Indigenous Knowledge for Management of Land and Water Resources of The Tribes of South Odisha and Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

Efficient and sustainable use of natural resources is sine qua non for economic development, especially in the resource poor countries. More so in the agriculturally dominant economies like India more than 50 percent of the cropped area is dependent on rainfall without any alternative irrigation facilities. Rain fed regions, which account for more than 50% of cultivable land and 40% of population, house a large share of the poor, food insecure and vulnerable populations in the country. The tribal population and more specially, the Primitive and Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) have become more vulnerable in this context. The tribal areas constitute major chunk of the rain fed areas. The tribal communities are not much used to improved agricultural practices and hence, by and large, they have remained confined to their traditional agricultural and livelihoods practices for their imminent survival. The traditional agricultural practices of the tribal communities are scientific in their own accord and technically viable in their land use context. Their agriculture is rain fed, knowledge and skills acquired through years of interacting with their land use practices, less input intensive, land use decisions based on understanding local environment and shared perceptions, efficient land and water management technology, and the overall production system is sustainable in many respects. Their knowledge systems have not been mainstreamed for scientific validation and qualification. However, on the other hand, the intensity of resource degradation is reaching irreversible levels in some of the tribal regions calling for promotion of appropriate technologies and development strategies to result in multiple benefits such as (i) ensuring food security, (ii) enhancing the viability of farming, and (iii) restoring the ecological balance. While efforts are on to restore the degraded resource base elsewhere, a pertinent question arises that in this quest for appropriate technologies shouldn't the traditional knowledge of the communities in the rain fed areas be given due priority on its merit. The tribal way of management of land and water can be best studied at a landscape consideration. At a landscape level, ecologically significant areas and their spatial linkages are possible to be easily identified. Ecologically significant areas could be a wet land, grass land, patch of forest, farm lands, etc. Local tribal communities have rich perceptions on ecologically important areas within a landscape and they know from their experiences about how a landscape becomes degraded and they also have the solutions about how to restore the landscape from point of view of ecological services. In landscapes the resources are concentrated in pockets creating mosaic of resource rich and poor patches of different sizes, shapes, contiguity, structure and composition. Hence, studying their land and water management systems at a landscape level provides a range of situations, problems, opportunities and innovated technologies to be studied comprehensively.