Without Rubu Bukur, I am completely lost. Two rows of eerily quiet houses snake along both sides of a dusty road. This is Lempia village in the Apatani valley of Arunachal Pradesh. Over the next few days, Bukur will become my interpreter and guide to the valley. But today, my first morning here, I am all at sea.
It's time to summon up the basics that I have gleaned before setting out for the region. The valley is 1,524 metres above sea level; it's located at 9348'-9352 e longitude and 2732'-2737' n latitude. The recollection does not help bring much familiarity with the region, but in a guide's absence, it's a beginning nevertheless.
The area is sandwiched between the Kamla and Khru river valleys in the north and the Palin valley in the south. It's hard to believe that I am really in Arunachal Pradesh. Till date, the images that I have seen of the state have been, stereotypically, of densely forested high mountainous regions. But this is a valley: at a great height above sea level, but a valley nevertheless, as the early morning January winds remind me.
In the heart of the Apatani valley is a township called Ziro, also the district headquarters of Lower Subansiri district. Like much of Arunachal Pradesh, the district is predominantly mountainous tract, consisting of steep foothills that skirt the Brahmaputra valley's edges. While the foothills are clad in tropical rain forests, the middle regions of the district are clad with rhododendrons and alpine biotic wonders. This natural formation determines Lower Subansiri district's agriculture: jhum or slash and burn.
But not in the Apatani valley: embedded in hills that rise up to 2,400 metres, the oblong valley is home, not to jhum, but to arguably the most intensively managed wet-rice cultivation in the world. The Apatanis occupy a small patch:about 26 square kilometres. Beyond this little patch live the Nyishis and the Miri. But unlike them -- and many other tribal communities in the northeast -- the Apatanis have access to relatively small tracts of forests and hills. Stacked into a small area, the community manages space by designing compact homesteads.
Unlike the rest of Arunachal, where the tribes spread their houses far and wide, the Apatani dwellings are jammed close to each other -- to the outsider they might even appear as shanties. Till sometime back, there were seven Apatani villages packed into an almost circular area. But with increase in population over time, 12 villages jostle along a circular road at Ziro's outskirts.
Many from the community have moved away to settle at Old Ziro town or adjoining Hapoli. These townships have become semi-urban ghettos. Like any other place in Arunachal Pradesh, the Apatani valley has also changed character rapidly. Be it demography, the economy, architecture or even cultural ethics, the Apatani today is in the throes of strong currents of change.
But this is something I realise later. On this, the first day, as I make my way through the empty village, I have very little inkling of the awesome story I am already in the middle of.
It matters because I need an interpreter -- an interpreter of cultures and not a mere translator of languages. I trail Moji to Itanagar. Over the next ten days, a bio-data runs through my mind, whenever I meet a probable candidate: should be adept at Apatani language and English/Hindi, should have access to the people in the region and be accepted by them, should understand Apatani cultural practices, should know a bit of their ecology and must be well-conversant with Apatani agricultural practices. Above all, my interpreter should be able to translate any one of these idioms into another with ease. Idioms? Yes, Moji makes me realise soon that scientific interpretation of agriculture or the cultural interpretation of forestry practices are nothing but idioms. Whether I understand Apatani agricultural fields in terms of the gradient of their finely laid out irrigation channels or in terms of traditional tribal beliefs, I am merely interpreting facts into a form that a particular world understands. My world, I know, needs well-grounded science.
I cannot find the ideal interpreter in one person. But I do find two friends who live an idiom each of Apatani life: Rubu Bukur, schoolteacher who has decided to stay back in Lempia village to document Apatani cultural and ecological traditions, and Mihing Dollo, an ecologist at the G B Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development, Itanagar. They are childhood friends. Having met Dollo in Itanagar, I travel a bit assured that his friend in the valley shall be the guide I so desperately need. Over the next ten days, as Bukur takes me around the Apatani valley, the world of the community opens up to me -- just as warmly as the interpreter's friendship.
It comes from the forests the Apatani protect and use. Bukur explains the community's forest management system during one of our daily walks. The Apatanis demarcate their forests: there are private bamboo forests and there are private mixed forests, then there are clan forests as well as common forests. There are sacred groves too. The private forests and the clan mixed forests are very often dominated by the oak species Castanopsis indica. They also have the blue pine species Pinus wallichiana. Hotels in Ziro use the species to the hilt to sell the blue pine valley dream to the few who reach the town. But to the Apatani, it's the basis for life.
There is enormous conjecture on how the blue pine reached the valley but today it's firmly rooted in the area's culture and economy. Wood is the only source of fuel and energy for the Apatanis. "We have limited areas under forests. However, except in a few areas, our forests have not degraded. So, sourcing wood has never been a problem," says Bukur. He then explains, "Keeping the forests intact requires constant work. We have to tend our seedlings and saplings, and replant at the first sight of open space, keeping the basic idea of silviculture in mind. The saplings from the deeper forests are transplanted into private groves in February or March. In January one can see the people walking around looking for the saplings in their forests as well."
(See the table: Neatly demarcated)
The Apatani methods appear quite simple on initial observation. But there is always a sense of plan to them. I ask Bukur: When exactly do they cut a particular tree? How do they do mixed planting? He has answers but finds it difficult to articulate them. It's inherited knowledge and can scarcely be expressed in formal conversation.
"We do not rely on monocultures, other useful trees also find place in our scheme of things. The fruit-bearing ones are usually planted in March," my interpreter tells me. The Apatani have four fruit bearing species: cherry, peach, pear and a bitter tasting subspecies of apple. The odd trees the people leave untouched are the only real evidences of their efficiency. It looks random but the patterns in the spaces created in the forests are visually evident. "Well no one has yet looked at the 'ecology' of how we manage our trees," Bukur says, unable to word the logic yet again.
But the logic of the bamboo species, colloquially known as Apatani bamboo and locally as bije, is clear. Bamboo is quite literally the pillar of Apatani society. The homesteads are built from bamboo and pinewood. Many bamboo varieties grow wild in the hills surrounding the valley. However, in their private groves, the Apatanis grow bije (Phyllostachys bambusoides). It's a medium-sized, straight-stemmed plant that stands up well to the region's frosty winters. Bije is not found in the surrounding areas, except where it is planted by some Nyishi communities.
(See the NLittle input, high output)
A study by R C Sundriyal and his colleagues at the G B Pant Institute of Himalayan Environment and Development, revealed that Apatanis use 9 bamboo and 3 cane species for constructing houses, for making fences and for firewood. Sundriyal also notes that bije grown in the private groves provides for 90 per cent of the Apatani bamboo demands. The study showed that an absolutely new Apatani house requires 2,500-3,000 bamboo culms; it estimated that people in the valley required 391,400 bamboo culms for construction purposes, every year. The analysis also reckoned 472,204 bamboo culms were used for fencing every year, while 112,681 culms were used for making different products in rural settlements in the Apatani valley. These numbers initially appear staggering, specially because the valley's population is just 40,000. I then recollect Bukur's statement that his community has never needed to buy any of these resources from the markets. The country fares badly in comparison, importing wood by millions of tonnes. Are there things to learn here? This question resonates in my mind as I have dinner at Bukur's home.
The Apatanis effectively use irrigated land by planting early- and late-ripening varieties of rice. Villagers can recount six varieties of rice off-hand. Query on, and the older ones can come up with eight. But Dollo has collected proof of sixteen.
Irrigation canals drawing water from streams in the valley feed each plot of meticulously terraced land. Water levels are controlled in plots -- with gradients as tiny as a few centimetres -- via bamboo tubes. Irrigating the flatter plain lands is more arduous: each drop of water has to be pulled as far as possible over an ever-decreasing gradient, through manually dug canals with bamboo scaffoldings. The canal walls are held together by plant varieties such as Eleusine coracana, which bind the soil and also provide end-season leafy vegetables.
Every inch of the canal bund is used intensively. This demands maintenance. People get down to it right after the rice is harvested. The community collectively maintains canals till the feeder points; individuals tend them near their fields.
If the canal requires careful maintenance, the intensively used soil needs extra nutrients. But the Apatani has it all worked out, almost magically. Huge volumes of biomass, from the mixed-oak forest on mountain tops, are source of nutrients at one end. At the other, houses with piggeries supply recycled waste. The two create a graded system of soil fertility, with nutrient-rich plots closer to the village and nutrient-poor ones consigned to the middle of the fields.
With dozens of vegetables as well as wet-rice feeding of it, one might think the land gets squeezed to its limit. But the Apatanis also turn their agricultural fields into fishponds. Fish culture -- usually that of the common carp -- in plots closer to the village synchronises well with the late-ripening rice variety. The ponds are managed as meticulously as the irrigation canals. It's tricky business: too much water in a plot and the standing crop would be destroyed; too little, and the fish won't survive. The balance is crucial. The fish seeds are introduced when the water is nutrient-rich enough. A trade-off occurs. Also, the fish must share nutrients in the water with the paddy: so fish seedling numbers have to be carefully calculated.
The result of all this? The energy efficiency of the Apatani agroecosystem is around 60 to 80 joules per joule of input. Green Revolution agriculture fares dismally in comparison: it gives less than a joule for every joule of input. The valley's energy input-output ratio is also considerably higher than that of other traditional mountain systems in the region. There, the value is in the range of 9-50 joules, writes Ramakrishnan.
Not only the pilgrims but even the villagers living in and around Thekaddy have seen many positive changes since 1998. The villagers say before the iedp, they depended on the forest for firewood, thatching grass for their own use and for sale. Illicit smuggling of vayana was common as was poaching of bison, buffalo and small game. "Earlier we were scared of the forest department as they restricted our entry into the forest," says Jose Elavankul, chairperson of the village edc of Kurushumala.
The ex- vayana bark collectors edc typify the changed relation fringe communities have developed with the forest. ptr has become a source of legitimate livelihood for several other edcs. Tribal villagers can access their basic needs such as fuelwood or fishing without any hinderance. "We no longer have to fear the men in khaki," says a village woman.
The iedp implementation at ptr went beyond the goals of the project to permit the fringe community access to forest and non-timber forest produce, says Krishnan of Project Tiger. "We had to go beyond the project and involve the people and that is where we have been successful," he adds.
After the focus on protected areas (pa), foresters here are looking at how to take conservation further to the landscapes beyond. Linking the pa with landscape would involve dealing with livelihood concerns of the people in the development zones. "Any development should have the ethos of sustainability. Converting threats into opportunities has been the strategy at ptr," says field director Anil Bhardwaj.
While community empowerment has been ptr's success, classical wildlife management appears to have been neglected. Protection of forests outside the pa, especially in the Kallakad-Periyar area, remains weak. "Male tigers have a migratory route. Though they are safe in ptr, what is the use if they are killed outside," quips Rajesh Gopal, director, Project Tiger.
Community empowerment at other wildlife reserves in the country would perhaps require other techniques to be evolved kepping in mind their peculiar conditions.
But what the Periyar experience has shown is that looking inwards at the forest to create economies and bringing people and parks closer can make a big difference.