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

Speaker: Francisco Zorondo-Rodríguez (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain)

Organiser: Department of Ecology, French Institute of Pondicherry

Abstract

Natural Capital (NC) contributes to maintain and improve the fulfillment of basic needs of the humans. Understanding the associations between NC and Quality of Life (QoL) is even more relevant among individuals in critical situation of poverty and located in highly degraded ecosystems. However, there is scarce research on assessing the relative importance of the NC as source of well-being and how it contributes to the QoL. Working on these questions implies, first, to define and evaluate both QoL and NC at a local level. Based on a multidimensional model and using a bottom-up approach of the QoL, we attempt to identify a set of dimensions and their indicators to evaluate QoL at local level. At the same time, we attempt to identify services of the natural products used by the people. Integrating both concepts, we propose to estimate i) the associations between access to natural products and the reported levels of QoL ; and ii) the relations between the services of natural products and the reported levels of QoL. We will focus on quantitative and qualitative data from tribal communities of Kodagu district, in the Western Ghats of India, part of one of the world's 25 biodiversity hotspots. This study will contribute to theoretical and empirical knowledge about the linkages between NC and QoL. The topic is a pivotal issue in the efforts to balance human development and conservation biology.