{"id":53492,"date":"2024-01-10T14:06:21","date_gmt":"2024-01-10T08:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/?p=53492"},"modified":"2024-01-10T14:06:47","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T08:36:47","slug":"the-iruliga-communitys-growing-disconnect-from-the-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/the-iruliga-communitys-growing-disconnect-from-the-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"The Iruliga community\u2019s growing disconnect from the forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972<\/a>\u00a0(WPA) and the\u00a0Forest (Conservation) Act 1980<\/a>\u00a0were passed by the Indian Parliament with the aim of conserving and expanding forest cover and arresting the decline of the wildlife population. While these two acts have undeniably been able to\u00a0increase forest cover<\/a>, their implementation has been described as\u00a0punitive<\/a>\u00a0by the communities that have lived in such forest regions.<\/p>\n

Over the past three years,\u00a0Land Body Ecologies<\/a>\u00a0(LBE)\u2014a global transdisciplinary network exploring the deep linkages of mental and ecosystem health\u2014has sought to understand the long-standing connections between forests, land, and people. LBE is based in the Arctic North, India, Kenya, Uganda, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. It aims to document stories of loss emanating from being at home and yet feeling that your own home is leaving you. This concept,\u00a0solastalgia<\/a>\u2014coined by Glenn Albrecht\u2014was resonant across all our research sites.<\/p>\n

In India, we worked with communities in the eco-sensitive zone of the Bannerghatta National Park (BNP), located on the outskirts of Bengaluru city. The BNP was declared a national park under the WPA in 1974, with a notified conservation area of more than 250 square kilometres.<\/p>\n

The BNP eco-sensitive zone comprises 16 hamlets or\u00a0doddi<\/em>s, which are typically quite small, with fewer than 20 houses. The\u00a0doddi<\/em>s are home to a diverse mix of people, such as settled agricultural communities, indigenous populations that have been moved out of the forests, migrant pastoralists, and other marginalised groups that have found a refuge here.\u00a0For our research study, we engaged with more than 55 respondents in Bannerghatta through design research methodologies, including in-depth interviews, and activities that involved the community using polaroid photos to document spaces in their\u00a0doddi<\/em>s and then telling us the stories of the photos they took.<\/p>\n

The Iruligas are an Adivasi community living in the region. There are many theories about the origin of the word \u2018iruliga\u2019\u2014some believe it comes from \u2018irulu\u2019 (darkness), while others trace it to \u2018ili\u2019 (rat)\u2014a reference to the widely held view that Iruligas hunt and subsist on rats. However, in the Bannerghatta region, Iruligas are identified by other communities as\u00a0panditru<\/em>, or forest saints, in recognition of their deep knowledge of the forest\u2014including the medicinal properties of various herbs\u2014and their understanding of animals, rooted in centuries of lived experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972\u00a0(WPA) and the\u00a0Forest (Conservation) Act 1980\u00a0were passed by the Indian Parliament with the aim of conserving and expanding forest cover and arresting the decline of the wildlife population. While these two acts have undeniably been able to\u00a0increase forest cover, their implementation has been described as\u00a0punitive\u00a0by the communities that have lived […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53493,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9852,14176,20],"tags":[30937,30951,30950,24872,30940,30945,30946,30954,30948,30953,30955,30949,30932,30930,30957,30936,30941,30944,30947,30942,30933,30939,30943,30952,30934,30958,30938,30935,30931,30956],"class_list":["post-53492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking","category-cover-story","category-india","tag-adorable-scenes-of-animals","tag-aerial-drone","tag-aerial-drone-footage","tag-africa","tag-amazing-world-of-forest","tag-animal-film","tag-animals-in-4k","tag-bear","tag-birds","tag-calming-music","tag-deer","tag-elephant","tag-forest-animals","tag-forest-wildlife-4k","tag-lion","tag-music-for-meditation","tag-music-for-sleeping","tag-nature-scenery","tag-peaceful-music","tag-relaxation-channel","tag-relaxing-video","tag-scenic-relaxation-film","tag-scenic-relaxation-film-with-calming-music","tag-scenic-scenes","tag-stress-relief-music","tag-tiger","tag-wild-animals-4k","tag-wild-world","tag-wildlife","tag-wolf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53492"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53492\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53494,"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53492\/revisions\/53494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ozinews.in\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}