Purana Sahitya mein Paryavaran Samrakshan

Reflecting the latest findings of a large research project that began about a decade ago this volume, the 5th in the ongoing “Man and Forest” series, highlights the relevance of ‘indigenous knowledge’ of various South Asian tribal and rural communities in the sustainable management of forests and local resources – more specially against the growing challenges of economic development vis-a-vis environmental hazards and a declining resource base. Not only the volume reiterates the relevance of indigenous knowledge as a development tool in this age of standardized, modern know-how applications, but also illustrates its enormous impact on the social development in tribal and rural areas. Not just in India but in the adjacent countries of Nepal and Bhutan as well are analysed forest policy issues. In these countries, particularly in the current scenario of regulation, the authors emphasise of both collective initiatives at the grassroots level and securing the locally accepted patterns of livelihood for the tribal and village communities. The volume includes widely varied case studies on the role of indigenous knowledge in forestry, community living, and joint management of local natural resources. This book consists of 17 papers, based on cross-cultural, interdisciplinary investigations of well-known scholars of forest management, ethno-botanists, social anthropologists and of the members of several local NGOs involved in either community forestry or village development programmes.

Understanding the ecological knowledge of tribal and rural societies is necessary to conserve and sustain natural resources. This volume discusses the history and importance of ethnobotany with specific reference to four tribal communities of Odisha, India. It begins with an account of the nature of the tribes involved in the study. Based on participatory fieldwork, it presents an insider’s account of the tribal culture and its relationship with plants. It provides the ethnobotanical descriptions of 210 species of plants belonging to 77 families, presenting their local names, origin and the medicinal, cultural, culinary, economic, ecological uses of the species. It takes up study of the plants used by tribes in the drug-based and spiritual healing processes elaborating the philosophies behind knowledge transmission such as divination, hereditary, discipleship and kinship. Related aspects such as disease diagnosis, diet restrictions and rituals are depicted in detail. There is a special chapter on forests and non-timber forest products (NTFPs) that details the efforts of communities in forest conservation, their land-use patterns, forest classification systems, list of NTFPs and their harvest-consumption patterns. It also deals with the role of NGOs, middlemen and government agencies in this. Throughout, the emphasis is on the philosophical relationship of the communities with their ecosystem.
The book would prove extremely useful to policy-makers, academicians, social workers and general readers looking forward to accompany the tribal communities towards ethno-sensitive development.