Interface of Conservation and Livelihood in Protected Areas in Odisha

Abstract

A careful review of the literature in conservation law/policy and discourse shows that newlineprevailing assumptions both at the national and international level about conservation newlineof protected areas through strong state regulation and exclusion of people rests more newlineon dominant power groups including elites, tourism industries, forest department and newlineradical conservation scientists. Such dominant and conventional conservation policy newlinemodel fails to take into account the peculiar socio-economic and political conditions newlinein rural areas, where the vast majority of those living are dependent on forest newlineresources for their livelihood. Conservation efforts, especially protected areas through newlineformal institutions therefore becomes ineffective. Although recent conservation and newlinesociety policy literature offers insights into these peculiarities, these contributions newlinehave been largely ignored to date. One reason is that state forest machineries, newlineespecially wildlife department and conservation scientists continue to dominate the newlineconservation policy making process in India. newlineAnother is that social scientists have typically looked at local knowledge and newlinedecentralised governance structure as important ones, rather than emphasising the newlinecontextual, institutional and innovative technological approach, as implied in the newlinecurrent sustainable conservation programs across the globe. Understanding the newlinelinkage between conservation and livelihood remains an undertheorized area of newlineresearch held back by two chasms, one between dominant coalitions (wilderness newlinemovement advocates, forest and wildlife department, conservation scientists) newlinesupported by state and another between the social scientists, practitioners, and local newlineNGOs, to the detriment of gaining a better understanding of how it may help newlinesustaining conservation of protected areas with emphasis on social justice and newlinelivelihoods of people. With this backdrop, the broad objective of this study was to newlineexamine the nature and level of interface of multiple conservation legislation