Conservation through Sustainable Use

Anita Varghese is Director (Biodiversity) at Keystone Foundation. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Zoology (Bombay University), master’s degree in Ecology (Pondicherry University), and a doctorate in Botany (University of Hawaii). Her interests are in plant conservation specifically on sustainable use, non-timber forest products, long-term population dynamics of harvested species, invasive plants, cycads, and forest trees. Meera Anna Oommen is a trustee of Dakshin Foundation, Bangalore, and the Madras Crocodile Bank. She works on issues related to ecology, conservation science, and environmental history. Her recent work focuses on incorporating insights from multiple disciplines to understand the dynamics of human–wildlife conflict, aspects related to human–animal relationships, and the history of hunting in India. Mridula Mary Paul is a postgraduate researcher at the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK. She has previously been Senior Policy Analyst with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), Bengaluru, and practised environmentallaw before the Madras High Court. Snehlata Nath is Founder Director of Keystone Foundation and has worked on conservation-livelihoods-enterprise with indigenous people in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. She co-founded the NTFP Exchange Program network across Asia and has coordinated the India chapter for over 20 years.

List of Figures

List of Contributors

Foreword

Acknowledgements

1 An introduction to sustainable use: And its contribution to biodiversity conservation in India

ANITA VARGHESE, MRIDULA MARY PAUL, MEERA ANNA OOMMEN, AND SNEHLATA NATH

2 Sustainable use and biodiversity conservation: When the twain shall meet!

SNEHLATA NATH, MEERA ANNA OOMMEN, MRIDULA MARY PAUL, AND ANITA VARGHESE

PART I

Governance

3 The governance of sustainable use: Historical legacy and contemporary deployment

MRIDULA MARY PAUL

4 Small islands, big lessons: Critical insights on sustainable fisheries from India’s coral atolls

NAVEEN NAMBOOTHRI, ISHAAN KHOT, AND ABEL JOB ABRAHAM

PART II

Enterprises

5 Ensuring sustainable harvests through market-based tools and community-based organizations: A practitioner’s perspective

SNEHLATA NATH

6 Sustainable use of wild medicinal plant resources: Developing field methods for sustainable collection and direct market linkages

JAGANNATHA RAO R. AND DEEPA G.B.

PART III

Community knowledge

7 The pig and the turtle: An ecological reading of ritual and taboo in ethnographic accounts on Andamanese hunter-gatherers

MEERA ANNA OOMMEN

8 Rethinking indigenous hunting in Northeastern India: Some lessons for academics and practitioners

AMBIKA AIYADURAI AND SAYAN BANERJEE

9 Sustainable grazing practices: Conserving biodiversity in an Asian tropical grassland

PANKAJ JOSHI

PART IV

Intangible benefits

10 Counting to conserve: The role of communities and civil society in monitoring marine turtles

KARTIK SHANKER AND MURALIDHARAN MANOHARAKRISHNAN

11 Bringing reptiles into the conservation sphere: A personal account

ZAI WHITAKER

12 Linking ecotourism and biodiversity conservation: Lessons from India

KUNAL SHARMA AND LOKESH KUMAR

13 Sacred groves of Central India: Beyond the botany and the ecology

MADHU RAMNATH

PART V

Conclusion

14 Sustainable use and biodiversity conservation: Experiences, challenges, and ways forward

ANITA VARGHESE, SNEHLATA NATH, MEERA ANNA OOMMEN, AND MRIDULA MARY PAUL

Glossary

Index