PROGRESS/SUCCESS STORIES

                In Periyar Tiger Reserve, the department is successfully implementing India Eco-Development Project. A group of scribes and lens men of the Trivandrum press Club visited the area and extracts from their reports in the press reproduced.

From the Margins to the Mainstream
(The Hindu 23 Set.'99)

               Eco-development, biodiversity conservation and sustainable growth are concepts that mean little to Thevan, a tribal living in Mannakkudy in the northern edge of the Periyar Tiger Reserve. But, without his realizing the full import of these concepts, he is today involved thickly with a process which seeks to achieve all those lofty goals these concepts, he is today involved thickly with the process which seeks to achieve all those lofty goals these concepts embody. A process which is changing the lives of some 370-odd tribal families, including Thevan's, in Mannakudy and Paliyakudy.

               Even a casual visitor would hardly miss the winds of change sweeping the two tribal hamlets, located very close to Kumily town. Almost every household is a beehive of activity. In a clear sign of nascent prosperity-may be also their domestication – the women wear gold ornaments and clothes which approximate those of their plains counterparts.

              The lives of Mannans and Paliyans were intervened with the flora and fauna of what later become the Periyar Tiger Reserve and its environs till they were resettled in the two hamlets with common name Labakkandam Tribal Settlement in the 1940s. Traditionally, they have been eking out a living from fishing, collection of firewood and minor forest produces. Once resettled, they tried their hands at cultivation or raggi and paddy and later to pepper, but failed. They were driven into the clutches of loan sharks who gave them sums as loans in return for pepper.

             The Rs.250-crore India Eco-development project was launched in December, 1996, and would conclude in September, 2001. Of the total project outlay, 42 per cent constitute loans from the International Development Agency (IDA), 30 per cent grant for Global Environmental Facility (GEF), 10 per cent the share of the Central Governments and 6 per cent the contribution of the beneficiaries. The Periyar Eco-development project has an outlay of Rs.40.54 crores. The Periyar project got off with the constitution of three Eco-development Committees (EDCs) based on the neighbourhood concepts.

            The EDCs have two adults from each family as members, one of them a woman. Each of the EDCs have a seven-member executive committee, of which three are women, and an annually elected chairperson. A Forester is nominated ex-officio secretary without voting rights. The executive committees are elect every year. By the time the first of the EDC, came into being, the money lenders had advanced Rs.5.5 lakhs to the tribal families to the 1997 pepper crop season.

            The EDCs themselves began procuring the green pepper crop through two community pepper stores that proved to be a eye-opener for the tribals. The EDCs together procured 1,58,732 kg of pepper worth Rs.69.50 lakhs which would otherwise have gone to the money lenders for a paltry Rs.5.55 lakhs! Each tribal family was given Rs.5,000 from a Revolving Fund for meeting their immediate requirements. All the families have repaid the amount taken as loan.

            Most of the families in the two hamlets now have bank accounts jointly operated by husbands and wives and with savings totaling Rs.32 lakh as on June 10 last. To top it all, an Emergency Fund having a corpus of nearly Rs.1 lakh has been constituted through voluntary contributions to meet exigencies.

            The Paliyakudy EDC has initiated a community pepper cultivation initiative and planted 12,500 banana and 7,500 tapioca saplings this season. With good showers this season, the tribals are looking forward to a good pepper harvest during the current season.