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Beyond Trekker Platitudes: How Forests and Farmers Fare in an Eastern

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Beyond Trekker Platitudes:
How Forests and Farmers Fare in
an Eastern Himalayan Forest Edge
Siddhartha Krishnan, Soubadra Devy,
Sarala Khaling and Jagdish Krishnaswamy
Aditya Bharadwaj
134
A LONG VOYAGE
On February 2014, the Government of India
approved the National Mission for Sustaining
the Himalayan Ecosystem, under the National
Action Plan on Climate Change. The Mission
was to continuously assess the health of
Himalayan ecosystems to enable policy-for-
mulation. These policy measures, it was en-
visioned, would sustain ecological resilience
and ensure continued provisioning of key
ecosystem services. The Millennium Ecosys-
tems Assessment (MEA) report of 2005 had
brought the ecosystem services concept into
mainstream discussion. Like natural histori-
ans and ecologists, who developed species
taxonomy, the MEA team introduced taxon-
omies of function. Thus, a forest’s function of
storing and letting-off water became a ‘regu-
lating service’, and nurturing edible leaf and
fruit became a ‘provisioning service’. Forests
and grasslands provisioned spatial context for
recreation, and thus became providers of a
‘cultural service’. Such services, for the MEA,
are benefits that humans experience.
Conventional wellbeing assessments, con-
ducted by ecologists and economists as part
of the ecosystems services framework, either
quantify household dependence on services in
narrow income terms, or invoke more multidi-
mensional criteria and assess, say, how house-
holds derive housing and health benefits from
the surrounding ecosystem. Typically, such
wellbeing parameters, or proxies, are assigned
values and ranked. A quantitative sense of
wellbeing is arrived at, especially by commu-
nity development practitioners who identify
needs felt by people, and rank them. If the
initiative is premised upon sustainability, such
needs are assessed in terms of whether a for-
est ecosystem can service such needs without
compromising their availability to future gen-
erations. But there is scope for a more quali-
tative and philosophical sense of wellbeing to
be arrived at, in relation to ecosystem servic-
es—one that sees the fulfilment of needs as
135
important, but nevertheless inadequate when
it comes to questions of freedom to pursue
what one values in terms of wellbeing or sus-
tainability. The MEA, in fact, does provide the
space for this aspect to be incorporated.. Here
are some scientifically inclusive and interdisci-
plinary lines from the report: “An assessment’s
usefulness to different stakeholders will also
depend on the composition of the scientific
community that conducts it.”
Around the time the National Mission was
approved, we were a team of ecologists, and
an environmental sociologist, conducting
ecological and social assessments of agro-pas-
toral and forest ecosystems services and well-
being in the Sikkim and Darjeeling Himalayas.
We agreed to not reduce such an incredibly
diverse experience as wellbeing to a singular,
though substantial, metric of income. As to
how we went about doing so, we need to in-
troduce the reader to three other people who
have constantly accompanied us to our field
sites—well, intellectually, if not physically!
One is the Noble laureate, Amartya Sen, the
other the philosopher, Martha Nussbaum, and
the third, Breena Holland, a political scientist.
Sen’s work on ‘Capabilities’ has influenced re-
search on differentiated capacities of individ-
uals, households, and communities to respond
to environmental change. Sen’s approach is
fundamentally about human freedoms and
capabilities. It is about human functioning,
or what each person is able to ‘do’ and ‘be’,
rather than being merely ‘passive need recip-
ients’. But Sen did not elaborate capabilities.
Nussbaum listed 10 core capabilities that
made Sen’s work environmentally relevant.
Her list ranged from health and nourishment,
to imagination and thought, and control over
one’s material and political environment.
‘Other species’, or living with concern for, and
in relation with, animals, plants and nature,
was her very environmental capability, and a
biocentric one at that. Holland’s was a further
environmental extension of Nussbaum’s work.
More specifically, hers was an anthropocen-
tric revision of Nussbaum’s ‘environmental
capability’. Holland elaborated the utility of
this environmental capability to humans.
She elevated it to a status of a ‘meta capa-
bility’ or a ‘sustainable ecological capacity’
that enables all of Nussbaum’s other listed
capabilities. What possessing or enjoying this
environmental capability means for a Hima-
layan household is, that it lives under certain
ecological conditions that provision environ-
mental services, which enable the household’s
range of other capabilities.
Though the capabilities approach is useful
as a comparative life quality assessment,
we would like to share case studies that
combine the ecosystems services and capa-
bilities frameworks. Our Eastern Himalayan
assessments were across two landscapes,
the Singalila National Park and the Senchel
Wildlife Sanctuary. We discuss the story of
Gorkhey, a Darjeeling village in the buffer of
the Singalila National Park, bordering Nepal
and Sikkim. Gorkhey is a farming communi-
ty that borders the Singalila National Park,
and its use of, and dependence on, the forest
makes the ascertaining of services-wellbe-
ing linkages more discernible. In relation
to Singalila’s ecological conditions, we can
consider Gorkhey households’ ‘environmental
capability’ as comprising nutrition, fuel wood,
and water provisioning services. In addition,
we specifically assess three other capabilities.
These include, ‘bodily health’ capability (be-
ing adequately nourished); ‘practical reason’
capability (the ability to ‘form a conception
of the good and to engage in critical reflec-
tion about the planning of one’s life’); and
‘affiliation’ (being able to live with, and show
concern towards others in the community).
These three ‘non-environmental’ capabili-
ties, we demonstrate, do not just depend on
Singalila’s ‘healthy’ and robust ecosystem
servicing, but also emerge as adaptive abili-
ties to service disruptions. For instance, the
policy decision to notify Singalila as a ‘wildlife
sanctuary’ in 1986 curtailed resource enti-
136
tlements. And so, what are the conservation
and wellbeing prospects in Gorkhey? Have
its farming folk been able to exercise their
‘bodily health’ capabilities in relation to food
provisioned from Singalila? Or more broadly,
in terms of functioning, what have Gorkhey’s
households been able to do with water pro-
visioned from Singalila? How does Singalila
fare as an energy and water source?
Before we locate Gorkhey in the Eastern Him-
alayan landscape, and then discuss this small
village’s wellbeing, we must inform the reader
of one other team decision. In keeping with the
‘freedom’ emphasis of the capability approach,
which treats people as agents rather than just
needy folk, and also agreeing with Holland’s
point that ecosystems do not have opportunity
sets from which they can make choices, we had
agreed that we would treat services as co-pro-
duced. Services are of instrumental importance
to communities; an ecosystem’s services form
part of a household’s opportunity set—things
they can afford, not some sentient, human-like
property of the ecosystem. Singalila is a relatively small park of 78.60 NUTRITION, ENERGY AND WATER
km2 with a 2,200 to 3,660 m elevation range.
FAMED SINGALILA AND At sub-alpine levels, the park’s flora includes Dietary switches and nutritional quandary
rhododendrons and coniferous species. The
BEAUTIFUL GORKHEY
famed Singalila ridge, and its slopes, are a A household’s breakfast and dinner is typ-
medley of bamboo, oak, magnolia, hemlock, ically a combination of carbohydrates like
From 300 m at the base, the Darjeeling
silver fir, and rhododendron forests. maize, rice and potato; proteins, specifically
district’s elevation reaches an altitude of
3,660 m at Sandakphu on the Singalila ridge. dal; and ferns and other leafy greens. Gork-
Phalut and Sandakphu are two popular hey families grow their carbohydrate sources,
Darjeeling’s large altitudinal range ensures
summits on the Singalila ridge. Indian and earlier maize, but today rice. Rice is bought
climatic variability and is thus responsible for
international tourists avail the services of from Jorethang, a Sikkim village that is 43
its diverse flora and fauna. This is ‘normal’
organised treks to the ridge. Gorkhey is now a km away. Maize, besides being a carbohy-
climate change so to speak, where tempera-
much-patronised trek-initiating point. ‘Green drate source, was also a cash source, but has
ture, precipitation, and humidity vary quickly
Gorkhey’, ‘beautiful village’, ‘a lesser known now become very vulnerable to crop raids by
across geography, and foster diverse vegeta-
beauty’ are some typical tourist platitudes in boars. Moreover, its labour-intensive nature,
tion ranging from the tropical, to temperate,
blogs and websites. But what function or util- along with shifts in generational dietary pref-
to sub-alpine, and alpine. J.D. Hooker, an
ity lies beneath the beauty? Or what services erence, have contributed to maize’s displace-
early and pioneering botanist, noted, in 1854,
do the forests offer besides these recreational ment as the chief carbohydrate source. Today,
how sub-alpine and alpine Darjeeling were
services? Are these services singular in their potato is the chief starch source. Gorkhey’s
floristically opulent, with many a species
conception and execution, or are they a joint families also practice positive dietary discrim-
being endemic. Flora in the Singalila National
venture? And how do Gorkhey folk, whose ination. Nursing mothers require additional
Park serves as evidence. Located on Darjeel-
land-use history has resulted in such beauty, nutrition, typically protein and vitamin sourc-
ing’s northwest boundary, Singalila borders
cope with, and adapt to, ecosystem changes? es, and these special dietary requirements are
Nepal to its west, and Sikkim to its north.
137
provided for. Seasonal food shortages due to
crop raids, and weather-related yield risks,
have meant that family members seasonally
work in farms for money or work in Mahatma
Gandhi National Rural Employment Guaran-
tee Act (MGNREGA) schemes.
While a few families grow ferns and other
leafy greens in their kitchen spaces or farms,
the collection of such vitamin sources from
forests is now either a negligible and op-
portunistic ‘pluck-if-you-find’ activity, or a
fairly distant memory. When people go to
Jorethang for purchases, they buy dal, rice, or
chicken for themselves and for many others.
When someone finds leafy greens in the for-
est they collect for others also. This points to
the prevalence in Gorkhey of the ‘affiliation’
capability, or being able to live with and show
concern towards others.
A nutritional quandary also appears to have
visited the Gorkhey landscape. While forests
seem to have become deficient in the provi-
sioning of leafy greens and edible ferns, their
capacity to provision bamboo, a raw resource
of much domestic and farming utility, has
also drastically declined. Gorkhey’s farmers
offer natural historical insight in the form of
observations of bamboo decline. This signals
their ‘senses, imagination, and thought’ capa-
bility, or the ability to think and reason. Hav-
ing a cow shed in the forest is a solid marker
of past forest access and use. Because of 25
years of restricted grazing, goes the reason-
ing, the forest floor has suffered from a lack
of manuring, which has impacted bamboo
regeneration. Healthy bamboo regeneration
and supply in the Gorkhey context cannot be
conceived solely as a provisioned service, as
grazing and manuring appear to have played
a positive role in regeneration.
Energy quandary
Significant distance from the nearest town
and market has also meant, that people
138
have continued to collect fuel wood, as
transporting LPG cylinders is laborious.
Families mention their preference for LPG,
but are constrained by state restrictions on
infrastructural entitlement, such as roads
in reserve forests and protected areas. Park
laws prohibit road-laying in forests, and LPG
cylinders need to be carried from Bharang,
a distant town. This prohibitive drill has
implied continued extraction of fuel wood
from the forests. This points to a capabil-
ity failure, a compromise of the ‘practical
reason’ capability, that is, the ability to ‘form
a conception of the good and to engage in
critical reflection about the planning of one’s
life.’ The switch to LPG would have, perhaps,
constituted a sustainable decision based on
conservation and convenience calculations.
But the absence of roads has meant distur-
bances to natural regeneration, given fuel
wood extraction. The co-production of the
ecosystem’s services is perceivable in our It’s about more than just the view. (Photo: Andy Gazmer)
fine-scaled assessments of human-nature
interactions. Considering that the idea of Well watered lean seasons, water flow appeared to be suffi-
‘Singalila servicing Gorkhey’ arises from what cient for the Gorkhey community. We did how-
choices households are able, or not able, to Singalila’s water provisioning is a well-discern- ever detect bacteria (E. coli) in water sampled
exercise in relation to the forest’s resources, ible service. Streams that flow past Gorkhey in households, and the water is slightly acidic
it is difficult to attribute singular agency to are near-perennial water sources for domestic (with a pH between 5 and 6), year-round.
the ecosystem. For the fact of families not use—washing, cleaning, cooking, or livestock
being able to procure LPGs, their preferred feed. The community has no problems with The consequences of acidic water are not usually
energy source, ensures their dependence water quality. A household typically requires considered by water quality science as contami-
on fuel wood. It is only because of this, that 40 litres of water a day for domestic use, nating but as ‘aesthetic’. Metal may leach out of
Singalila’s fuel wood provisioning assumes and another 40 litres for livestock. People do pipes. Sinks may stain. But these are corrosions
significance as a service. mention a spike in water consumption once a that in no way compromise the larger aesthetics
week when they wash clothes. They seem not of the Gorkhey landscape. A good moment for
In the past, Gorkhey’s cattle herds were size- to be unduly worried about seasonal short- us to conclude, asking what are the lesser known
able and grazed in the forests. Intense forest ages, typically pre-monsoons, and in winter. things about this ‘lesser known beauty’?
grazing has, post wildlife sanctuary notification The water provisioning services of forests
in 1986, been replaced by settled agriculture. appear to be functioning well, as the ecolog- CONCLUSION
Our ecological and participatory assessments ical assessments suggest. But one needs to
reveal, that forest dependence today is largely acknowledge here, the plumbing efforts of The idea of freedom and choice is central to
for fuel wood and fodder collection, and oc- Gorkhey residents, for without such ‘resource- assessing human wellbeing. It is at the core
casional forays for leafy vegetables. Despite ful’ labour, the notion of service is incomplete. of the ‘do’ of Sen’s capabilities framework on
moderate forest dependence today, many Our household water surveys corroborated human functioning and flourishing. Impli-
plant species, including bamboo, do not regen- water-flow trends that we assessed at source. cated in the choices that Gorkhey’s farmers
erate optimally in areas where grazing and fuel Our water assessments reveal dips in winter have made, and also choices they have not
wood extraction had been intense in the past. and pre-monsoon flows. But even in these been able to make, are their relations with
139

the forest. Some old relations have lapsed,
and others persist, with varying conservation
implications. The choice to chiefly cultivate,
rather than graze, appears to be enforced
by conservation laws. But in choosing what
to cultivate, enforcement and (as we shall
shortly see), endearment entwine. Despite
the distance they need to travel to buy rice,
farmers have almost given up on maize
cultivation due to boar raids. While it could
be that boars, the enforcing agent here, have
switched from foraging in forests to raiding
farms, there has been a definite generational
shift in dietary preference amongst Gork-
hey folk themselves, namely, from maize to
rice. This carbohydrate appears to endear in
lifestyle terms. The laboriousness of growing
maize and chaffing it to grain, not to mention
sleepless vigilance against boar raids, are also
reasons for the switch to rice.
140
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But avoiding hard work has not been a choice
in all circumstances—avoidance both enables
and stresses the forest’s energy provisioning
services. For instance, park laws prohibit
road-laying in forests, and the LPG cylin-
ders, which the community prefers, need
to be carried from Bharang. This ensures a
dependence on forests for fuel wood. The
fact that families are unable to procure LPGs,
their preferred energy source, ensures their
dependence on fuel wood. It is only in this
context that Singalila’s fuel wood provision-
ing assumes significance as a service.
Singalila and Gorkhey appear resilient in
the way they respond to interventions that
disrupt historical human-nature interactions.
Once a grazier community, Gorkhey has
adapted well, ‘with aesthetic side-effects’, to
grazing bans by switching to terraced cultiva-
tion. When their maize attracted boars, rice
attracted them. Adaptation and attraction, in
their entangling, thus confound the scholars’
causal pursuit! Our ecological assessments
show that, even if not optimally, most of
Singalila’s forest species, except species like
bamboo, are regenerating steadily. And Sin-
galila’s resilience is manifest in its ability to
provision fuel wood, demands for which spike
seasonally—whether during energy-intensive
winters, or touristy summers. The constant
flow of water is a further reminder that Sin-
galila’s provisioning credentials are robust.
Water and bamboo provisioning services,
however, need to be acknowledged as being
co-produced. Without resourceful plumbing
labour, water cannot be delivered as service
to households. The firm natural historical
belief in Gorkhey is that, the grazing ban has
denied crucial nutrition input into the forest
floor in the form of manure, which has affect-
ed bamboo regeneration. This is further evi-
dence that timber provisioning services are in
fact co-produced. Co-production of services is
one way to forge stronger links between the
ecosystems services and capabilities frame-
works. The latter, in emphasising the freedom
of community members, considers them
more as active thinking agents, than as pas-
sive folk whose needs are provisioned by the
environment. Co-production imparts agency
in a way by crediting people with intended or
unintended roles in ecological processes.
Nussbaum and Sen’s philosophy of wellbe-
ing, when verified in a forested Himalayan
hamlet, yields interesting wellbeing and
conservation insights. In the collection of a
scarce nutritional resource from the forest,
community affiliation is signalled. In Gork-
hey’s inability to make energy switches, their
capability to plan and conceive of what is
good, convenient, and sustainable, is compro-
mised. In the natural-historical observations
of Gorkhey folk on the correlation between
manure deficiency and bamboo regeneration,
141
their reasoning capabilities assume conserva-
tion policy significance. It also means that the
forest suffers, as people continue to practice
firewood gathering. Some practical policy
options also emerge.
For the National Mission that seeks to ensure
the continued provisioning of ecosystems
services, an appreciation of idiosyncratic
histories of co-production, such as Singalila
and Gorkhey, can help invest in conservation
policy and practice that is collaborative. At
regional scales, the idea of services assumes
rhetorical value in terms of human needs
being met majestically by forests and rivers.
But at intimate scales, the services idea un-
ravels more empirically and democratically. To
enhance resilience of ecosystems, one needs
first to understand relational and socio-eco-
logical interactions. Sometimes sustaining
and enhancing a forest community’s freedom
can complement, or go further than just
seeking to sustain, the forest’s servicing of felt
needs. Fuel wood provisioning is important,
but understanding community reasoning and
preference about energy sources is much
more ecologically significant, and socially just.
Further Reading
Holland, B. 2008. Justice and the environment in
Nussbaum’s, ‘’Capabilities Approach’’: why sus-
tainable ecological capacity is a meta-capability?
Political Research Quarterly 61(2): 319–322.
MEA (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment).
2005. Ecosystem and human well-being: syn-
thesis. Washington DC: Island Press.
Nussbaum, MC. 2011. Creating capabilities:
the human development approach. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Belknap Press.
Sen, A. 2013. The ends and means of sustain-
ability. Journal of Human Development and
Capabilities. 14(1): 6–20.