Our hotel room in MM Hills
After our quick trip to BRT we drove back out to the sorta-main road, then out to the other side of the same range of hills to a village called Male Mahadeswaram Hills (MM Hills for short). I was surprised as we drove into town at how big it is. But, like BRT, it houses an important temple and is visited by many pilgrims. We arrived pretty late in the day and were met by Mr. Narayanan, the ATREE representative in that area. He helped us check into our hotel and showed us where we could get supper, then arranged to meet us the next day to show us around.
View from Komdikki village
We first went to look at agriculture and agroforestry sites, mostly in the village of Komdikki which is half Soliga (tribal) and half Lingayat. They both have seemingly fairly similar systems but one group (the Soliga, I think) are using almost exclusively hybrid seed whereas the other is still saving seed (or at least that's what I gathered -- I may be quite mistaken). Both groups have quite a few trees interspersed with the agriculture. The Lingayat are living in houses that are scattered among the fields and the Soliga live in a miniature village of sorts with small closely spaced houses that was built by the government. You can see the ruins of many mud houses they originally lived in scattered among the fields and a few families are still living in these houses (not the ruined ones).
From the village we walked a little ways into the forest (also a protected forest, but not to the same degree as at BRT). There was elephant poo and elephant rubbings on the trees along the trail which was pretty cool. It was also interesting to see how much the forests were used. Narayanan said that the Soliga still harvest a lot of NTFPs from there and while we were walking back up towards the village (we walked quite a ways down a slope) an old man and two boys passed us, driving their cattle and goats down the trail. They take them down to graze in the bottomlands. Narayanan also said that someone had died a few months back after being attacked by a bear (sloth bear, I think) while driving his animals home at dusk. Gives a whole new level of respect for the forest.
From the village we walked a little ways into the forest (also a protected forest, but not to the same degree as at BRT). There was elephant poo and elephant rubbings on the trees along the trail which was pretty cool. It was also interesting to see how much the forests were used. Narayanan said that the Soliga still harvest a lot of NTFPs from there and while we were walking back up towards the village (we walked quite a ways down a slope) an old man and two boys passed us, driving their cattle and goats down the trail. They take them down to graze in the bottomlands. Narayanan also said that someone had died a few months back after being attacked by a bear (sloth bear, I think) while driving his animals home at dusk. Gives a whole new level of respect for the forest.
Making a chair from lantana
Next we went to look at a project building furniture from lantana (Lantana camera) which is a big forest pest (see Biligiri post). It was pretty cool seeing them turn lantana into sofas and chairs, but I was pretty shocked when I heard that the government is helping them to manage the lantana for future yields -- I'd thought the project was a way to chip away at an invasive (from what I've seen, you could furnish all of India and still have it threatening forests).
loading grasses
Along the way we passed a truck that was loading up with a grass that grows on the tops of two of the hills and is used for making brooms
We also stopped in another town-ette built for the Soliga by the government. This one made me feel sad as the people here had no access to agricultural land and were pretty removed from the forests where they had lived for generations. It seemed (from my very brief visit) that most of them were getting money from either working outside the area or harvesting firewood to be sold for a pittance. Government and NGO funds seemed to be coming in as well (see photo)
ATREE's new digs
After lunch we drove out above MM Hills where ATREE is in the process of building a field station. It's a nice area with abandoned agricultural terraces above, working agriculture to the side, and forest beyond that. We walked out to a vantage point where we could see the forest and I was amazed at how much it is used for grazing. I am so used to thinking of forests in American terms (North or South, you pick) where people are a relatively new addition to the landscape and grazing animals were all-but non-existent. Here where people have been living in the forests for thousands of years and large grazers are one of the primary drivers of ecosystem processes I suppose it's natural that the cattle and goats are in the forests but I'd never thought of forests in that way. We sat on the rocks above the valley walls and looked down at a small group of goats along one of the paths. When I pulled out my binoculars to try and see the forest better I was surprised to pick out so many groups of cattle or goats and a landscape that had obviously been modified by and for them. I was pleased to see that lantana is not nearly as thick here as at BRT (couldn't see any through the binoculars, tho there was some up where we were) and wondered if it might have to do with maintaining the grazing pressure in this part of the forest. This forest is also drier than the forest at BRT, but if anything, that seems like it should foster lantana growth......
That basically concluded the work portion of the trip (I'll talk about temples in a later post). It was a good weekend and I've got a bunch of questions that might be possible to come up with research projects and answers even given the distance of the sites. I'm now working on figuring out how to get enough time there and fine-tuning some of the ideas with the help of some of the ATREE staff.