Bhog-Moksha Sambhava

Here is the third volume in the series Man and Forest: a series trying to highlight the relevance of ‘indigenous knowledge’ of various tribal communities in the sustainable management of forests/local resources against the growing challenges of environmental hazards and a declining resource base. The volume takes the reader to the Dayak Benuaq village of Lempunah in Borneo (East Kalimantan, Indonesia) where, for over three hundred years, the local tribal population has made extensive use of its forest resources. More than a hundred locally-differentiated rice varieties and 150 other crops are cultivated over a mosaic forest of 9,200 ha. Besides maintaining a high level of bio-diversity, Lempunah villagers are managing an enormous reservoir of flora and fauna for their extended subsistence economy, including trade with various forest products over long distances. Market fluctuations and other uncertainties here are coped with by resource diversification and a high dynamic flexibility in switching between the use of resources. Together with vivid descriptions, Christian Gonner offers an insightful analysis of local resource use patterns, covering swidden agriculture, mixed forest gardens, rattan gardens, rubber gardens, and the non-cultivated forest ‘in-between’ and temporal and spatial aspects of life in Lempunah. Christian Gonner has, for this study, applied ethnological, ecological, and geographical field-research methods.

In the management of renewable resources, forests have undeniably a vital role, and today, as never before, their conservation is an urgency. In view of this dire necessity the series Man and Forest tries to highlight the relevance of indigenous knowledge of various South Asian tribal communities in the sustainable management of forests/local resources — more specially against the growing challenges of economic development vis-a-vis environmental hazards and a rapidly declining resource base. A scientific inquiry into indigenous knowledge is an effort to discover/rediscover the tribals’ traditional modes of production and conservation. For them it is the only source to cope with the problems of modernity affecting their lives and precarious environments. Forest Tribes of Orissa: The Kuttia Kondh is the sixth monograph in the series Man and Forest and, after the publication of an account of the forest world of the Dongaria Kondh in 2002, the second volume to deal with an aboriginal tribe of Orissa. Being a tribal community in transition, the authors have tried to document and thus safeguard its local traditional knowledge of conservation, use and management of forests and natural resources. They give an account of how the Kuttia Kondh classify trees and other plants, hills, forests, crops and animals. Their subsistence economy, agricultural system, social organization, religious beliefs and other important socio-cultural aspects of forest life have been extensively treated. The lifestyle of this tribal community is finally reflected on the background of forest policy and the impact it has on their livelihood. The present book is, as most of the volumes in the series, the outcome of nearly ten years’ research venture involving an interdisciplinary, intercultural team of sociologists, ethnobotanists, social anthropologists and other social scientists.