Forest As a Source of Livelihood for the Tribes in Kurung Kumey District, Arunachal Pradesh

Abstract

Tribals are of great interest and intense significance from forest perspective, as they inhabit for a very long period time over the same region. In the state of Arunachal Pradesh as a whole and Kurung Kumey district in particular, tribal communities reside in close touch with forest and thus, dependent on it. That is why, it’s a great significance to study their do’s and don’ts in order to propose better forest and environmental management interventions considering options for enhancing livelihoods of the tribal communities in Kurung Kumey district. In this study, three tribal communities of the district i.e., Nyishi, Bangru and Puroik have been purposively selected for questionnaire survey. Data has been taken into consideration from two vital viewpoint i.e., livelihood pattern and forest dependence, assuming that all tribes are dependent on forest resources for their livelihood. Through this study, it is found that Nyishi and Bangru tribes are economically better-off in terms of land ownership and income per capita respectively. Forestry practice provides little share in their total income though Nyishi tribe has the highest land per capita in forestry sector as well as in agricultural sector. On the other hand, Puroik tribe’s living standard is comparatively very low as their income and land per capita is low, and they are more dependent on forest. Bangru tribe keeps the comparative middle status in almost every sector. A variety of other social and environmental factors were also collected and thoroughly analysed which may be useful for further research in this region.