Although Chure encompasses around 13 percent of the country’s total land, it has not been able to draw a proportional amount of attention. Because the Chure ranges over many districts, and people living there have few ways of getting their voice heard, the belt suffers from negligence and over-exploitation of resources. Available statistics show that most of the people living in Chure are Janajatis. In the six districts in which Community Self Reliance Centre (CSRC) conducted a survey, Janjatis accounted for 67 percent of the total population, followed by 17 percent Dalits and 16 percent others.
Chure Conservation Program was initiated through the budget last fiscal year after President Ram Baran Yadav raised the issue of Chure conservation. The objective of the progam was to stop deforestation and execssive use of land in the Chure area, as well as to conserve and sustainably manage it.
The President’s concern was quite appropriate, but before adding the President’s name to it, the program should have been better planned, as the implementation of the program was found to be weak. Activities such as embankments, afforestation, study tours for members of the community, and short trainings have been carried out by the District Forest and Land Conservation Office for decades, and the program made no significant contribution to the activities.
Until the beginning of the 1950s, Chure, covered with thick forests, was an inaccessible area. The area came under pressure when migrants from different parts of Nepal, mainly from the northern hills, moved to Chure seeking alternatives to the hardships they faced in the hills. They cleared the forests, cultivated land, and settled there. In Chure, 82 percent of cultivated land is not entitled. In legal terms, all the unentitled land is forest area. Until recently, there was land available to anybody who was prepared to clear the forests and settle down. Although the land is not very fertile, and as a result is not enough to feed the family, most people in Chure have some land to till. Unlike in the Terai where the poor are landless, in Chure there are the landed poor. If compared with the Terai poor, perhaps they are less oppressed and exploited.
PHOTO: PPRUNE.ORG
Government agencies think that if they support conservation activities in Chure, it may imply that they are encouraging encroachers. At the designing phase of the Chure Conservation Program, land issues which are very crucial to the preservation of Chure were missing. People are careful to keep their lands free of trees—it is assumed that if one keeps tree in one’s land, it will not be entitled as it will be considered uncultivated. Thousand of people are living like this in Chure, but policymakers are not serious about addressing this important issue. To address all these issues, we need to form an all powerful Chure Authority, the major task of which would be to entitle land to its tillers. Other tasks inlcude land-use planning, implementing preconditions for land entitlement, and mobilizing local people to safeguard Chure.
Relatively, Chure has higher forest cover than other areas in Nepal. It can play a significant role in maintaining the ecological balance of the country. It has been yielding many products like timber, firewood, fodder and leaf-litter. Perhaps the most important is its role in the balance of water in Terai. Chure reduces run-off and discharges water to the lands downstream. It provides manure to fields downstream, and also provides construction materials such as stones and sand. Hence, the deterioration of Chure will have a negative impact on the Terai, which contains 65 percent of country’s population and 30 percent of its land.
There is a causal relationship between poverty, landlessness, and the degradation of natural resources. Even if poor people have more land in the beginning, they cannot keep it with them. For them, land is an asset to be spent in times of difficulty. As often happens, many such people are not aware of legal instruments, and may not even have a legal world view, and are taken over by the cleverer sections of the society. Most indigenous people still live on ‘moral economy.’ When they lose their land for one reason or another, the only option left for them is to acquire a marginal piece of land again by felling and selling trees from the forests, a market for which exists throughout the East-West Highway that runs along Chure.
No doubt, the Chure region should be conserved, but because of the unclear policies at present, conservation is lagging. Education is very important for the future of the people of Chure. It is one of the best routes, after land entitlement, to lead the people of Chure out of poverty forever. Devastation in Chure will have detrimental effects on agriculultre and other livelihood conditions of the people. It is necessary to create employment opportunities in horticulture and vegetable production, animal husbandry, and the processing of non-timber forest products.
The writer is Program Manager at Community Self Reliance Centre (CSRC), Kathmandu
deujaj@csrcnepal.org
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