Indigenous knowledge and sustainable development in the Tones Valley of Garhwal Himalaya

The inhabitants of the Tones Valley have survived on their traditional management practices for their needs. The paper has looked at traditional systems of forestry and agricultural system management in the west-central Himalayan region. Based on a detailed analysis of traditional knowledge that is linked with biodiversity, natural and human-managed, various possibilities for sustainable management of natural resources, with concerns for sustainable livelihood of local communities have been explored for the tribal region in Tons Valley. It is concluded that, if the development interests of local people are marginalized for a long period of time, they might adopt actions detrimental to the goal of conservation. Capitalization of the positive dimensions of traditional knowledge and overcoming its negative dimensions through conventional science-based inputs could ease the difficult process of securing people’s participation in environmental conservation and management together with the socioeconomic development of local communities.


INTRODUCTION
Himalaya, one of the richest hot spots of biodiversity in the world, offers immense opportunities in various fields of biological domains and associated patterns of sustainable life support systems (Gaur, 2004).Rich diversity occurs in Himalaya growing naturally under diverse environmental conditions that is, from dry deciduous forest of north west to rain forest of north east and extending up to the alpine meadows, though the region occupied only 15% of geographical area of the country, but about 30% of the endemic species of Indian subcontinent are found in this region.According to survey report of World Health Organization about 25% of prescribed human medicine derived from plants and cover 80% of the population in developing countries still depends on the traditional and folk system of medicine (Rawat and Chandhok, 2009).
Steps have been taken to preserve the biodiversity for future generations while trying to understand and document the indigenous knowledge of resource management *Corresponding author.E-mail: singhvardan@rediffmail.com.Tel: 05942235596.
practices.The preservation of biodiversity is according to World Commission on Environmental Development (1987) through sustainable development.As a result the model of development which was foisted upon the developing and undeveloped countries for the last fifty years, a strong argument have been made that development dictated from outside rather anchored in the knowledge base on the target population is in principle modernization disguised and not fully concerned with local need (Nyere, 1990;Gegeo, 1998).This is evident by Marginalization of the tribals, pastoralist and marginal farmers in India at national level (Agarwal and Narain, 1985;Shiva, 1991).
Presently, it has been realized by the researchers that the indigenous knowledge system should constitute the core of development models in developing and undeveloped nations (Brush and Stabinsky, 1996).The indigenous knowledge system has permitted its holders to exist in harmony with nature allowing them to use its sustainability (Dhar and Samant, 1991).Indigenous Knowledge is a local knowledge unique to a given culture or society, it is regarded as a basis for local level decision making in agriculture, horticulture, pastoralism, food preservation, health care and natural resource management.The indigenous knowledge highlights the knowledge possessed by poor and marginalized population and emphasis on empowering farmers to have greater control over their destinies; it is of crucial significance if one whishes to introduce a cost-effective, participatory and sustainable development process (Warren, 1991).
This paper tries to establish the significance of indigenous knowledge from conservation and sustainable development perspective and tries to examine how the subsistence economy of transhumant people of west central Himalaya have utilize and conserved their natural resources, how they have created management system by utilizing the available natural resources of the region and have conserved them from their eradication by domestication of many of them.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The present study was conducted in the tribal localities of Tones Valley (legally not notified as tribe) residing in around Govind Pashu Vihar National Park of Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand located at 30˚ 35' and 30˚ 18' north latitude and 77˚ 49' and 78˚ 37' east longitude in the temperate part of the west central Himalaya at an altitudinal range of 1000 -3200 m, characterized by its diverse climatic conditions.The valley is bounded in the north and northeast by Shimla district of Himachal Pradesh and in south-west by Dehradun district of Uttarakhand.The total area of the valley is 4500 sq.km.The Tones River forms the main drainage system of the Valley, Rupin, Supin and Power are the main tributaries.Geologically, the area forms the krol belt with metamorphic and sedimentary rock type.The soil is differentiated into red loam, brown forest podosol and meadow type (Rana et al., 2003).
The valley is a homeland of the several tribes dominated by Pravatis and Banganis (Similar to Jaunsari tribe of Dehradun).However in January, 2004 they are included in Other Backward Class (O.B.C.) under Raunwalta community.Pahari and Gujjar are nomad they perform transhumant and move from near villages to Bugyals (Fields for rearing of livestock) in June-September.The forest division allows permit for rearing the livestock in Mussorie, Raipur and Kalsi forest division of Uttarakhand in winter (November-April).The extreme ecological conditions of high altitude have shaped life styles which characterize the traditional system.Production system in the society has been agricultural and livestock based.Livestock and animal husbandry have made these people more dependent on their immediate environment, and accordingly they have diversified their resource use practices.Due to their seasonal movements between their summer settlements in higher altitude (3000 -4000 m) and winter settlement (up to 1500 m) they are well informed and in touch with different floristic composition and a wide range of natural resources.The fragility of high altitude is best exemplified by the availability of few rare endemic aromatic medicinal herbs.As a result these people are compelled to utilize every available resource for their diversified needs, conserve them from their depletion for future.In the present investigation the following steps were undertaken: (1) Numbers of field trips were made in different seasons, (2) Commonly useful traditional plants were collected, (3) The plants used by traditional healers and tribal communities were identified with the help of taxonomist and later verified with the help of officials of forest department in the region of the study area, (4) Local Vaids, Gujjars, Sheperds and elder peoples were interviewed to document their knowledge of occurrence and use of various plants, and (5) The plant materials identified having potential medicinal importance were classified according to their local name, habit, binomial name and family to which it belongs, the different vegetative and reproductive plant parts used medicinally and the disease treated.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The vegetation is predominantly of forest communities with frequent interruption of scrub jungles, savanna, grassy localities and crop fields.Several environmental factors control the distribution of vegetation.However, usually in the hilly tracts vegetation is demarcated on the basis of altitudinal gradients because edaphic, topographic, climatic and associated factors tend to be altered with altitude.The second important factor in consideration is the aerial distance of the localities from the Greater Himalaya (Gaur, 1999).Livestock, which is the chief occupation of the mountain communities, is directly dependent on the forest.The local communities, therefore, attempt to manage the vegetation which has direct bearing on livestock and other livelihood activities.Woody perennials as well as herbaceous plants contribute to the livestock fodder supplies.Singh et al. (1995); Singh and Bohra (2005) have given a list of 50 fodder trees, shrubs and non-graminaceous herbaceous plants occurring in mountain habitats.These fodder species occur in the agro-forestry systems or in the treedominated rangelands.
The people of the valley evolved the mechanism of utility of various resources based on its availability.Some of the major species of plants used by these communities for their varied requirements have been classified under different categories.The variability in term of utilization of fuel wood and fodder based on their availability and altitudinal distribution is given in Table 1.Beside the plants are also used for other purposes like agricultural implements, wood carving and colouring agents (Table 2).The people of the valley have good knowledge about the properties of various plants spread over 1000 -4500 m and are known to derive their food requirements from a numbers of wild plants.Paeonia emodi, Asparagus adscendens, Amaranthus viridis, Commelina maculate, Diplazium esculentum are the major wild vegetable while Hippophae rhamnoides, Fragaria nubicola species of Rubus and Duchesnea indica are the common wild fruits to their diet.The people have identified a number of wild plants grown in high altitude for their other needs (Table 3).Crops like Fagopyrum tataricum, Amaranthus paniculatus, Triticum aestivum, Oryza sativa, Phaseolus vulgaris, Glycine max, Macrotyloma uniflorum, Phaseolus mungo, Pisum sativum and vegetables like Brassica oleracea, Lycopersicon esculentum, Solenum tuberosum are common to diet of these people (Table 4).The availability of medicinal plants as a part of the surrounding natural vegetation and the knowledge of  Juglans regia, Taxus baccata these plants acquired traditionally helped these people to collect process and trade them.Due to intensive utilization of medicinal plant and heavy biotic pressure many important plant species like Acorus calamus, Aconitum heterophyllum, Delphinium denudatum, Picrorhiza kurroa, Saussurea costus, Zanthoxylum acanthopodium have become rare and are at the verge of extinction.The traditional knowledge of medicine in this valley has developed over a long period of time and they were exposed to a wide variety of plants and herbs by people residing in the remote areas.Even today they are not exposed to any other form of medical treatment.The indigenous treatment is mainly focused on ailments like gastric problem, diarrhoea, cough and cold, skin diseases, fever (Table 5).
The traditional society has control over production and conservation measures to the rationing of demand as well as adherence to the social sanction.All decisions regarding utilization of natural resources are done by elder people of the villages (Panch).They decide the

Table 1 .
Plants used for fodder and fuel wood.

Table 2 .
Major uses of important plants other than food, fuel and fodder.