Bamboo Growth Restoration & The Future of the Baiga Tribe
Shortly after leaving Jaelgaon Baiga tola, whose resisidents lamented over acute bamboo scarcity in their region, we spotted a line of women walking with bundles of unrecognizable vegitation on their heads and decided to follow them back a few steps down the road. Their destination turned out to be a sprawling nursery of around 2 acres where they had come to sell their bundles. As it turned out, these packages were made up of none other than infantile bamboo seedlings and roots from stalks that have already been cut. Wrapped up in their day's harvest were the sickles and hand shovels that they use to free the seedlings from the earth. We came to find out that these women are employed by the government to collect the shoots in order to nurse them for replanting in regions in which the bamboo population has been decimated.
Bahgholi nursery started as an initiative by the Balaghat Forest Department to replenish the bamboo population for the health and restoration of forest ecosystems. Members of the tribes, who are nearly the only communities to take up this occupation, will spend up to 8hours per day scowering the forest undergrowth for saplings and roots. This practice will not only be helping to regenerate the flora and fauna, but will also serve a great opportunity for employment to people who are struggling to bring food home. The workers will receive 25 paisa per root (or 1 rupee for every four roots) generating a wage of around 150 rupees+ per day. If the bamboo population is restored, although it make take a decade or more in some areas, one day the Baigas who once had limited access to the resourse will be able to return to their tradtional trade.
A fleeting thought came to mind when I thought of this process of removing the saplings from one stretch of forest in favor of planting them in another. It seemed at first to be a detrimental practice to the area where the shoots are harvested but after a conversation with a researcher at the Forest Research Institute in Dehra Dun, UttarKant, this hypothesis was retracted. Simple understanding of the reproductive attributes of the organizism led to a change of thought. The roots left over from bamboo stalks that have been cut down still harness regenerative properties, which makes cutting down the stalks less harmful to the composition of the forest than cutting down trees. In once chopped wooden plants the stumps sit as sad memories of their once majestic presences.
It doesn't take much reasoning to figure that those government officials who wish to stop the tribes from access to the forest, wish so not solely because the Baiga are cutting the produce any more than other people, but because they would like to restrict the cultivation except to those who are willing to pay more. From conversations with locals I learned that throughout the history of this region, the officials who worked with a facade of protecting the forest, were often easily bribed into allowing local businessmen to cut down trees and bamboo for private gain. As was the testimony of Raj Kumar Verma, a bamboo and social forestry expert at FRI, bamboo is a product that is allowed to be cultivated freely in most areas in India, as per central government laws. Bamboo is not timber, it is actually a grass by biological classification, and it is considered a minor forest produce. Although many area may install restrictions because of over-cutting and a need to restore growth, it must be understood that the tribes are not the enemies of the forest. If given guidance and understanding, they can be its saviors.