Approaches to Environmental Decision Making through Human-environment Relationship Perspectives

Inequality, Injustice and India’s Forgotten People

“…There is a close relationship between forests tribal and poverty [8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. Approximately one-fourth of the world's poor and 90% of the poorest rely significantly on forests for their livelihoods [15,16,17].…”

“…The enactment of proactive forest conservation policies and Acts, for example, India's Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and changes in management approaches from 'timber' to 'forest ecosystem' during the last few decades have curbed deforestation and promoted conservation and sustainable management of the forest. However, the decline of natural forest due to several factors, what Rai and Soni 2019 [10,11,12] called "power, greed and politics", remains a major concern of forest management.…”

“…Therefore, with such a huge population and extensive dependence pattern, any overexploitation and unsustainable harvest practice can potentially degrade forest [12]. Study on forest-poverty relationships [for example 10,11,12,13] shows that a significant percentage of India's tribal population lives in these forest-fringe regions. Further studies suggests [for example 28,29,30,31,32,33] that these tribal communities not just collect forest products for their own consumption but also for commercial sale, the income from these forest products for households living in and around forest constitutes 40 to 60 per cent of their total income.…”

“…Hence these income generation activities provide employment opportunities to the poor households and make forests an important contributor to the rural economy in the forested landscapes in the country [10,11,12]. The penury, dependency on forest and lack of any other alternative employment opportunity in these forest fringe areas opportunities often make these people resort to over-exploitation of forest resources [12,34].…”

Why are Narratives that Place the Blame for Deforestation on the Rural Poor so Pervasive and so Persistent?

“…Deforestation issues are complex, and narratives provide the simple explanations needed by policymakers and the public [2]. One of the most common narratives explaining deforestation places the blame on the rural poor [see 3, 4,5,6,7,8]. These narratives make facile connections between the poor who depend on the forests for their livelihood and the environmental degradation which is taking place in their immediate vicinity [1; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; ; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20].…”