Negotiated livelihoods: contending development visions (by and for) tribal villagers living in the Tansa Wildlife sanctuary (5.2.67)

The project is an exercise in South-South collaboration, involving researchers from India and South Africa. Although its main focus is India, important comparative insights are drawn from changing approaches to wildlife conservation in South Africa, which has pioneered several innovative approaches to the preservation of indigenous populations living in wildlife conservation areas. This project will identify and assess competing development visions for the Tansa wildlife sanctuary in Mumbai, notably those of the tribal people linving in the forest, local governement in Maharastra state, the Thane Wildlife division, local business people and industrialists. Of foremost concern are the local tribal people about whom very little is known. The project aims to learn more about their way of life, particularly their use of forest and non-forest products, and to unpack the "hidden economies" of the forest. This will alow us to explore options for some form of Joint Forest Management, whereby forest resources are exploited in an co-operative rather than competing manner. Such a strategy will have to be expored in light of the largely conflicting development visions articulated by the local state and economic elite, and informed by experiences of Joint Forest Management elsewhere in India. The main "hypothesis" is that a developmental vision that links local beliefs, resources, institutions and perceptions of social reality to the broader political and social economy of Maharatra will have greater welfare enhancing characteristics than one based on the marginalisation and restriction of local economic practices. Transactions costs will be lowered and incentives for co-operation (from all sides) will de enhanced. Joint Forest Management offers one possible framewordk for the articulation of such a shared developmental vision.