich experience of conducting research among tribal societies of Bihar as well as of Gujarat. He has written several books and reports on tribals and published more than 30 papers on different aspects of tribal life and culture as well as their developmental problems.

K.M. Kulkarni (b. 1949) is Reader in Geography, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad. His main interests are urban and regional studies. He has Published more than 30 research papers in national and international journals and is the author of Urban Structure and Interaction (Concept, 1981), Geography of Crowding and Human Response (Concept, 1984) and Geographical Patterns of Social Well-being in Gujarat (Concept 1989).

Preface TRIBALS LIVE in the eastern hilly region of the State of Gujarat. Anthropologically they are not entirely homogeneous. The tribals are economically and socially far backward than other social groups. Their backwardness is a result of a number of factors.

Socially they are out of the main stream of life. Because of very low rate of literacy, underdeveloped economy, peculiar nature and form of worship, customs and traditions, they have remained away from the general run of life. Besides, their secluded existence is reinforced by hilly and forested surroundings.

Since the tribals were living with the forests, their life style is full of customs and traditions where forests play a significant role. Forest products are used by them in a variety of ways, e.g., as material for housing, agricultural implements, transport, fuel, medicine, etc. Forests also provide them hunting ground for game. Collection of minor forest products, like, honey, lac, fruits, flowers, gums, resins and various ingredients of Ayurvedic system of medicine etc. It also provides good deal of gainful employment to the forest dwellers.

Fuelwood is also an important forest resource. But as more and more trees were felled, the forest became less and less dense. With decreasing forest wealth, income from other forest-based sources also decreased. As a result, still larger number of trees were cut to maintain the same economic level of the household. Two other factors also added to the deepening of this crisis.

Rapidly increasing population created a pressure on the forests.. This initially led to an increase in the land under agriculture. When increasing human population was accompanied by increasing livestock also, the pressure on forest resources became too heavy. Browsing and grazing of livestock affected natural re-generation. The tribals and other communities, owning herds, chopped the browsable species for leaf fodder while heavy hoofed animals compacted soil; all these made re-generation of forest still more difficult.

Forests felt the economic pressure because of other two reasons as well. Since tribal community was away from the main stream, their outmigration in search of better economic opportunities was minimal The pressure of increasing population had to be borne by a land-based economic activity. In this situation, secondly, the problem of slower growth rate in the yield rates of crop agriculture also became detrimental to forests. If the tribals had been able to achieve a better growth rate of agriculture along with better marketing facility, their income levels could have been higher enough and their dependence on forests could have been lesser. The forests, as common property, were privatised because of the continuation of almost exclusive reliance on land-based activities.

THERE IS a growing concern among the technocrats, bureaucrats and politicians to protect and improve the quality of environmental resources, such as, air, water, soil, vegetation and minerals, through various measures. Such steps become absolutely necessary in the countries where advanced level of institutional and technological set-up exists. The environmental conditions in the majority of the Third World countries have started becoming grave and more so in the pockets of industrial, urbanised and dense rural areas. These are the areas of intense resource exploitation. Some of the tribal areas and remote rural areas in the Third World countries have better environmental quality and balance, mainly because of some prevailing religious beliefs and non-availability of modern technological means. However, one finds the impact of urbanisation making inroads in the tribal environment to the extent of resource utilisation and influencing the environmental conditions.

The study of socio-cultural traits sustaining eco-system in a micro-region in North Gujarat was entrusted to the Sardar Patel Institute of Economic and Social Research in collaboration with the Gujarat University and Gujarat Vidyapeeth by the Department of Environment of the Government of India. Considering the availability of funds and time it was thought desirable to study only two major manifestations, viz., food and housing, in this pilot study. The present study aims at enquiring into socio-cultural traits of tribals in sustaining their eco-system from the angle of requirements regarding food and housing.

A production system in any micro-region is based on its environmental conditions and resource base in general. Cropping pattern, for example, depends on surface configuration of soil, water and conditions of sunshine, Flora and Fauna of any region can exist, survive and continue to thrive only if the equilibrium of an eco-system is left undisturbed. But, in the present day context the imbalance in the eco-system has become alarming in many parts of the world. Depletion of forests has not only created a crisis of fuelwood, timber and industrial raw materials but also a variety of fundamental problems like erosion of soil, siltation of rivers, reservoirs and tanks, loss of wild life and birds, etc. All these culminate in the dislocation of life styles and culture of tribals as their life style is governed by the eco-system of a region.

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