Indicators for Managing the Environment

Objectives

Faced with increasing human need for space, experts, assessors and managers require operational information to help decision-making in such critical domains as management of renewable resources and risks of ecological imbalance. This can be obtained from indicators of environmental pressure selected due to their capacity to measure the pressure exerted by human activities and the resulting ecological consequences.

The present project is part of a larger project where environmental pressure indicators are being identified and validated in three functional areas located in different ecological zones and continents:

• Uruara region in Para State in Brazilian Amazonia
• Zambezi valley in Zimbabwe
• Kodagu District (Western Ghats forests) in South India.

The objectives are primarily to identify, to study and to confirm the indicators while making them operational by integrating the local specificities and possibilities of generalization. This would enable experts, assessors and managers to adapt these indicators more efficiently in the protected areas and territories that are undergoing changes.

Although IFP participation is confined to the Indian site only (Kodagu district, Karnataka), it stands equally to benefit from the experiences gathered and the methods implemented in the different sites.

Materials and Methods

Kodagu district (4100 km²) is located in southern Karnataka. It displays an east-west bio-climatic gradient with forest types ranging from evergreen to dry deciduous forests with an intermediate zone favorable for coffee plantation.

Indicators of environmental pressure, transformation and, especially degradation of landscapes will be prepared. Prospective indicators are related to the factors affecting social management practices (sacred groves and coffee-based agro-forestry systems) and economics of forest resources in contact with coffee-growing zones. Indicators of the physical environment will also be considered as they play an important role in the ongoing processes.

The indicators will be derived from two complementary tasks conducted simultaneously:

• Identification of the actors involved in the changes in forest cover and landscape dynamics. Analysis of the mode of implication of the actors in the processes and their interactions studied through survey analysis.

• Spatial analysis using GIS, of the landscape dynamics and forest fragmentation in relation to population, land-use and communication routes.

Resources used: Western Ghats , GIS developed at IFP, satellite images, census data, and survey of actors.

Partners

• CIRAD - Forêt, Montpellier, France
• University of Agricultural Sciences, College of Forestry, Ponnampet, Karnataka

Funding

• French Institute of Pondicherry
• French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through CIRAD

Team

IFP

• Dr. K. S. Murali - Researcher Ecology Department - Project Coordinator at IFP
• Dr. D. Lo Seen - Head of Geomatics and Applied Informatics Lab.
• Dr. S. Dubuc - Researcher Geographer
• Dr. B. R. Ramesh - Head of Botany Laboratory
• M. Madan Kumar - GIS Engineer

CIRAD

• Dr. Y. Clouet - Geographer - Project Coordinator
• Dr. C. Garcia - Researcher - Forest Department
• Dr. D. Depommier - Researcher - Forest Department
• Ms. M. Pain-Orcet - Geographer - Forest Department

UAS

• Dr. C. G. Kushalappa - Associate Professor
• Dr. Ramakrishna Hegde - Assistant Professor
• Dr. Devagiri, Assistant Professor

Outputs

Books

• Environmental pressure indicators with regards to an increasing degree of anthropisation

Yves Clouet, Denis Depommier & Marie Noël de Visscher, (eds), 2004, CIRAD Montpellier, 2004, 42 p.

Synthesis report of the « Indicators » project led by CIRAD for the French Foreign Affairs. This report encompasses the conclusions of the activities undertaken in the three field studies (Zimbabwe, India and Brazil) and proposes a critical analysis of the “indicator” toolset applied to natural resources management. The finality of the tool, the methods to develop and implement it and the role of information in reducing power asymmetry between actors are discussed.

Keywords: indicators, management, natural resources, co-construction and information.

• Forest Management in the Western Ghats (India): The example of Kodagu district

C. Garcia, M. Pain-Orcet, S. Dubuc, N. Konerira, K. S. Murali., D. Depommier, C.G. Kushalappa & D. Lo Seen, 2004. CIRAD, Montpellier, 60 p.

Village committees have been created in Kodagu district to manage the sacred forests of the village. This institution provided the opportunity to experiment the “indicator” toolset applied to forest management. An information system was developed to back-up this form of participatory management. The system describes the “client” and the institutional context in which it evolves. This required a close collaboration between the village committees and the researchers, from data gathering to explicit description of the management objectives. The final information system proposed relies heavily on the traditional ecological knowledge of the local population and is adapted to the institutional, logistic and human capacity of the stakeholders.

Keywords: indicators, participatory management, traditional ecological knowledge.

Chapters in books

• GARCIA C. & PASCAL J-P., 2005. Sacred Forests of Kodagu: Ecological Value and Social Role, In G. Cederlöf and K. Sivaramakrishnan (eds.), Ecological Nationalisms, Nature, Livelihoods, and Identities in South Asia, Permanent Black , pp. 199-225.

• KUSHALAPPA C.G., GARCIA C., MURALI K.S., NANAYA K.M., PAIN-ORCET M., LO SEEN D., DEPOMMIER D. & DUBUC S., 2005. Indicators: For Whom? With Whom? Why? And How? A case study in finding indicators of deforestation of Kodagu district of Western Ghats, India, In Proceedings of the 17th Commonwealth Forestry Confe-rence, Colombo, Sri-Lanka, 2005, 16 p.

Project completed. Download results (interactive pdf files, size: 27.6 MB, zipped).