"Livelihoods and Landscapes in Contention: Interfaces, interactions, insights on forest, farm and pasture" a talk by Dr. Sagari R. Ramdas at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 21st August 2013

Time : 3:00 pm

Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)

Place : Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi
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Event Description : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to a Public Lecture in the ‘Science, Society and Nature’ series on ‘Livelihoods and Landscapes in Contention: Interfaces, interactions, insights on forest, farm and pasture’ by Dr. Sagari R. Ramdas, ANTHRA, Hyderabad.

Abstract : Pastoralists of the Deccan, whose livelihoods depend primarily on grazing their sheep and goat flocks in forests, non-forest common property resources and private agriculture fallows, are beginning to assert their rights of mobility and grazing which are key to the future of their livelihoods, through utilizing recent national legislations such as the Forest Rights Act, 2006, as also organizing to mobilize their local institutions of self-governance (gram panchayats) to defend valuable common property resources, located in their villages  such as traditional grazing grounds, water bodies, fodder trees, grazing pathways and indigenous animal gene pools, that are under serious threat. Shepherds who live in villages located adjacent to forests, are not merely asserting their rights to graze and govern the forests using the legislation, but in turn using their kinship networks to catalyse other shepherds who share a common forest space, to assert their rights. In doing so they are also dialoguing amongst themselves, and becoming actively involved in protecting their forests using customary knowledge and practice. Other shepherds who migrate into forests only seasonally, are beginning to realize the changed governance systems: instead of accessing forests by bribing forest guards, indigenous adivasi peoples whose homelands are the forests, are using the forest rights legislations to assert their rights to protect the forests through customary practices, which include traditions where through dialogue, the seasonal pastoralist have to seek the consent of adivasis before they enter the forests to graze. This nurtures a collective sense of responsibility and respect towards the forest space.  In these small pockets, pastoralists are increasingly playing a pro-active role in engaging the wider village community in critical choices that the community must make with respect to “development” that is changing the face of their landscape, their ecosystems and livelihoods, and is impacting their resources (land, water, air, soil, forests, crops, breeds, seeds etc). The paper demonstrates the critical importance of shepherds / pastoralists who continue to be dependent on the non-forest commons, agriculture lands and forests, to exercise their citizenship to protect what remains of the commons across these vast Deccan tracts. In doing so they are in effect fighting for the survival of the last remaining grassland ecosystems of the Deccan. This will complement the task of decentralized forest governance, which is being led by indigenous- Adivasi people in their forest homelands.

Speaker : Dr.  Sagari R. Ramdas is Director and a member of Anthra, a resource group in India, founded by women, which works with peasant, pastoralist and indigenous peoples, particularly women from these communities, on environment and social justice concerns in the larger context of food sovereignty. She is currently engaged in action research with various people’s alliances, looking at ways in which seemingly unrelated policies and programmes that span multiple sectors (resource governance, climate change, GM crops, biofuels, carbon-trade, contract farming, IPR regimes, trade agreements, micro-credit), are undermining peoples sovereignty and autonomy over sustainable farming, and dispossessing communities from their land, livelihoods, and eco-systems, as also exploring how communities are organizing to resist and assert their rights through decentralized democratic processes of governance. A veterinary scientist by profession, she has been working in this field since the past 2 decades. She obtained her degree in Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry from the College of Veterinary Science, Haryana Agriculture University, India, and a Masters in Animal Breeding and Genetics from the University of California, Davis, USA. She has published widely in peer reviewed and popular journals, on areas of her work.

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