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Abstract
State-led policies of pastoralist removal from protected areas, following the fortress model of biodiversity conservation, have been a common practice across parts of Asia and Africa. In the Himalayan region of South Asia, restrictive access and removal of pastoralist communities from protected areas have been compensated by the state through “eco”-tourism. In this paper, we critique the current conservation model adopted in the Indian Himalaya, which focuses on a conservation-pastoral eviction-ecotourism coupling. With a focus on pastoralists and pastoral practices, we argue that this model is neither an inclusive engine of development, nor does it always help conservation. Instead, it recreates a landscape favoring the state's interests, produces exclusions, and may also negatively affect both society and ecology. We build on the case of Khangchendzonga National Park (KNP) situated in Sikkim, Eastern Himalaya. We used mixed methods and conducted 48 semi-structured interviews, 10 key informant interviews, and two focused group discussion in the four village clusters situated in the vicinity of KNP, West Sikkim. The grazing ban policy and concomitant promotion of tourism caused the end of pastoralism in KNP. It transformed a pastoral cultural landscape into a tourist spot with a transition in livestock from the traditional herds of yak and sheep to the pack animals and non-native hybrid cattle. Locally perceived social impacts of the grazing ban include loss of pastoral culture, economic loss, and the exclusion of the pastoral community from the park. As per the respondents, perceived ecological effects include a decline in vegetation diversity in the high-altitude summer pastures, altered vegetation composition in the winter due to plantation of non-native tree species, and increased incidents of human-wildlife conflict. Rangelands of the Himalaya transcend political boundaries across countries. The conservation model in Himalaya, should henceforth be done with a trans-boundary level planning involving the prime users of high-altitude rangelands, i.e., the pastoralists. The lessons from this study can help design effective future policy interventions in landscapes critical for both pastoralist cultures and wildlife conservation.
Highlights
The conservation discourse on pastoral use of natural resources is replete with two polarized and opposing narratives
We argue that the current conservation model, implemented in the Himalayan states with the restrictive conservation policies, pastoral eviction and ecotourism coupling, is neither an inclusive model of development nor is it embedded in the local socio-ecological needs for conservation
In this article, focusing on pastoral practices in Khangchendzonga National Park (KNP), we show how the conservation-pastoral eviction- tourism coupling resulted in the transition of traditional herding to pack animal economy and have transitioned KNP from a pastoral cultural landscape to an exclusive tourist spot
Summary
The conservation discourse on pastoral use of natural resources is replete with two polarized and opposing narratives. Pastoralist communities are blamed for being responsible for the degradation of rangelands This assumption follows the classical approach to the equilibrium model that assumes that rangeland ecosystems are potentially stable systems destabilized by pastoralist communities’ improper use and overstocking of the rangelands (Stebbings, 1935; Brown, 1971). Scholars of new rangeland ecology argued that the equilibrium model did not consider the social heterogeneity, climatic variability and the adaptive resource use by the pastoral communities (Behnke and Scoones, 1992; Scoones, 1994; Leach et al, 1999) They argued that pastoralists have co-existed with nature following their institutional systems embedded in the social and ecological heterogeneity (Scoones, 1994; Robbins, 1998; Berkes et al, 2007; Jun Li et al, 2007). These systems constantly evolve in response to the local geo-climatic conditions, and ecological and social variabilities (Scoones, 1994; Mortimore, 1998; Mortimore and Turner, 2005; Butt, 2011; Haynes and Yang, 2013; Wu et al, 2014; Singh et al, 2015)
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