A Study Of Kutia Kondhs

 

TRIBAL WOMEN & DEFORESTATION

Enormous exploitations, lack of education and awareness, ignorance regarding to social status and legal rights, superstitions, malnutrition and health problems and gender disparity incase of labour etc. are the major problems concerning the tribal women, but the deforestation and degradation of the living environment are the latest and in many ways, the most dangerous of the threats women face, for it not only causes problems at the ecology, mankind and family level, but also makes women’s life much more miserable , arduous, strenuous and problematic. In the day to day life, Kondh women who are very hardworking , work hard like other in the family to eke out living and supplement in their family income. But these women generally works double shift, for her daily working agenda constitute two varied types of works working in the household and working for income generation. While both are generally not acknowledged by the manfolk in their family, the former which require an equal amount of strength and strain is never acknowledged as a real work, where as the truth is that the women, especially the tribal women who equally contribute to their family income are unacknowledged but real backbone of their family economy. It is natural and evident that the aftermath of the year long deforestation and the subsequent environmental disaster would naturally extenuate and enervate the tedium of the arduous work women perform.

Shifting cultivation , conservation to agricultural land, commercial timber logging, large scale construction projects, forest fires, growing demands for firewood and fodder and overgrazing contribute to the loss of forests. Massive deforestation causes disturbances in water system; flooding, drought, and drying up water sources. High rain fall intensities cause the soil to seal so that water flows of the land causing severe erosion and downstream flooding. The erosion and downstream inundation destroy the productivity on the vast scale. Thus , the depletion of ground water resources through deforestation end up with drying up to them. Thus  it results in the form of the tribal women going as far as 6-7 km away from their village in search of water. Each load of water a woman carries to her home may weigh nearly 25 kg. and this routine process of water carrying may amount to atleast 2 hours in the daily life of a woman.

As the tribals primarily depends upon shifting cultivation and minor forest products, the massive deforestation and unavailability of these forest products have made the life of the tribals miserable. In  Phulbani around 8,435.20 sq km of area are under shifting cultivation and nearly 1,95,000 Kondhs are involved in it. The percentage of poddu cultivators has increased from the past 25 % to the present 35% , whereas the average poddu area burnt has decreased from 0.58 hector to 0.53 hec. As forest provides fuel, fruits, honey, fodder for animals, medicines etc. with  its destruction arises the scarcity of the above. For women, trees and forests are multifunctional unlike the men who concentrate on forests for its commercial potential. Forests offer the tribal women the three Fs-: fuel, food and fodder. In good old days, when all these things were in handy to them due to the vicinity of forests to their villages. But now a days, a tribal woman walks long distance, perhaps as long as 10 to 12 km to collect the above. She has to leave before dawn just to collect them and get back to join others in their work when the day begins. A woman might be spending up to 5 hours in fuel collection.

The diet of the tribals constitute rice mixed with gruel with little or no vegetables. And with the decrease in family income the poor tribals are often not even able to afford a full mean twice a day. More so the tribals women, who are often the last in the family who may eat and they take less than the other family members. This develops vitamin deficiency and causes malnutrition especially in the pregnant women and the children.

PROBLEM AND ROLE OF WOMEN :-

         Massive deforestation causes ecological imbalance and loss of natural resources , but the principal victims of an environmental degradation are the most unprivileged people, and the majority of these people are women. Deforestation has made an all round adverse effect on  the socio-economic and physiological life of the tribal women. The complex cycles of the poverty have forced the poor tribals and especially  the women  to live a way of life which induces further destruction. Women have no choice but to exploit natural resources inorder to survive , even though they  may have the knowledge  to promote sustainability.

         NIPDIT has been working in the tribal manifested regions of Odisha, chiefly in Phulbani district and it has studied the various aspects of deforestation and its subsequent impact on the lives of the tribals especially on the tribal women. It has been working on the forest and environment programme on the district and it has realized that unless proper training and education are imparted to the women folk among the tribals, the vision of the accomplishing  a well protected environment could never be materialized. One startling  figures reveals that the females among the tribals have the lowest literacy rate, i.e 4.8% as against 23.2% of the main tribals in Odisha. Hence, education and awareness has been given top priority in NIPDIT’s programme and optimum efforts are made to achieve maximum involvement and participation of women folk. It has formed women’s organizations in every village are forest protection committees with women as their members to take up environmental issues , protect forests from destruction and create few forests. In the last 10 years it has created 192 forest protection committees. There have been formed atleast 184 women’s organizations with 2760 members in the last ten years of existence of NIPDIT. Thus with the efforts by these women’s organization and women activities in the forest protection committees , a total of 25080 acres of land have been protected in the operational areas and 1,20,000 saplings have been planted there.

      The tribals and the forests are inspirable to each others, so are the women folk of the tribals and their indefatigable efforts to bring sustainability in their family. Deforestation and degradation have hurt women definitely. But the solution too lie with the women. Their access to education, the rise in their status , training and perfection in their skill and active participation and involvement from their side in forest protection activities can only ameliorate the sorry state of an environmental affair, for they are the environmental educators of not only their off-springs,  but also of the whole family. This is precisely what NIPDIT in doing.