Adivasis Provide Crucial Ecosystem Services

 The vitality and diversity of Earth’s ecosystems are the basis of human prosperity and well-being whether they are mountains and hills, forests, farmlands, freshwater sources like glaciers, rivers and lakes, oceans or coasts. Humans have been degrading these precious resources in various ways ever since agriculture and animal husbandry started about ten thousand years ago with the Neolithic Revolution. However over the past two and a half centuries or so since the Industrial Revolution this environmental degradation has increased considerably and the situation has become alarming currently. Apart from the many direct adverse consequences of this degradation, in the case of forest degradation, it is also resulting in the destruction of carbon sinks and aggravation of the problem of global warming. The United Nations has declared the decade from 2021 – 2030 as the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to help turn the tide and give people and nature a sustainable future.

Even though this has been given a new name, it is something that was being done by a few people for quite some time in the form of forest, soil and water conservation. The Khedut Mazdoor Chetna Sangath (KMCS) in Alirajpur has been working to preserve and restore ecosystems in for close to four decades now. The main methodology has been to use the power of communitarian cooperation of its Adivasi members to pool labour for protecting forests and carry out soil and water conservation work both on forest and farm land. Given below is a picture of one such earthen bund constructed to conserve soil and water along with the Adivasi couple who have built it on their farm.

The villages along the Narmada River in Alirajpur district have been affected by the submergence due to the construction of the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the river in Gujarat. The Adivasi people of these villages after having lost their lands in the submergence have climbed up on to the hills and are living there. This has led to deforestation and also their new farms are prone to soil erosion as they are on steep slopes. Therefore, there is a need to carry out afforestation and soil and water conservation work in these villages on a priority basis. So under the guidance of KMCS the villagers have initiated communitarian programmes of forest, soil and water conservation to restore their ecosytem. The villages of Anjanwara, Bada Amba, Kakarsela, Khodamba, Jalsindhi and Chilakda which are all near the River Narmada in Alirajpur district as shown in the map below are at the forefront of this ecosystem restoration programme. These villagers are not only restoring their own ecosystem but also by increasing the forest cover are helping in absorbing the carbon dioxide being emitted elsewhere in cities in large quantitities. They are thus providers of vital ecosystem services which are now crucial to the survival of the human race.