A proposed case study among tribal communities from Kodagu district (Karnataka), India

Speaker: Mar Grau Satorras (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain)

Organiser : Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry.

Abstract

Indigenous communities derive most of their livelihoods through natural resources available in their environment. In order to tap these resources, they need to have an ecological knowledge of them. We distinguish between Traditional Ecological Knowledge that comprises many fields (i.e., plants, soils) and many dimensions (i.e., theory, practice, beliefs) ; and Ecological Knowledge, understood as the theoretical and objective knowledge of the living organisms. This study will be focused only in Ecological Knowledge. However, this knowledge will not equally address the variety of available natural resources, but will probably be focused on the resources depending on the specific functions they offer to the communities. We will explore this question through qualitative and quantitative dataset obtained from tribal communities settled in Kodagu District, in the Western Ghats of India, part of one of the world's 25 biodiversity hotspots. Based on our data and in addition to the energy supply, three functions are met through the consumption of natural resources in the studied communities : food supply, health care and shelter (construction). In this study, we will attempt (i) to quantify the degree of association between the level of use of a particular resources and the amount of knowledge available on it and (ii) the level of knowledge associated to each of these three functions. Our results will help to understand how the ecological knowledge is associated to the livelihood of human communities. The study will contribute to the efforts of balancing biodiversity conservation and indigenous management model in megadiverse landscapes.