When elephants signalled eco-restoration in a tribal village [Commentary]

It was close to midnight and Gumman, the ooru mooppan (village chief), woke up with a start. He sensed an alien presence in the dark stillness of the night; he sensed danger. Troubled and uncertain, he tossed and turned before drifting back to sleep. The next morning, fear and fascination gripped the air of the tribal village of Bommiyampadi, as three wild elephants — two females and an adolescent — had invaded the village in the darkness of the night. Gumman’s intuition had proved right.

The elephants had sauntered beside village settlements, thatched houses and desultory mud paved village roads, in the dark phantoms of the night. By morning they were stationed beneath the jackfruit and mango trees, feasting on the ripe fruits — far away from their jungle home. This was new in the small Irula tribal village of Bommiyampadi in Kerala’s Attappadi. It was the first time in the living memory of the residents that elephants entered their village. The tribals recalled that it was never anything like this earlier. Neither the visit of wild animals, nor the abundance of fruit and other trees all around.

I first visited the village over 40 years ago when it was arid and windswept. Due to its location in the rainshadow region, the rains were scarce and infrequent. We had come to Attappadi on a pilot survey to identify a location for an eco-restoration project which we planned to undertake in conjunction with the tribals. But far beyond, on the other side of the mountain ranges of Western Ghats that separated Attappadi and Silent Valley forests, was a land with luxurious green forest cover where thunderous rain swept across the terrain. But when it did rain in Bommiyampadi, it poured incessantly. The rains scoured the land of the last vestiges of soil cover as the waters rushed down the steep mountain slopes, scarcely giving time for the parched earth to absorb any moisture, let alone recharge the depleted groundwater. The land bereft of water, did not provide the much needed succour for trees and plants to grow. It was an arid earth, where dust devils swirled into the sky on windy summer afternoons. The hillocks all around the village were barren, dry and covered with thick thorny shrubs.

This reforestation project that I was part of was meant to stabilise their sustenance agriculture by increasing the soil humidity, reviving groundwater tables and making the tribal lands more arable and fertile. The Thiruvananthapuram-based NGO, Prakriti Samrakshana Samithi, had conceived the project ‘Revival of a Tribal Habitat through Technology Transfer and Eco-Restoration,’ which was funded by the Council for Application of Rural Technology (CART), under the Department of Rural Development, Government of India. And our hunt had led us to Bommiyampadi.

Located midway between Mukkali — the gateway to Silent Valley forests and Agali which is the taluk headquarters of Attappadi, we chanced upon the quaint and small tribal village of Bommiyampadi where the tribals along with their cows, goats and poultry struggled to survive in the hostile land. Surrounded on all sides by parched rolling hills we thought it provided an ideal location for our project. Although dry and arid, we sensed it held great promise as we could savour the fragrant humidity in the air when the winds flowed in from the Attappadi reserve forests in the west and the Silent Valley forests in the south.

It was an ambitious project since it involved reforesting denuded government land, for which a plethora of sanctions and permissions were necessary. But the Prakriti Samrakshana Samithi had built a track record of integrity and grit. The Save Silent Valley campaign had tested our resolve and the Samithi was in pursuit to make itself relevant once again. Kerala’s pioneering environmental activist Sugathakumari, was the secretary of the NGO, had a reputation as a well-known poet of the people and was a staunch campaigner for social justice and environmental causes.

Professor R.V.G Menon would provide the support for on-site technology transfer. Dr. Satheesh Chandran Nair would assist in consultation and guidance on how best to use conservation tools for the reforestation programme. P.K. Uthaman, the General Secretary of the NGO, would coordinate between the project office and the off-site project headquarters and Sebastian Mathew would coordinate operations. I was the principal on-site facilitator, executing the project.

Dr. Satheesh put the first challenge before us: stop the unhindered surface water runoff during the brief but heavy downpours and thunderstorms. In order to arrest this deluge of water storming down the mountain slopes, we decided to dig storm water pits — several thousands of them. With a distance of three feet from one pit to the next, the tribals were set the task of digging one foot long/wide/deep pits. With the close proximity of one pit to the next, we were confident that we would curtail the water run-off and thereby the soil erosion dramatically.

The water would collect in these pits, giving sufficient time for it to slowly percolate into the soil and for the earth to absorb it. This would increase the soil moisture and eventually recharge the groundwater table. Given the steep gradients, there would be sub-soil percolation of water and moisture down the steep mountain slopes, creating new, fertile biomes in its path, generating conducive conditions for plants to strike root and nurture tree growth, all the way down to the valley. Not a drop of water was to be wasted, and every drop would serve a seminal purpose.

The next task was to buttress and plug the gullies where the remaining rainwater would rush to, from where it would run down the steep slopes, carrying soil and silt in its wake and disrupting everything in its path. Wherever the gully gradient was shallow and amenable, we buttressed it with stones and rock, and sometimes reinforced it with wire ropes. We paved it with dead leaves and branches, meant to arrest the mad rush of water to the valley below.

The branches and leaves would act as sieves retaining the soil in small and growing platforms while the water alone rushed on. Soon, these soil platforms would themselves act as sieves, filtering out soil and sediments. This, we hoped, would arrest the mad gully runoff while the platforms soaked and absorbed every drop of water. These moist soil banks would also nurture their own plant and trees life, reducing the gully torrents to a trickle. In theory and practice we were ready for the onset of the monsoons.

Although we were confident that there would be thousands of indigenous seeds, lying dormant on the slopes, waiting for conducive conditions to take root and bloom, we went ahead and planted resilient and multi-faceted species such as bamboo, which could withstand extreme weather.

The rains would be the final test to our year-long effort. The pounding rain could either smash through a thousand pits and rush down the deep gullies, or it could be tamed in servient pools as the mountainside slowly soaked and absorbed it. And the tribals prayed to god-Malleeswaran, who resided in Malleeswara mudi, for good rains and bountiful harvests, while we hoped that their year-long eco-restoration efforts would not go in vain.

The Malleeswara peak, shaped like a crooked thumb pointing to the skies, was the most prominent geographical landmark of Attappadi, visible from almost all parts of the huge taluk. Malleeswaran was venerated by all tribal communities — the Irulas, Kurumba and Muduvas, all resident to Attappadi — who took an annual pilgrimage up its steep, winding and wind-swept slopes, to make their offerings to the god.

Finally, the rains arrived. The parched earth seemed to swallow every drop. Along the steep slopes, water trickled from one pit to the next as the arid land soaked it up. Surface runoff was reduced to a trickle. Soil erosion was arrested. And soil humidity increased manifold.

By the end of the brief but severe rainy season a refreshingly sanguine atmosphere emerged for vegetative growth. For the thousands of latent seeds lying dormant in the soil, the long wait was over. Fragile green shoots began to sprout from rocky outcrops rearing their green leafy flags, over the thorny scrubland.

And soon, hillock after hillock were transformed into carpets of green. The first rains had heightened soil humidity, soil stability and accelerated an eco-restoration project which we had deemed would take years to achieve. We were awed by the sweeping changes that were wrought on the land. Within a short and brief span of one year, we deemed the project a wholesome success.

To us, eco-restoration was only one aspect. Of equal importance were factors like social justice and equity in a tribal society, where unwarranted intrusion from non-tribal society was equally pervasive, more often, in exploitative forms. To combat this, we provided alternative employment opportunities — digging pits, fencing, planting trees, nurturing them and other periodic maintenance works. This enabled greater financial independence.

This employment generation scheme to create productive, socially relevant small infrastructure was attempted several decades before the advent of the much-touted MGNREGA which aims to address rural and urban distress through employment generation and creation of small social infrastructure. The objectives were the same, while the scale and scope of the two projects are vastly different.

The aim was to create a small relatively financially independent, self-sufficient tribal community. This community, we hoped, would integrate with the larger society around them slowly, at their own pace and at their terms. We were relatively successful. But not everything written on project papers gets translated into reality. At least not fully.

After a gap of four decades, I had the good fortune to visit Bommiyampadi more recently. Many of the tribals with whom I had worked and developed bonds, had passed away. However, it was endearing to see them recognise me as the kannadi sir (spectacled sir) even after forty years.

However, what was even more heartening was the green sheen of vegetation that the surrounding hillsides wore — trees, plants and shrubs — which grew luxuriously. The tribals recounted that the gullies now trickled with water for a couple of days after the rains. Small streams flowing beside their pucca concrete houses (thatched huts were records from the past), had more water and flowed longer. They seemed happier and more content.

However, they also opened up about their troubles. They complained about how the forest department fenced off the forests and did not provide them access for occasional fuel wood and minor forest produce collection. They also spoke about how settlers from the plains were trying to grab their lands or take it on lease. They recounted how the windmill which was previously built by us would no longer pump water and they had to carry water longer and more frequently. They were integrating with the larger society, but slowly and at their own pace.

They also recounted the elephants’ visit which took place a week before. How these large beasts took shelter from midday heat under the forest cover that we had recreated. Well-fed and content, they had slowly trudged back to the thick jungles, from whence they had come.

Maybe their visit was to provide final testimony to a project that we had conceived and undertaken, a very long time ago.

The author is an editor, environmentalist and activist for social causes.

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Banner image: The author visits the tribal community in Bommiyampadi after an initial interaction 40 years earlier, for a restoration project that sought to revive groundwater and soil health. Image courtesy of Jacob Punnathara.