Integrating biodiversity conservation in a production landscape of the Western Ghats, India

Speaker: Dr. Claude Garcia (French Institute of Pondicherry)

Organiser : Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry.

Abstract

The district of Kodagu in the Western Ghats of India produces 2% of the world's coffee under complex agroforestry systems. The landscape mosaic made of coffee estates, paddy fields and forest fragments has been rapidly evolving over the last 30 years. Starting from a biodiversity assessment, we describe the social and ecological dynamics at the landscape level, farmers converting forests into coffee estates, replacing the biodiversity rich tree cover with a monoculture of Silver Oak (Grevillea robusta), and intensifying the production system by removing the shade cover.

From market links and certification to rights over forest resources, from elephants entering the estates to timber smuggling, all the issues that the social and ecological system is facing are linked. Norms and public policies put constraints on the farmers' management decisions. Alternative strategies are developed to either abide by the rules or find ways around them. And these decisions have an impact on the environment and its biodiversity.

Using participatory research, we identified the issues and strategies developed by the stakeholders to cope with the regulatory framework and explored alternative policies that would strike equilibrium between development and conservation. Through this participatory presentation, we will give an overview of the integrated research that we have been conducting in the district of Kodagu since 2006, highlighting the complexities that working on a dynamic social and ecological system entails.

The talk summarises the results of collaborative research by : C. Garcia, D. Marie Vivien, C.G.Kushalappa, C. Hinnewinkle, S. Guillerme, P.Vaast, C. D. Nath, A. Menon, V. Reyes Garcia, Ch. Le Page, K.M. Nanaya, L. Cheynier, M. Decroix, F. Chretien, P.Bal, J. Kalla, C. Vignault, D. Mercereau, F. Zorondo, V. Rao, J.Vendé and the CAFNET Team.