Welcome To ATREE

Community interventions in Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve

Kalakad -Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) in Agasthyamalai hills of Western Ghats in Tamil Nadu is known for abundance of rare plants and several endangered animals. KMTR being a tiger reserve enjoys total protection where no collection of any sort is allowed. It comprises the wet forests on higher elevations and dry forests in the foothills.

From these dry forests along the eastern boundary of KMTR, fuelwood and fodder are extracted by people of around 145 villages . While the women of all age and classes collect fuel wood, its the men who herd the cattle here. These villages have varying levels of dependence on the forests based on their Socio-economic structure, farming practices and water availability.

ATREE developed a conservation intervention program to decrease this dependency on the forests as well as simultaneously build awareness in the people about the biodiversity they have in their neighborhood.

The ATREE-KMTR intervention program works on the local requirements of the communities in the area. A cluster of 3 villages closer to the forest with varying population levels and social status were selected. The common feature of these villages is availability of good irrigation facility. Most of the lands are under wetland cultivation and this has reduced the grazing grounds and fuel wood sources within the villages. Hence, there was a need to build biomass within these villages that would serve the fuel and fodder requirements of the community and therefore decreasing their dependency on forests.

Towards a green village

Based on baseline data generated by a house hold survey, it was determined that on an average 5 men and 15 women go into the forests for collection of 1452kg of fuel wood from over 23 species per day. Over 60 cattle herds venture into the forests on a regular basis and this number increases by three folds during fodder scarcity in the villages. Many of the poorer households are dependent on the income they get from selling fuelwood to the more well-off inhabitants of the village. Seeking to decrease the dependence on fuelwood from the forest, the major intervention was to increase the biomass generation within the villages. Over 5000 saplings belonging to 56 multipurpose tree species were raised in the field station nursery and supplied free of cost to the households, temples, hospitals, schools, libraries, offices and farm lands in the village. Tree guards made from locally available palm fronds were provided for protection. Saplings were taken care of by a number of different people ranging from students to adults. Farmers made live fences along field bunds using green manure plants. The results of these interventions should show up in another couple of years. A nursery is being developed locally to increase the supply of these species for biomass needs. We also explored few alternate livelihood options in the village and provided training in tailoring for 30 girls from the families of fuel wood collectors.

Revitalizing traditional knowledge and vegetable gardening

Traditional knowledge in utilizing weed plants as food and medicine has eroded after the community begun depending on external markets for vegetables and medicine. A workshop on local medicinal plants and their uses was also held which was attended by local vaidyas and children.

A nutritional workshop was also organized by ATREE to demonstrate how one can enhance nutrition using locally available plant resources. Following this, we distributed indigenous vegetable seeds to over 150 households which have generated savings of Rs. 182 per family per month from vegetable harvests alone. A visit to a nearby food processing unit also helped to familiarize the women with processing techniques that it is possible to carry out in their own kitchens.

Building biodiversity with young hands

Children, the future custodians of the biodiversity in the village, were shown the value of biodiversity in their backyard using pictorial audio visual aids in the local language. Enthusiastic children were grouped into a 'Green Brigade' who were actively involved in monitoring the saplings planted in community lands and also the birds found in the village ponds. An anti-plastics campaign has also been organized in the area with the participation of the Greeen Brigade.

Future Activities

Plans are underway to scale up vegetable garden into multi-purpose home garden (MPHG), with medicinal plants, live fence plants, fuelwood and fodder tree species. MPHG co-operative will be formed to pool the excess production for marketing within and beyond the village. The next phase will involve the market survey of these products.