1

Collections from Commons –a crucial component of su rvival strategy of the poor: Experience from West Bengal.

DOLLY MENON

Abstract

The dependence of the very poor, on collections from commons is a theme that is often reflected in important studies on the common property-poverty nexus. In the Indian context, this relation has been worked out mostly in the confines of very dry, forested or fragile mountainous areas. The work has mostly related, harvesting of commons and income generating activities of the poor (i.e. collection for sale) This paper looks at collections from commons, mainly for consumption by the very poor households .Collections, therefore, act to improve nutritional well being of the poor. The paper forms a part of the author’s PhD work, based on a 7 village study set in West Bengal where these villages together, cover all three agro-climatic zones of the State namely, Eastern Himalayas, dry lands of Eastern hills and the flood prone Gangetic Plains. The paper also looks at collections from village common water resources, particularly, ponds. The aim of the paper is to vindicate the hypothesis that poor, everywhere and anywhere, collect from the commons. What they collect and from which source, depends on endowment of common resources, special to that area. There is an attempt to statistically forge the link between poverty (low income) and collections from the commons. Also there is information on timing of collections. So collections during lean agricultural season acquire importance of being safety nets for the very poor. The simple policy prescription is that conservation of the common resources of the village act as best poverty alleviation exercise, in the absence of targeted programs of the State to affect levels of living. Key words: agro climatic zones; .collections for consumption; collections from and around water bodies; collection for fuel; food calendar. I.Introduction.

This paper looks at the role of common property resources in the lives of rural poor in the State of West Bengal in India. Focus is on collection from commons for direct consumption by the very poor who have little access to market both due to distance from the market and also due to low purchasing power. It is based on a primary survey covering 7 villages from 7 districts of West Bengal. The intent is to get an insight into the way rural poor face life in poverty; how much dependence on CPR is existing in this study area; what are the factors explaining dependence. For these insights, a socio-economic profile of the sample households was attempted. A simple Logit model is used to figure out the probability of a household’s(HH) collection behavior. The paper incorporates: Ia. A conceptual understanding of CPR. I b.Linking CPR to sustenance of the poor.

II. A brief survey of literature on CPR dependence by the poor. III. Actual evidence of this link in an empirical situation.

2

IV. Concluding remarks. Ia. A conceptual understanding of CPR, The resources considered as common property in general, are

• Common lands in a village. • Forests that are not reserved for specific use. • Common property water resources.

The main feature of common property resources (CPR) is that the rights on them are ill defined. They are neither private property, nor state owned. CPR are unique in the midst of other property arrangements by virtue of : a) a well defined group having exclusive rights on the use of the resource, b) non-excludability condition for every member of the group for use of the resource & c)its use being subtractive i.e .use of the resources by any member reduces access and hence welfare of other members in the group. The property rights are conferred on a community who are joint owners and stakeholders eg. the village grazing land can be used by everyone in the village. So it has the characteristic of inclusion for the entire village folk but exclusion for outsiders. When such identification of “community of users” is clear cut, we call these, common pool resources. However rules of governing periphery of access as well as conservation of these resources again may be weak, leading to situations of open access. Such an eventuality leads to overuse of the resources that will degrade the resource base. On the other hand when resources are under a common pool, there emanates, rules of protection and conservation. CPR defined this way implies that there are strict rules for sharing resources .Any well managed CPR system, hence is amenable to regulation. This is its institutional character. Self governing systems of water management, village governance of grazing lands, forest management committees for example, fall in this category. Concept of common pool resources is used interchangeably with common property in literature but is different in that the group may not have claim but may have user rights which are customary. As a result, claims may be tentative, if conventions are not respected. Also if such customary laws are super ceded by judicial interventions, the arrangements break down. Most reported success stories about land reforms in India are accompanied by shrinkage in village common lands on which there was common right of use. Another example of customary sharing of land use is a study of transhumance of nomadic tribes in Western Himalayan Region( Chakravarty-kaul, Minoti,1996). This category of resources exemplifies the CPR-PPR1 linkages. However, a rigorous definition of open access is useful. An open access resource is characterized by rivalry in extraction; it is subject to use by any person who has the capability and desire to enter into harvest or extraction of it, and its extraction results in symmetric or asymmetric negative externalities . In reality property rights are complex and the same resource can be treated as CPR, State property or private property. Water is notionally a CPR but it is State property as irrigation flows, private resource in the channel and CPR as groundwater. Moreover, groundwater stock may well be under private land. That is why the areas for different kinds of resources must be properly delineated in order to understand the CPR-PPR interface.

1 PPR is private property resources.

3

A study of common lands involves inquiry into the land use patterns over time. This is because more profitable use of land leads to shrinking size of common land in villages. Also, Government’s attempts at institutional change via land reforms may alter both land use and hence, the size of common lands (Chakravarty-Kaul, Minoti,1996)2. To the extent the poor lose access to these lands eg. for grazing and other uses, their well being suffers. Ib. Linking CPR to sustenance of the poor. In the rural setting, CPRs contribute significantly to income generation, self employment as well as auxiliary consumption of the poor. The poor traditionally depend on the provisioning services of village ecosystems for food, fodder, fuel wood, water, manure, thatching material, leaves, grass and fiber. Some of the products collected are directly consumed by HHs and many items have markets for sale and they generate incomes for collecting households. Much of the products collected are used for making simple value added items like ropes, baskets, plates, bidis, cane seats and furniture, mats, bags etc. The wide variety of these items of common use as well as the raw materials used to make them, relate to the specific local abundance in some resource eg .jute bags, jute carpets and other jute handicrafts may be made in Bengal but choir carpets, bags and mattresses will be made in Kerala. Another interesting example is the rustic plates made of leaves collected by the poor from CPR. Typically, banana leaves are used in South India, lotus and banana leaves in Gangetic Bengal, saal leaves in the dry belt of Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. Similarly the States in Eastern Himalayan region will use bamboo in making huts, tea cups, strainers, lamps, pickles and all conceivable handicrafts. These income generating activities as cottage industries are sustained by collections from commons Dependence of the poor is special because in times of stress, like crop loss or no employment, the poor can fall back on “nature” as a safety net. Poor who are non sedentary agriculturists, fishermen, herdsmen or traditionally geared to gathering ( items like honey, gum, rubber or wax collectors from forests) literally live on the bounties of nature. Also the people in the tail end of income distribution who are excluded from the market and are untouched by the State’s poverty alleviation programs, look only to harvesting of the ecosystem for sustenance. Access to forestland for grazing, manure and firewood as well as other edible and saleable forest products, is very important, almost critical, for the survival of the poor. Degradation of forests or denial of access of the forest to the poor, is therefore detrimental to well being. Well being of the poor is enhanced by access to free consumption in the form of fish, shells, lotus stems and greens etc. from the water bodies. Small game, fruits, roots, edible leaves, stems collected from forests and also from communal groves and shrubs on village common lands, all add to the nutritional status of the poor.. Ground water, surface water resources as well as access to irrigation water, are all common property water resources. Overuse of ground water, non accessibility to the end users of the irrigation water, exclusion of the poor from the use of ponds and tanks and also filling up of ponds for residential purposes, all cause hardships to the poor depending on them. Lack of access to water means longer hours and distances involved in collecting water in such HHs. This leads to fatigue and compromising leisure time for the poor. Hence it is negative to their well being.

2 Common Lands and Customary Law(1996).

4

The strong links between ecosystems and livelihoods make it imperative that ecosystem health be maintained and degradation stopped as well as reversed. The work of Anil Agarwal (Agarwal, Anil and Narain, S.1989) neatly put together a model of village economy where the agrarian economy of the village works in tandem with the livestock module and the water module. Proper management of water works as a driver of development for the whole system. The treatment of these three modules in a framework of economic- ecological modeling is found in the work of Kanchan Chopra and G.Kadekodi (1999)3. Harvesting the commons as a non market solution for very poor to deal with poverty has been elaborated by N.S Jodha (1986). Over the years, many researchers in varied contexts have examined the collection behaviour of the poor from CPR, resulting in a vast literature on the CPR dependence of the poor. II. A brief review of literature on dependence of rural households on CPR.

The role of CPR in impacting livelihoods of the poor, acting as a substitute for productive assets primarily in agriculture and acting as a safety net for nutrition of the poor are alternative ways of reaffirming the need to conserve such resources.

The poverty-CPR linkage highlights the promise of natural resource management becoming a crucial basis for policy of poverty alleviation4.

There is a substantial literature on quantification of the dependence. N.S.Jodha(1986) in his seminal paper ,based on a survey of 502 households from 21 districts of India, estimated that the poor households derive between 9 and 26% of their annual income from CPR as against 1 and 4% by the rich households. 5 Jodha meticulously enumerated the great variety of resources that can be used by harvesters of commons. However his survey focused only on dry areas and although he mentioned collections from ponds, rivulets etc. of edibles, he did not take this aspect of collection seriously. A number of studies on collection of fuel wood, fodder and other non-timber forest products (NTFPs) in different parts of India show interesting observations. It was found in a detailed four village study in Andhra Pradesh that collection of NTFPs are more market driven than that of fuel wood and fodder. As a result, all households get into NTFP collection, irrespective of caste or class(Rao,K.K.(2000). The National Sample Survey Organization undertook an All India survey of CPR in 1998. Conceptual clarity was sought in definition of CPR. Two concepts were used viz. de facto and de jure in deciding identification of CPR. By usage, many times private property recognized de jure, became de facto CPR. The data set covered 78,990 HHs in 10978 villages. According to the survey, percentage age of common property land resources to total geographical area was 15%; households reporting

.3 . Operationalizing Sustainable development(1999). 4 (Duraiappa,1998,Horowiz, 1998and Barbier, 2005) 5..”Jodha defines dependence on income from commons as the ratio of income from commons to income from all other sources excluding the commons. He also uses two alternative measures of dependence on the commons, namely the proportion of households of a given income class that use common property resources and the extent to which a given household is dependent on the commons for its employment.Using these other measures Jodha finds that poor households are more dependent on commons than the rich.”(Shrikant Gupta et.al, 2005)

5

any collection from commons was 48% and nearly 58% of total consumption of fuel wood was from commons. A seminal work on common property- environment link is a book “Migration, Common Property and Environment Degradation (Chopra, Kanchan, Gulati. S.C. 2001). It explains the factors impacting HH decisions to migrate. The perception is that outmigration is higher with no backing of CPR safety net. Environmental degradation reduces the strength of the CPR- poverty linkage. Based on NSS(1998) data, a study estimated the CPR dependence of households in four States of India viz. Bihar, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra (Chopra, Kanchan, Dasgupta, Purnamita,2003).The dependence is with regard to collection for sale and income generation. A static HH decision making model was used for estimating dependence, using multi nominal logit frame work. The attempt was to establish collection from CPR as a “development driver”, particularly in the context of NTFPs. Effects of deforestation on time allocation for collection of fuel wood was studied in the context of Nepal (Hotchkiss and Kumar,1988) who conclude that deforestation lengthens labour time in collection. There are other important distributional implications of community based resource management , importantly in the forest economy. A common perception in the literature is that “poor collect”, meaning thereby that dependence on commons declines with incomes (Reddy and Chakravarty, 1999, Cavendish 2000 and Adhikari, Bhim 2003). A notable study by Fisher (2004) reports estimates of how various household characteristics affect dependence on forest income in Malawi. She finds that dependence decreases with goat ownership; increases with the number of men in the HH and decreases with the HH head’s education. There was a small but interesting study by Jyotis Sathyapalan(2005) which estimates HH dependence on protected forests of Western Ghats. The study area is the Periyar Tiger Reserve in the State of Kerala, India. He examined the stake of HHs living on the periphery of a protected forest and the socio-economic characteristics of the HHs depending on it. Following the literature on income generating ability of collection of NTFPs, he shows that setting up of protected forests and management of biological resources is inimical to income prospects of forest dwellers and those who harvest the forests customarily. There are great pressures on these forests due to illegal exploitation of resources and basic conflict has emerged between local people and the State. The results of the logit analysis in the work shows that the probability to depend on the reserve is negatively related to the per capita land holding size, per capita expenditure and sex ratio of the household. The study finds land ownership, seasonality in agriculture and cropping pattern as significant factors affecting dependence. A major study on the poverty –environment link was undertaken by Urvashi Narain, Shreekant Gupta and Klaas Van’t Veld(2005) which explored the relationship between poverty, private assets and natural assets. The conclusions are at variance with earlier studies on resource dependence which strongly predict lower dependence at higher incomes. This study uncovers a more complex relationship- depicted by a U-shaped relationship with income. Also resource dependence increases at all income levels with an increase in the level of common-pool biomass availability. The combination of these results suggests that the quality of natural resources matters to a larger share of the rural population than had previously been believed;

6

common-pool resources contribute a significant fraction of the income not just of the desperately poor, but also of the relatively rich. There are many studies on dependence of poor households on CPR for consumption and in all of these, low level of living significantly explain collection behavior.6 Sinclaire’s work (2000) is based in two villages of Northern Himalayas., It studies HH strategies’ diversification as focus of livelihood systems. Two empirical Studies on CPRs in West Bengal are very important to the logical structure of this paper as they emphasize consumption and not sale of items collected. Also the reference point being West Bengal, their observations served as bench mark for the paper. The first of this is a large IDRC survey “Common Property resource use and the poor in the rural West Bengal” was of three year duration, between 1993 and 1996. Dr.Beck’s earlier work and understanding of a similar persuation (Beck,T. 1994; 1994a) and Ghosh’s work (Ghosh,M.G. 1988) had bearing on the keen understanding of the variety and degree of informality the study of CPR needed in the State of West Bengal.7 Their work in West Bengal was pioneering, though difficult, as there was little contemporary evidence on CPR. Most estimates on CPR revealed very insignificant existence of CPR in this State(NSS,1998, Chopra and Gulati,2001). There was however an identification problem, explained by : Gender bias. As most work of gathering and collection is women’s work, it gets ignored. Anti-rural bias . Very little knowledge goes round on rural mode of living and indigenous availabilities of non market options in consumption and Geographical and perceptual bias: Most work on CPR in India was focused on arid, semi-arid, hill and forest fringe regions of the country(Arnold, 1991). Also, negotiation with private asset holders makes for informal arrangements in rural Bengal. So largely private resources turn common by usage. The study concluded that- there were problems of local management of CPR. There was a very high degree of dependence of the poor on the CPRs. There was a lot of interaction of CPR and PPR resources.

Another village study of District Midnapore of West Bengal by Amitava Mukherjee (2002) using Participatory Learning and Action(PLA) technique, deserves notice. The method is based on “historical transects, seasonality analysis, food calendars and semi structured interviews”. It deals with the primary issue of hunger, in terms of food inadequacy and severe nutritional gap for children. Hunger was studied in 3 years-1993,1995 and 1998, preparing food calendars for which the researcher was aided by women of the villages, reflecting peaks and troughs of hunger. He opines that CPR collections are not available in all phases of hunger. But its role as safety net is not true in all phases of hunger. There is also a clear understanding of collection from different sources and an ordinal ranking of month- wise availabilities. It is instructive to know how the poor really cope with food insecurity.8 6 Pasha(19920); Beck, Tony(1994), (1998); Sinclaire (2000); Mukherjee, Amitava (2002).; Beck, Tony, Ghosh, M.G.(2000). 7 Ghosh,M.G.(1995) “common property resource use by poor in West Bengal” was presented in the IASC

conference “Reinventing the commons’ in Bodoe, Norway. 8 The last two studies were methodologically extremely important to the current paper.

7

In sum, the following observations stand out from the literature survey- The estimates of CPR contribution to household income has varied between10 and 23% in different States of India. In most cases CPR collections in the lean period of agricultural season is nutritionally beneficial. Women and children predominantly collect from commons. What is disturbing, however, is that poor are systematically getting excluded from this source of survival due to a number of circumstances. Over years both degradation of village environs and limited access are reasons for this. commoditization of the rural economy has created a situation where fallen fruits, small catch, small game hunting are not accessible to the poor. Even leaves, cow dung, vegetable trimmings, stubble after harvest etc. which were collected for use by the poor are now denied, as everything has a price. Fast growth of rural population is responsible for both encroachment and degradation of common areas. Also norms of co-operation in conserving commons and communal sanctions are getting extinct leading to fast degradation of CPR (Beck and Ghosh, 2000). III. Actual evidence of this link in an empirical situation. The Sample Survey. This paper is based on findings of a sample survey conducted by the author in the State of West Bengal. The period of the survey is Dec.2004 to January 2005 and a second phase on water sampling was undertaken in March 2006. It covers 7 villages, chosen from all 3 different agro climatic zones of the State. The villages chosen differ from each other in the water ecology.

Hypothesis:

• Irrespective of ecological differences, the very poor in a rural setting depend significantly on collections from the commons for survival and nutrition. Due to sharp differences in natural endowments in these villages, items collected and sources of collection are varied.

• Collection from common water sources is very important in all of West Bengal which compensates for the reportedly meager existence CPR in the State.

The field survey was conducted with sample of 441 households from 7 villages chosen from 7 districts spread over hilly area, very dry drought prone areas and also flood prone areas of West Bengal. Since the study is exploratory in nature, some tools of qualitative analysis was resorted to. Therefore, observation and dialogue formed the basis of creating a village profile before final choice of villages was made .Later, two questionnaires, one for the village and the other for household was prepared. So both observation and interview was used to record information. The Household characteristics are exhaustively studied in terms of income, assets, occupation, size, age structure, education, facilities regarding- health, transport, connectivity and various other factors affecting level of living. The collection from specific sources of CPR is documented and dependence is taken as percentage of households that collect. A group of six items is chosen which more than 20% of households in the sample collected. Methodology.

To begin with, a brief overview of the State as a whole is attempted, in terms of number of districts by the1991 Census and the agro climatic zones of West Bengal.

Decision on the study area involved three steps. At first the districts were selected. The choice of 7 districts was purposive in that all 3 Agro climatic zones, viz. Eastern

8

Himalayas and Brahmaputra Valley (EHM); Eastern Plateau Hills (EHg) and Lower Gangetic Plain(LG) are covered.9 This was in the interest of taking a study area that is ecologically diverse. Also there are all kinds of land surface in the study area- i.e mountainous terrains, undulating land as well as plains The selection looks biased to the Gangetic plain but there are also sub regions of the State , identified by other ecological criteria (eg. Soil quality) viz.:Northern Hill, Terai Teesta alluvial zone, Gangetic alluvial zone, Laterite zone, Coastal saline zone & Vindhyan Alluvial Zone. Given that, Jalpaiguri belonged to the Northern Hills; Birbhum, Bankura and Medinipur to the Laterite zone; Nadia in alluvial zone ; 24 Parghanas (N) in Deltaic Alluvial zone and 24 Parghanas (S) in Coastal saline zone.On the whole they represent the hilly, the dry and the flood prone –all types of land in West Bengal. This representation is essential for generality of the claim that, the abysmally poor, anywhere and every where, collect for surviving in poverty.

Next step was to choose the Development Block in each district. The Blocks were chosen purposively with relatively low development achievement. The Blocks chosen were Kalchini from Jalpaiguri; Labpur from Birbhum; Chhatna from Bankura; Salboni from Medinipur; Ranaghat-I from Nadia; Gaighata from 24 Parghanas (N) and Diamond Harbour-II from 24 Parghanas (S) Actual choice of villages: Then 1 village from each Block was chosen. This selection, like the choice of the districts and the blocks was purposive. Four criteria were used to influence choice:

a. Different water ecology, hence villages are from different ecological zones; b.Large proportion of poor in the population;

c.Some noticeable water related degradation in the CPR of the village. Here, diversity in the nature of the problem was the basis of choiceand

d. Some community effort to tackle or reverse the problem of degradation. Here presence of NGOs or social workers as well as SHG participation was important in deciding choice.

Data Sources:1. Primary data from the village survey.2. Record of Rights as in the BHUMI software managed by the Directorate of Land Records of the Government of West Bengal.

Delineation of Survey area and size of sample is as follows : . District ID, name

Village ID; name GP CDBlock Sample Size (no. of HHs.)

1.Jalpaiguri 1; Radharani Tea Garden

Chuapada Kalchini 96

2.Birbhum 2; Kalikapur Chouhatta Mahodory

Labpur 31

3.Bankura 3;Ghoshergram Ghosher gram Chhatna 91 4.Medinipur 4;Jagannathpur Salboni Salboni 32 5.Nadia 5; Sibpur Barasat Ranaghat-II 59 6.24 Parghanas N) 6;Gazna-I Shutia Gaighata 98 7.24 Parghanas(S) 7;Khakrakona Khordo Diamond

Harbour -II 34

9.NSS 54th Round on CPR(1998) and Beck and Ghosh (1995), also took sample households across all these three Agro-Climatic zones.

9

Sample size: The choice of sample size is 25% of the village population. Population size was taken from West Bengal Census 2001 but some of the villages chosen are not revenue villages. Hence actual population of the villages as recorded by the Gram Panchayats (GP) was taken and 25% of that was the sample selected for the survey. The sampling procedure and mode of enquiry: The choice of villages was purposive but sample households were selected randomly, using Circular systematic sampling. The HH. questionnaire, that was canvassed, has 32 questions which cover: 1.Identification and description of the HH, dwelling and occupation type as well as information on assets that indicates economic status of the HH, in addition to income. 2.Information was sought on family’s food habits and the role of free collection. 3.There was a composite query on level of well being including depth of poverty, indebtedness, facilities at home, school enrollment and vaccination of infants etc. 4.Details of actual collections from the CPR land and water resources was asked with consumption/sale options exercised by the households. 5.There was enquiry about HH 's allocation of monthly expenditure to major categories like food, fuel,education,travel and health to understand better the poverty status. 6.A question was asked on kind of fuel used. 7.Substantial information was collected on water use and water quality of CPWR.

Statistical exercise

Tabulation on socio-economic features of HHs

Construction of a two way table on collections from commons in detail .This table shows --collection by items, by purpose ( sale or consumption), by source of collection, by time of the year for collections and also by time spent in collection. To prove the hypothesis that very poor, in any agro climatic condition, collect from the commons the goods that they consume., a regression exercise has been worked out using a Logit Model.The Dependent variable is-Collections from the commons There are 6 commodities into which the composite variable of collections was disaggregated. The Independent variables are- 1.pci -i.e.Per capita income of households10; 2.lassets- i.e. livestock asset;11 3.edud -i.e. Dummy for education12; 4.castd -i.e. Dummy for caste13; 5.gdratio- generated dependency ratio14; 6.gtagrlq-i.e. Generated agricultural land,quantity;157.dwelld- is dummy for type of dwelling;16 8.dist_mkt.- is the distance 10generated by monthly family income which is a continuous variable /family size). 11 (Prices of these assets are the prices quoted by the respondents who own such assets. The value of- 1 cow I= Rs.3000; 1 goat =Rs. 700;1 pig==Rs.500; 1 hen==Rs.70 and 1 duck==Rs.60. A total of money value,of disparate livestocks is taken as lassets). 12 (An educational dummy variable (edud), taken by HH.( This includes illiterates+ members with formal education <8 yrs.=1& the others belonging to the group of literate members with formal education>8 yrs.=0) 13 For this the two categories of SC and ST were merged into lower caste and put== I and General caste was formed by merging higher caste and OBCs and given the dummy==0 14calculated as number of unemployed persons in the HH/ HH size.) 15 Agricultural land holding in the data is reported in 3 units-kathas, bighas and acres. All of them have been converted to standard acres.

10

from market, as calculated from the center of the village. This is a village characteristic and hence is the same for all households in a single village. In addition, dvl1, dvl2, dvl3, dvl4, dvl5, dvl6 are additional independent variables representing dummies for village id no.s 2,3,4,5,6,&7 respectively. The Logit model was run on STATA for each individual item of collection and one additional dependent variable called-fdgrp (Food group) was also created taking 4 edible items collected. A general overview of the State. The State of West Bengal is located in the Eastern part of India, bordering three countries namely Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan. The periphery of the State is nestling against borders of five Indian States namely Orissa ,Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim and Assam. It is known to have porous international borders specially with Bangladesh..

16 This was done by merging 3 categories viz. Dwellings with- mud walls and thatch roof, mud walls and tiled roof and others.==1 and the other group with pucca houses and brick walls with tiled roof ==0)

11

The State is well known for rich natural resources as well as biological and cultural diversity. The State exhibits all major ecosystem diversity viz. mountain eco system ; forest ecosystem, mangroves;; freshwater ecosystem; coastal and marine ecosystem. Land use in the State currently shows that about 66% of land is used for agricultural purposes (including current fallow), 13.8% is forest cover, 18.8% is used as urban areas, rural settlements, industrial area, roads etc. Only1.4% remains to be uncultivated land excluding current fallow. High pressure of population and subsequent alteration in land use has led to various forms of land degradation. Almost 28.77% in West Bengal is considered degraded (WBHDR 2004). West Bengal is the second State after Karnataka to have already created People’s Bio diversity Registers in 12 villages, work on 15 more are on. (A.K.Ghosh, West Bengal Development Report (2010).

Considering conformity of temperature, humidity and precipitation, the State has been divided into 12 diverse climatic types and has been operationally subdivided

12

into 4 climate zones namely, humid north montane, super humid Terai, semi humid north and south and sub humid east and west. There are 3 main Agro climatic zones to which the different areas of the State belong (EHM,EHg and Gangetic plain). But due to wide disparity in the water ecology, it is further split into six sub regions viz. Northern Hilly Region; Terai Teesta Floodplain Region; Gangetic Flood Plain Region; Undulating Laterite Region; Vindhyan Old Flood Plain Region and Coastal FloodPlain Region. (See Map above). The chosen villages represent this regional mix. Description of study area. Village ID.1. Radharani Tea gardens: (RTG). This is a village with a unique characteristic of having a population who are employees of the tea garden and a host of poor relations subsisting there without a viable living. On one end of the village is a part of Buxar Reserve forest The village has no surface water like ponds and also no shallow ground water due to large sand deposits. Its only CPWR is River Pana which is a bane rather than a boon to the village. This is a mountain stream, coming down the Bhutan Hills via two strategic dams, along the vegetation on the Hills, swelled to a huge river in rains and ran to a regular course between the RTG and the Bhutri forest. Non-maintenance of the dams over years led to a crash of one of them which eventually changed the course of the river, shifting it almost 4km. towards the garden, allowing a precipitous fall of the water along the hill. Continuous deforestation of the hill, both for timber and for building the Bhutan Road ways, has made the river very rough and by now, in the rainy season, not only it ravages the course but also brings with it soil and black sand, making the river water unfit for any use. So instead of it giving irrigation, it only floods and leaves pernicious deposit that degrades the land in the village Since the big flood in 1972, the total land loss stands at 254 acres till 2005. Also, the river bed increased in height by 3-4 ft. A remedial measure by the govt. was to provide net sausages and boulder binding. By now at least 30% of the village land that is not under Tea, is sand. Total area of the village=593.72 acres.The area under common property is 167.54 acres.Out of this CP land resources =159.71 acres and CPWR is only7.83 acres as the river that is dry most of the year. Fuel wood, allowable varieties of twigs, leaves and other foliage are collected for domestic use. But many HH. collect piles of wood to sell. For the families which are in absolute destitution, this is the only source of money income. However, most of them sell to non collecting HH. in the village or to the residents of other Tea Gardens nearby. Poor roads and expensive transport makes for oversupply of fuel wood and prices fall very low. As a result very few can quote figures on sale of wood. Food products like- wild potatoes called toroo, tubors called Kanda, bitter tubors called Githha, all supplement the staples and hence are accessed by people who do not have enough cereals, Vegetable like pumpkin, bitter gourd, jungle mushrooms and a variety of arbi can be procured and also collected. Also many local greens like-shishnu saag, kechipat, greens of pumpkin, gourd and arbi and very large wild mushrooms are items often collected from the forest.Traditional knowledge of medicinal herbs is there with the older folks.eg. leaves of bhui neem is widely collected and used for treatment of malaria; Nakbel roots are used in treatment of

13

fever; arhar (pigeon pea) leaves are given for cure of jaundice. Exact location of these plants are known to locals. But collection is need dependent and feedback on it is poor.

Seasonal fruits like berries, mangostein , passion fruit, amlaki, kusum etc. are widely collected. In season, even tea flowers are collected. One sees a cause and effect of degradation of the forest. Since continuous harvest of the forest by both villages is denuding supplies of food, people are digging deep, up to 6ft and over to get roots and tuber that might have been food for animals like elephants. Cutting of trees have also made access to these villages easier. The result is a vicious circle of degradation of the village ecosystem and the forest eco system. Conflict between man and other species are very real.

Village ID.II Kalikapur.

This village has been chosen because of a decidedly strong community effort in development, particularly of water resources. The village has 100% tribal (ST) population. But strangely the tribal benefits of vested land bypassed this village, resulting in widespread poverty. The total area of the village is 76.20 acres; CPR =65.49 acres of which CPWR=3.18 acres and CPR land=62.31 acres. The category of barren land dominates the type of CPR. At present, there is almost no common land area left other than the roadside, pond boundaries and Tribal social and religious meeting places. The village wood lots were taken over by the Forest Department. Much of the common land was converted to rice fields or residential land. Interaction with old respondents revealed facts about dwindling amounts of collection of edible things from local shrubs and other commons. They said, in the last 25 years, the village has lost its own little forest cover that was rich with varied items of collection like-honey, black berries, passion fruit, different types of Ber and custard apple. There were vegetable like-kakrol, wild variety of potato that could substitute staples. But these are now lost to the villagers. There was traditional use of the Margosa fruit from these, for medicinal oils and honey extraction .This is also lost as a knowledge base for traditional medicine The village is special in various respects of societal behavior. All inhabitants are adivasis who are followers of their spiritual head, Maran buru, an abstract, holy mountain concept. Nobody has seen it but every one believes in its power. They truly are, worshippers of natures’ powers. There is one sacred tree with a prayer platform, called Majhi Harham. Their main festival is called Badna. The festival starts from the sacred tree base and is celebrated in a common land area reserved for such congregation.. All households in the village participate The festival lasts for 4 days. People drink their traditional drink-Haandia and have fish, chicken and pork forgetting their daily fare of over cooked rice or gruel. Haandia is a preferred drink to liquor vended in taverns. The women have a separate oven for making it. It is strange to know that this cooling alcoholic drink is taken for its nutritive value and also because it is filling and reduces hunger pangs. Their societal norms of co-operation in all communal matter is monitored by their tribal Headman. Use of all common water resources is graded: only meant for collection of cooking water, washing vegetable and rice, dal and utensils ; one is used for fishing, bath and sanitary use; one is used for washing of livestock and

14

retting of jute. It is also full of fish of the wild variety. One pond is used only for rearing fish. The fish pawns are introduced in May-June. Here fishing using net is not allowed. All the 6 ponds in the village are CPWRs(called Sholo anna Shompotti) i..e. all have equal stakes in use and conservation. All members of the community are allowed to collect minor pond resources like small fish, shells, snails, oyster and greens. There is a body to monitor the big fish production and use in the pond. Twice a year, they catch all big fish and distribute the catch equally among all HHs. Although very poor, the community shies away from borrowing. Collection from commons and a frugal lifestyle is the norm. Main Ecological problem is faced in that there is no water in 3 of these ponds by mid-March. There is great hardship.The water related degradation is compounded by the highly porous soil quality which soaks up all rain water. The community has been able to create a new pond in 2003-04.90 families in the village worked mainly on the principal of Shramdaan17 and excavated a 3 acre pond.Their sole motivation is to deal with water crisis with self- help. This is indeed an excellent example of community participation to create a CPR . Village ID.III Ghoshergram. The special feature of this village is its highly diverse population spread over 6 hamlets. There is extreme water stress. With rain fed agriculture and skeletal pond irrigation, almost 85% of villagers go out daily for job search each day. Total area of the village is434.62 acres, of which 103.16 acres is CPR land and CPWR is 54.57 acres. This village is under a watershed program called the Hariyali Project under the 11th Plan. Most of the culturable waste is due to undulating land that suffers huge run off during monsoon.This village is pioneering Jatropha plantation that is the basis for bio-fuel culture and is also a novel way to utilize wastelands in the village. Villagers collect kalmi saak (a water side green) and yam from the main pond called Kulur Bandh. From off field areas and roadside side they collect dry greens called hingche, drumsticks and sticks that are edible. Many families grow medicinal plants like Tulsi, Kalmegh and Turmeric. This is one of the two villages in the sample which actually have grazing land but mostly it has bald patches and wild varieties of edibles can be collected from there. Village ID.IV.Jagannathpur. This is one of the poorest areas in the District. Salboni is a very poor Block with almost no facilities of health, transport and even market establishments. There is no hotel, eating places—even local transport from railway station, like rickshaw. But the Block office has excellent work culture and every information at the Block level is available with a computer savvy staff. It also arranges Staff Training Programs for the Department of Panchayat and Rural Development. The village itself is very dry with limited access to ground water for drinking, other than two wells. Water level is too low for deep tubewells and also there is iron contamination. There is a large common pond for multiple domestic use.18

17 It means voluntary labour for societal good. 18 This is an old village and was witness to the Indigo plantation by the British. There is remnant of a Neel Kuthi i.e. the house of a British Indigo Planter and the main water source, which is a very old private property with

15

CPR measure 17.14acres, out of which12.73 acres are CPWRs and only 4.41 acres belong to CP land category.Total land area of the village is 73.35 acres. The village can access the Arabari Forest which is at a distance of 2.5 km. This village has the right to collect non timber forest products. Some people collect Saal leaves, a variety of edible greens, cashew and sandal from the forest. But very few families are members of JFM committee.There are some shrubs and village forested areas where every villager has full right of collection for own use. The villagers collect ber, black berries, lemon, mangoes, mangostein and medicinal plants like kalmegh from village shrubs and village common land. Many HHs collect a variety of greens, locally called shishnu, Hingche and kolmi from pond sides. Most people use homestead land to produce guava, drumsticks ,yam, Papaya and Turmeric. However the months of April-May and October –November are stressful for the very poor.This is the time when water stress and water pollution spreads typhoid, Jaundice and diarrhea.

Village ID.V.Sibpur.

Sibpur is a special village which has a homogenous population mainly of schedule castes (SC). The area under CP land resources=38.74 acres and CPWR is=51.46 acres.

This is a village where all cattle is stall fed. There is no grazing land at all. The main occupation is agriculture with paddy as the main crop. Some farmers cultivate wheat as well as pulses. The main cash crop is jute. However, a new cash crop that yields daily income is flower. Marigolds and Rajanigandha ( a variety of night lilies) are mostly cultivated. Seasonal vegetable and wetland plants also are traded. Sunflower and gingelly are the oilseeds that are grown. Some have started mushroom farming. This is a water sufficient area and with the help of a dug well, two crops of paddy and one of jute is common. But extreme proneness to floods has compromised agricultural advantage. The village has a peripheral wetland called Sibpur Beel.19 It has rivers Ganga and Churni on 2 sides. The major water flows into the Beel from Ganga and a part flows out through Churni. This is truly a common property water resource but lack of maintenance has rendered it to open access for fishing and retting of jute. The latter is a major polluting factor. There are also people who have access to the fertile land at the banks and produce paddy. Their use of fertilizers also has negative effect on the water quality of the beel. Encroachments on the boundaries has reduced its area from 0.5017 to 0.2665 sq. km. Poor ecological condition is shown by growth of water hyacinth, siltation and depth loss. Silt formation is continuous and neglected on the mouth of river Churni. Average depth is only2 to 3 ft. now which was 5 to 6 ft. only a decade before. One can actually look at this ecological change as a significant factor, along with poor silt removal from the two rivers, explaining yearly flood in this region. Pollution level is high. It was given a D class of IS 2296 system in 2006. There were many families who had fishing as their primary occupation who find severe depletion in catch. common access, is named-Kuthir Bandh. One is not sure if it really belonged to the planter but its common usage is unquestioned. People swear by the goodness of its water and even drink it in times of stress. 19 Beel is a specific type of water body in fluvial condition.

16

Village ID.VI. Gazna. This village also has a porous border with Bangladesh and three rivers, Ichhamati, its tributary Jamuna and Padma are common between the two countries-India and Bangla- desh. The major water body here is an ox bow lake formed by the confluence of the rivers on three sides of the village, almost from the major railway station Gobordanga. This village is much better than all other villages selected for the survey. The specialty of the village is that its ground water is highly polluted with Arsenic. The awareness of the danger is high and there is a project to teach the villagers arsenic removal technique.

CPR land amounts to 66.80acres.CPWR=9.47 acres . There are large changes over the period of 50 years, since the 1954 Survey map was drawn under the WB Estate Acquisition Act of 1953. The area under the Beel which now stands as 0.22 acres was actually14.31 acres. The old Map also shows the Gazna Baor that was 33.98 acres and now stands eliminated from the ROR, may be because of the building of the canal by the Govt. But it is now a CPWR, being a vest under the management of the GP but that is deteriorated by rampant encroachment.The village end of the canal is so much captured by cultivation on both sides that the canal mouth is choked. This is a major ecological reason for the flood potential of the area. The large vested area under rice crop explains this situation. Many in the village have started commercial fishing by capturing the area in front of their dwelling. They have created their own ponds by free riding on a CPWR. By the statement of the respondent of the Village questionnaire, nearly 30 acres of vested water resources have been captured in this village. In Gazna there are 23 water bodies but most of them are privatized for fishing and hence not included as common. Interestingly in the village there are actually two inland ponds that are private ponds turned into CPR, by usage. Poor households collect greens and fish from water locked areas during the months of stress which are July to September. During summer, items of collection are fallen fruits like mango, jackfruit, blackberries, lichi and passion fruit. In winter months, fruits like guava and ber are collected. This is the only village in the sample which has a Milk Co-operative. Village ID.VII.Khakrakona.

This one of the villages in which Dr.Ashish Ghosh of ENDEV20, has done the bio diversity registration work. This village has high poverty index, no electricity and no roads and yet has high literacy rate. It has a large number of ponds but ground water above 850 ft. is saline. The area under CPR land =32.20 acres andarea under CPWR =20. 35acres. It has natural irrigation from a canal from the river Ganges which seasonally overflows and winter crops get costless irrigation. In all seasons collection from the commons is possible. Mainly greens are collected: In summer, it is greens of pumpkin, gourd, pui, both green and red varieties of Choulai (called Note saag locally), drumsticks, flower and stem of banana etc;in rainy season it is kolmi (a water green), kochu(yam greens) and hingche(a local green fortified with Vitamin A) and in winter, people working as farm hands and even 20 ENDEV is a developmental NGO, in Kolkata headed by Dr. Ashish Ghosh, His Report is called Jana Jaibo boichitra Nothi For this, he had taken a census of all the 109 households.

17

others who pick up discarded edible leaves, collect greens of cabbage, cauliflower , raddish, mustard, black grams. Pollution in water causing water borne disease is a major problem. Following tables give a quick overview of the sample villages.

Table 1. Demographic Details:

Table .2 . Village Facilities (Distance from the centre of the village, in km.)

Vill. ID Transport Education Health General

Metalled road Dist.

Bus stop Dist.

Railway Station Dist.

Primary School Dist.

High School Dist

PHC/ ICDS Dist.

Drainage type

Source of drink- ing water

Comm../co-op. bank Dist

Ration Shop Dist.

Post office Dist.

Radharani Tea garden

0 0 35 0 13 15 Underground

Piped 10 0 0

Kalikapur 2.5 2.5 26 0 2.5 4 open DTW 4 4 5

Ghosher-gram

2 3 8 0 7 12 open DTW 3/8 1.5 3

Jagannath-pur

2.5 2.5 5 1 5 6 open Well 2.5/3 3 5

Sibpur 5 5 10 5 5 5 Open

DTW 7 5 7

Gazna-I 0 0 5.5 0 5 1/0 Underground

DTW 5.5 0 1

Khakrakona 3 3 20 0 6 3/0 Underground

DTW. 3 3 3

Vill. ID Populations No.of hh

% of total population

Sex Literacy % of workin g population rati

o (%)

T M F SC ST T M F T M F Radharani Tea garden

1959 988 971 435 10.3 20.1 983* 54.7 69.6 39.6 38.3 44.7 31.8

Kalikapur 635 341 294 120

0 100 919 48.4 57.6 38.5 38.2

51.8 23.5

Ghosher-gram

1766 881 885 351 14.8 35.2 1005 61.1 74.2 48.6 51.8 59.9 43.6

Jagan-nathpur

453 228 225 78 0 0 987 58.7 67.7 48.9 46.4 53.9 38.7

Sibpur 1139 608 527 235

80 N.A 810 55.7 61.1 48.9 53.5 72.3 48.9

Gazna-I 1950 819 771 392

62.9 0 929 76.0 84.7 66.6 35.6

57.5 12.0

Khakra-kona

487 244 243 109 54% 0 996 78.1

87.1 68.8 29.3 54.3 4.1

18

Table .3 Locational and physical features

Vill. ID Agro-climatic Zone (ecologica lzone)

Distinct Land type

CPR Village Land (acres)

CPWR (acres)

CPR As % to Total area

Type of Degradation

Ecological Crisis working Against Development

Radharani Tea Garden

EHM (Terai Teesta

65% loamy , 35% sandy

159.71 7.83

40.95 Soil erosion by river force, then sand deposit

No aquifer above 350 ft., no surface storage possible.

Kalikapur EHG (Laterite)

Porous and sandy, cannot retain water.

62.31 3.18 85.95 3out of 6 ponds dry out,; bushes have vanished; Cycleof draught and flood degrading agricultural land.

Water in ponds vanish in summer because of pullof the river 20 ft. below.

Ghoshergram EH(Laterite)

Sandy Loam; undulating, porous Land

157.83

54.57 36.29 Pollution of the common pond. Degradation of agricultural land

Soil erosion and high degree of run off due to undulating land surface. Extreme water stress.

Jagannathpur EHG (Laterite)

Dry, parched flat land

4.41 12.73 23.37 Iron in drinking water; CPWR polluted.

Extreme water stress and aquifer not fit for deep tube well boring.

Sibpur LGP (Vindhyan Alluvial)

Marshy flat land with alluvium

38.74 51.46 NA Pollution of the beel.silt raising beel bed height.

Floods, no road link inrains.no jobs

Gazna-I LGP (Deltaic Alluvial )

Marshy, alluvial soil,flat land

66.80 9.47 30.86 Arsenic in ground water. Common pond polluted.

Choked mouth of the irrigation canal leading to endemic floods.

Khakrakona LGP Deltaic Alluvial)

Deltaic plane land.

32.20 20.35 13.03 Salinegr.wtr..pond polluted

Loss of indigenous fish, paddy.

19

Summary Findings. 1. HH. Characteristics. The tables below gives a composite picture of level of living in the sample.

Table 4.A Level of living:Profile of Income and A sset Holding

Table 4.B Level of living: Profile of Income and Asset Holding

It is apparent that the %age of HH.s recognized and counted as BPL, is much below the %age revealed in the sample. The disaggregation by village of PCI categories shows the income poor group, according to the State norms i.e. those earning <=Rs450/-. 88.55% of HH.s in Village ID.I. in this sense, should have been BPL but only 12.63% of the sample HH.s are enumerated as BPL. In contrast a vocal, homogenous Tribal village(ID.II) has better representation; 70.97% are counted as BPL as against 83.88% actually earning incomes<=Rs.450/-. All other villages show the same discrepancy. Type of dwelling is another characteristic of level of living can also be matched with Y- class data. Study of sample HH.s show: 5.23% live in pucca-constructed houses; 19.77%live in houses, which have brick walls and tiled roofs;22.5% in houses with mud walls and tiled roof and35% are in huts with mud walls and thatch roofs.There are other types of dwellings of wood, bamboo, tin or jute material. These are region specific and can be described for individual village experiences. Such HHs are 17.5% of the total sample HHs.

Percapita Income Percapita Income category BPL

Vill.Id Mean min max <=250 251-450

451-600

601& abo (%)

I 128.59 114 600 41.67 46.88 4.17 7.29 12.63 II 113.15 100 750 41.94 41.94 16.13 0 70.97 III 255.70 75 1080 31.87 60.44 4.4 3.3 32.97 IV 186.95 100 1333 46.88 40.63 0 12.5 37.5 V 256.42 175 2000 23.73 57.63 13.56 5.08 50.85 VI 297.50 133 1575 5.15 48.45 26.8 19.59 30.93 VII 449.10 133 1575 26.47 38.24 20.59 14.71 52.94

Land holding (acre) Livestock in values

Vill.Id Mean min max Mean min max I 1.13 0.333 2.333 5416.19 70 29250 II 0.74 0.333 1.667 7803.79 210 18720 III 1.31 0.050 6.667 6429.00 210 21000 IV 0.71 0.050 2.000 7961.85 280 31540 V 0.76 0.117 2.667 4139.06 70 15000 VI 2.51 0.083 58.000 5569.09 70 15210 VII 2.61 0.333 10.000 5481.00 370 9070

20

A profile on nutrition showed: Staple food is rice which 99.77% consume. Only 19% of HHs take pulses .Very poor 1% report collection of pulses from commons. 83.84% reported consumption of vegetable 7 days a week. But on further probing, it was found that most of them have only potatoes and purchase of greens and other vegetable is severely restricted in poor HHs. Many HHs. try to grow some greens or vegetable on homestead land but only 0.73% are self sufficient. Notably, collection of vegetable and greens from the village shows that 48.32% collect and 40.72% don’t collect. Extent of collection shows—26.75% of HHs collect 50%; 7.95% HHs. collect 25%; 0.48% HHs. collect 75% and 1.69% collect all 100% of their requirement from the village commons. 83.56% reportedly consume fish. But only 6.5% have it everyday. Only 2.56 % of HHs. meet their whole fish demand by own catch. 8.05% of HHs collect from village common water resources 100% and another 8.05% of HHs collect up to 50% of the family’s fish consumption. 42.69% of the sample HHs .consume meat. 95.16% eat once a week and only 0.54% on 5 days .Meat collected from commons by way of small game hunting is very rare now but was widely prevalent. 48.63% consume eggs but 48.60% have eggs only once and just 0.47% takes eggs 7 days of the week. In consumption of eggs only 34.38% HHs. are self sufficient that shows poultry farming is not efficient. Only 39.04% of HHs. consume milk on a regular basis.60.98% consuming HHs are self sufficient. Only 18.04%.of the consuming HHs and only 1.33% have fruits every day. 57.63% HHs. use fuel wood as major fuel. The second important fuel is kerosene -used by 28.47% HHs. Only 5.01% use coal, 1.14% electricity and1.59% uses LPG as primary fuel. However an interesting variety of fuel is used as subsidiary like- sticks, twigs, hay, paddy husk, cow dung cakes and dung torches (called Mashal), which are area specific

This pattern of fuel use makes collection from commons of fuel very probable.

Collections from Commons. The major enquiry on collections from the commons gave very rich input to understanding dependence of rural HHs on CPR. The Table below looks at the collection behavior of all the sample HH.s with respect to 6 major items of collection .These are the products selected for the Regression analysis. The over riding reason for collection is self consumption is quite apparent, vindicating the hypothesis that collection from the common is a safety net for the abysmally poor HHs.

21

Table 5. Collections by purpose and time spent on c ollection for 6major items. .

Items of collection % HHs collecting

Collection for own use

Collection for sale

Time taken tocollect

(%HH)

Fuel wood 67.35 90.44 9.56 Upto2hrs.37.20 ;>2<=4 hrs 55.63 ;>4 hrs 7.17%

Edible roots, tubers etc.

63.70 99.65 0.35 Upto2rs.65.03 ;>2<=4hrs.32.87 >4 hrs.2.1

Edible stems, sticks flowers etc.

46.80 98.63 1.37 Up to 2 hrs.71.23;>2&<=425.57;>4 hrs.3.20

Fish 25.00 99.06 0.94 Up to 2 hrs.86.79;>2&<=4 hrs.13.21

Snails, shells, crab 33.18 99.34 0.66 Upto2 hrs.81.58;>2&<=417.76; >4hrs 0.66

Weeds,grass,reed, cane etc.

56.76 98.53 1.57 Up to 2 hrs.77.08;>2&<=4hrs 21.34;>4 hrs.1.58

The picture is disaggregated by village ID. The sources of collection are : I. Grazing land; II.Forest, shrubs, village woodlots and other barren land. IV. Represents water sources like ponds, pond side and canals. V. is a common land source called , area under Ease man Rights. Vi. Is private sources with right of access. Table 6-Collections of six items by vill.id. 1.Fuel wood Vill. Id

Colle-ction (%)

Beg. month (max)

end month (max)

reason for collection

Source of collection (%) Avg. time spent (hrs)

consu-mption (%)

sales (%)

I II III IV V VI

I. 95.83 10 5 70.65 29.35 4.35 98.91 19.57 3.26 19.57 60.87 3.68

II. 100 10 12 96.77 3.23 54.84 32.26 38.71 48.39 67.74 80.65 2.94

III. 89.01 9 4 100 0.00 27.16 80.25 54.32 55.56 27.16 82.72 3.15

IV. 100 9 4 100 0.00 6.25 96.88 31.25 43.75 56.25 93.75 2.84

V. 16.95 9 12 100 0.00 10.00 0.00 30.00 50.00 10.00 60.00 1.70

VI 27.84 10 5 100 0.00 3.70 11.11 81.48 88.89 18.52 29.63 1.83

VII. 58.82 10 5 100 0.00 0.00 15.00 70.00 100.00 5.00 50.00 1.80

.

22

Table 6-Collection of six items by vill.id. 2. Edible roots, tubers, leafy vegetable

Table 6-Collections of six items by vill.id. 3. Ediblestems, sticks,flower, bamboo shoots, leave s. vill. Id

Colle-ction (%)

Beg. .month (max)

end month (max)

reason for collection

Source of collection (%) Ave-rage time spent (hrs)

consu-mption (%)

sales (%)

I II III IV V VI

I. 53.13 11 5 98.04 1.96 0.00 96.08 27.45 5.88 1.96 39.22 3.35

II. 38.71 1 12 91.67 0.00 8.33 50.00 33.33 66.67 16.67 41.67 1.92

III. 64.84 1 12 98.31 0.00 1.69 54.24 57.63 89.83 5.08 81.36 2.08

IV. 65.63 6 10 100 0.00 0.00 76.19 4.76 95.24 4.76 71.43 1.86

V. 45.76 1 12 100 0.00 0.00 0.00 3.70 85.19 7.41 77.78 1.52

VI 31.96 1 12 100 0.00 0.00 3.23 74.19 93.55 0.00 54.84 1.23

VII. 52.94 1 12 100 0.00 0.00 5.56 50.00 94.44 0.00 72.22 1.33

vill. Id

Colle-ction (%)

beg month (max)

end mnth max.

reason for collection

Source of collection (%) Ave-rage time spent (hrs)

consu-mption (%)

sales (%)

I II III IV V VI

I. 82.29 11 4 98.83 1.27 2.53 94.94 25.32 3.80 6.33 59.49 3.28

II. 96.77 11 3 100 0.00 16.67 36.67 60.00 76.67 50.00 83.33 2.30

III. 70.33 1 12 100 0.00 0.00 31.25 56.25 92.19 6.25 89.06 2.00

IV. 75 6 5 98.73 0.00 0.00 50.00 37.50 87.50 4.17 79.17 1.63

V. 66.1 11 3 100 0.00 0.00 10.26 10.26 94.87 2.56 85.00 1.53

VI 31.96 11 3 100 0.00 0.00 0.00 35.48 96.77 0.00 38.71 1.16

VII. 52.94 1 12 100 0.00 0.00 0.00 27.78 100.00 0.00 83.33 1.33

23

Table 6-Collections of six items by vill.id. 4. Fish. vill_id

Colle-ction (%)

Beg month (max)

end mth max.

reason for collection

Source of collections

Avg. Time spent

consumption (%)

sales (%)

IV VI (Hours)

I. 5.21 6 7 100 0.00 100.00 0.00 2.10

II. 38.71 6 7 100 0.00 100.00 100.0 1.75

III. 30.77 6 7 96.43 0.00 100.00 46.43 1.77

IV. 46.88 6 7 100 0.00 100.00 40.00 1.60

V. 40.68 6 7 100 12.50 100.00 0.00 2.10

VI 16.49 6 9 100 12.50 100.00 12.50 2.38

VII. 17.65 6 10 100 0.00 100.00 33.33 1.67

Table 6-Collections of six items by vill.id. 5. Snails/shells/crabs. vill_id Colle-

ction (%)

Beg. month (max)

End month (max)

reason for collection

Source of collection (%) Ave-rage time spent (hrs)

consu-mption (%)

sales (%)

I II III IV V VI

I. 35.42 6 7 97.06 0.00 0.00 2.94 0.00 91.18 2.94 0.00 1.18

II. 93.55 6 7 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 96.55 3.45 10.34 1.03

III. 43.96 6 9 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 45.00 1.30

IV. 75 6 7 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 4.00 96.00 0.00 48.00 1.25

V. 16.95 6 7 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 1.34

VI 5.15 6 9 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 0.00 1.68

VII. 26.47 7 9 100.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 100.00 0.00 77.78 1.47

24

Table 6-Collections of six items by vill.id. 6. Weeds, grass, cane , reeds

These are the six items, the probability of collection of which is analyzed using a binomial Logit model. Since there are six items of collection, there are six tables containing Results of the Regression,one for each product. But in analysis, an additional dependent variable is included viz. fgrp, ( food group under which four broad edible items only are taken). The items are: Edible roots, tubors and leafy vegetable; edible stems, sticks ,flowers, bamboo shoots and leaves; fish and lastly, snail,shells and crabs. So in all, there are seven tables of Results. The Dependent Variables are:

• Fuelwood; edbroots; edbstems; fish;snails , weeds and fgrp. The independent variables are:pci,lassets;edud; castd;gdratio; gtagrlq; dwelld; dist_ mkt; dvlg1;dvlg2;dvlg3;dvlg4;dvlg5 and dvlg6.

The detailed descriptions of village character finally claim +ve or -ve value of the logit coefficient. These are also varied for collection of different products.

Marginal effects are calculated for each Dependent variable. The results of the Binomial Logit are summarized below. Results

• Fuel wood: Collection of fuelwood was significantly explained by pci, dis_tmkt and dvlg4 at 1% significance; gdratio at 5% and dwelld at 10% significance.

Marginal effect after logit

vill. Id

Colle-ction (%)

Beg. mnth (max)

end mnth (max)

reason for collection

Source of collection (%) Avg. time spent (hrs)

consumption (%)

sales (%)

I II III IV V VI

I. 34.38 10 5 93.94 0.00 6.06 84.85 15.15 6.06 9.09 39.39 1.47

II. 48.39 10 3 86.67 0.00 60.00 20.00 66.67 80.00 53.33 73.33 1.61

III. 71.43 9 12 100.0

0 0.00 40.00 76.92 52.31 60.00 27.69 67.69 1.35

IV 87.5 1 12 100.0

0 0.00 21.43 85.71 17.86 39.29 39.29 85.71 1.34

V. 84.75 1 12 100.0

0 0.00 2.00 4.00 44.00 76.00 20.00 74.00 1.54

VI 46.39 1 12 100.0

0 0.00 0.00 2.22 64.44 84.44 31.11 68.89 1.68

VII.

52.94

10

12 100.00

0.00 0.00 5.56 77.78 94.44 83.33 88.89 1.47

25

Y=Pr(Fuelwood) (predict) =.72191771. Two dummies dvlg1 and dvlg3, predict success perfectly and are dropped, reducing no. of independent variables to 11 and no. of observation by 63. These are Vill.Id.s II. And IV, which are by far the poorest and have forested areas accessibledvlh5 is dropped due to co linearity. The item Fuel wood is of mass necessity, used as primary fuel by nearly 58% of the sample HH.s It is quite expected that caste and education are not the primary determinants of collection but poverty is. So the highly significant result on pci is satisfactory. Also isolation and poor village facilities, leading to low level of development, suggested by distance from market is also giving good results. Significant results are, hence are for pci, gdratio, dwelld , dist -mkt and dvlg4. But the predominant explanatory variables are, pci and dist-mkt.

• Edbroots: Pci,and dist_mkt are the two explanatory variables at 1%, dwelld and dvlg3 are significant at %5 level for edible roots, greens vegetable .

Marginal effects after logit Y=(pr.(edbroots) (predict) =.68655472.(.69 approx.) Dvlg5 is dropped due to co linearity. They are primarily collected when people have no access to market, either because of distance or because the HH. is priced of market due to poverty. So these two variables being dominant in explaining collection is expected. dwelld is a proxy for poverty as the dummy has higher value for poor dwelling. Hence it is again an expected performance of the variable. The other explanation for high collection is availability. Dvlg3 is the vill.id.IV. which is the poorest village in the sample which has access to Arabari forest and has a variety of greens and roots that thrive even in dry areas. The major explanatory variables, again are pci and dist_mkt.

• Edbstems: Collectioon of edbstems, sticks, flower etc. is explained by pci, at 1%, dvlg1 and dvlg2 at 5% and dwelld at 10% level of significance. All the independent variables-pci, lassets,dist_mkt, dvlg1, dvlg2, dvlg3,and dvlg4

Logit coefficients to be significant at1% level.The variables castd and gdratio are significant at 5% level. Marginal effects after logit Y=Pr(edstems) (predict) =.4874808 (.49 approx). Dvlg5 is dropped due to collinearity. Edible stems, sticks, flowers etc. are a matter of availability and so the two vill.id. s II and III, being able to access forest and bushes has greater probability of collection. In addition,these villages are very poor with low employment possibility within village and hence are more likely to collect. But again pci is the best explanatory variable with poor dwelling also a factor in success of collection.

26

• Fish: All variables that show 1% significance for collection of fish are-pci,lassets,dist_mkt, dvlg1,dvlg2,dvlg3 and dvlg4. Castd and gdratio are significant at 5%.

Marginal effects after logit Y=Pr(fish) (predict) =.17684938 (.18) Dvlg5 dropped due to co linearity. The village dummies are very important variables explaining collection of fish. These vill.id.s II, III, IV and V have CPWR from where unrestricted collection is possible. However, these are small wild fish varieties which any way have low market value. It is an institution of social piety that even private owners of water bodies allow collection of minor fish types. Also, here caste has become an important explanatory variable. Village ID II has only ST, ID III ,IV and V have substantial SC population. In village ID V there is a fisherman’s tribe called Rajbangshi. As a result fishing is a caste based occupation. Gdratio is important as it affects the motivation to collect and large no. of unemployed in the family is a natural advantage in collection. An interesting result is a significant contribution of live stock assets in collection of fish. Since washing of livestock is in the multi purpose ponds, owners stay in water for long enough to harvest it for collection. Even collection of fish is a corollary of bathing in the pond. However, dist_mkt and pci are still important determinants of collection of fish.

• Snails: Collection of snails are predicted with1% significance by pci, castd, dist_mkt, dvlg1and dvlg2. Variables dvlg3 and dvlg6 are significant at 5% and 10% respectively.

Marginal effects atfer logit Y=Pr (snails) (predict) =.2811732 (.29 approx). Dvlg5 is dropped due to co linearity.

• Weeds: Collection of weeds, reed, cane etc. are explained by pci,dvlg2,dvlg3and dvlg4 at 1% level. The variable distmkt is significant at 5% level.

Marginal effects after logit. Y-Pr (weeds) (predict) =.59739 Dvlg5 dropped due co linearity. The village dummies predict success of collection of weeds perfectly. Natural habitat is the main reason why people can collect from bushes and shrubs within village (vill.id.III.&IV) and from water bodies (vill.id.V). The other highly significant variable is pci, followed by dist_mkt.

• Fdgrp: This includes collection of edbroots, edstems, fish and snails. The results of collection of items of fdgrp are given in the Table below.

27

Binomial Logit Model with Marginal Effects.(Dependent Variable:fgrp)

* Shows significance at 1 percent level, ** indicates statistical significance at 5 percent level, and *** indicates statistical significance at 10percent level.

No. of observations=409; chi2=106.82; Pseudo R2=.2089 Marginal effects after logit Y=Pr(fgrp) (predict) =.72117.61 (.73 approx). The poor ST village (II) is dropped due to perfect prediction of success and dvlg5 is dropped due to co linearity. It is undoubtedly established that poor collect for food and sustenance. Pci, dist_mkt and dvlg3 are highly significant explanatory variables in this at 1% level. Dwelld and castd are poverty characteristics which define probability of collection of food group items at 5% level.

Depende nt variable Logit coefficient

Marginal effect

pci -0.002 * (-3.56)

0.000 (-3.53)

lassets 0.000 (-1.32)

0.000 (-1.32)

edud -0.057 (-0.22)

-0.011 (-0.22)

castd 0.566** (1.94)

0.115 (1.93)

gdratio -0.004 (-0.02)

-0.001 (-0.02)

gtagrlq 0.019 (0.48)

0.004 (0.48)

dwelld 0.704 ** (2.4)

0.151 (2.26)

dist_mkt 0.525 * (5.29)

0.106 (5.32)

dvlg2 0.804 (2.25)

0.145 (2.51)

dvlg3 -0.575 * (-0.75)

-0.126 (-0.7)

dvlg4 -0.337 (-0.87)

-0.071 (-0.83)

dvlg6 -0.187 (-0.43)

-0.039 (-0.42)

_cons -0.029 (-0.06)

28

IV. Concluding Remarks.

It is clear from the survey that poor HHs collect items of consumption substantially

from commons. As sources of collection, water bodies and their peripheries are very

important. A major source of sustenance is private property made common by usage

by which access to free consumption of the poor is enhanced.

A detailed study of the diverse and poor regions of West Bengal is instructive in

revealing pockets of dire poverty with in professedly pro-poor governance in the

State for over three decades.

In the absence of proper enumeration of the BPL population, only conservation of

CPR and continuance of the CPR-PPR overlaps in terms of social piety are the best

proxies for anti- poverty planning.

Also, reversal of extreme ecological degradation has to be looked into as a tool of

sustainability.

References:

Agarwal , Anil and Narain, Sunita (1989), Towards Green Villages, A Strategy for Environmentally Sound and Participatory Rural Development. New Delhi: Centre For Science and Environment. Arnold J. (1991) CPR Management in India. Oxford: Oxford Forestry Institute. Adhikari, Bhim. (2005) Poverty, Property Rights and Collective Action: understanding the distributive aspects of common property resource management. Environment and Development Economics 10: 7-31. And class Conflict in West Bengal. Economic and Political weekly, Jan 22, 187-97. Beck, Tony (1998) Poor People and Their Environmental Lessons from India and Bangladesh. Economic and Political Weekly. (1994)The Experience Of Poverty, Fighting for Respect and Resources in . . Village India (1994a) CPR Access by the Poor. Chakravarti-Kaul, Minoti(1996).Common lands and customary law Chopra Kanchan and Gulati, S.C. (2001) Migration, Common Property Resources and Environmental Degradation :Inter Linkages in India’s Arid and Semi –Arid Regions. Sage Publications. Chopra Kanchan (2002) Social Capital and Development Processes: Role of Formal and Informal Institutions. Economic and Political Weekly, July 13. Chopra Kanchan and G.K Kadekodi (1999), Operationalising Sustainable Development: Economic- Ecological Modelling For Developing Countries. Sage Publication .New Delhi.

29

Chopra Kanchan and Purnamita Dasgupta(2001) , Common Pool Resources in India: New Evidence and New Initiatives.Institute Of Economic Growth Workshop held on September 14, 2001 in collaboration with University of Cambridge. U.K. Ghosh,M.G. and Beck, T.(2000) Common Property Resources and the poor: Findings from West Bengal.Economic and Political Weekly. January 15. Jodha . N.S.(1986), CPR and Rural Poor in Dry Regions of India, Economic and Political Weekly 21(27). Hotchkiss, D. and Kumar,S (1988).Consequences of Deforestation for women’s Time Allocation, Agricultural Production and Nutrition in Hill Areas of Nepal. Washington, D.C.International Food Policy Research Institute. Jodha. N. S. (1992) , Common Property Resources: A Missing Dimension of Development Strategies. Washington ,D.C.: World Bank Discussion Papers 169. Mukherjee, Amitava. (2001) Micro Level Hunger in contemporary India: Perspective of the Hungry. Indian Economic Journal. Vol.49.No. 4.(Special Number in General Economics. Nadkarni, M. (1997). Poverty, dependence on common property land resources and economic development, in J. Parikh and S. Reddy (eds), Sustainable Regeneration of Degraded Lands, Tata McGraw Hill Publishing Company Limited, New Delhi. NSSO 1999.Common Property Resources in India.NSS(54th Round).Government of India. Pasha, S. A. (1992). CPRs and rural poor: A micro level analysis, Economic and Political Weekly 27(46): 2499–2503. Reddy, S. R. C. and Chakravarty, S. P. (1999). Forest dependence and income distribution in a subsistence economy: Evidence from India, World Development 27(7): 1141–1149. Sathyapalan, Jyotis(2005) Household’s Dependence on Protected Forests: Evidence from the Western Ghats. Urvashi Narain,Shreekant Gupta,Klaas Van ’t Veld (2005) Poverty and the Environment: Exploring the Relationship between Household Incomes, Private Assets, and Natural Assets. Working .Paper No.134.Centre for Development Economics. Delhi School of Economics.