Forests, Communities And Change- A Study On Specific North-East Indian Communities

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This book explores human-forest relationship and interfaces among the Khasi, Mizo and the Adi communities of Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Arunachal Pradesh respectively. Through an interdisciplinary analysis using anthropo-historical approach, it presents a connected narrative on man-nature interactions among these tribes from the pre-colonial to the present times. The evolution of policies regarding forest resource utilization, appropriation, and management by the colonial and post-colonial state systems are discussed along with community responses and tribal access to natural resources. It draws attention to the threats faced by the bountiful natural resources of the areas and the attempts undertaken to preserve them. It also adds to the sphere of tribal studies, indigenous knowledge, and efforts of nature preservation among the communities under observation. This book will be immensely useful for researchers and academicians working on North East India, environmental history, tribal and regional studies.

Srijani Bhattacharjee, at present working as Assistant Professor of History at the Amity Institute of Social Sciences, Amity University, Kolkata is a M.Phil and PhD in Modern Indian History from the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has done her post-graduation in Modern Indian History from Assam University, Silchar. Dr Bhattacharjee has experiences in both teaching and research. She has been the Founder Faculty in the Department of History, Adamas University, Kolkata. She has taught post-graduate courses in History at Jadavpur University, Kolkata for a brief period. In her research career, she has been associated with the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata (MAKAIAS) as a recipient of a fellowship programme. She has also been a Research Fellow at the Asiatic Society, Kolkata under the project 'North East India' Society, Culture and Development, Emerging Issues".

The research interests of Dr Srijani Bhattacharjee include Environmental History of North East India, indigenous and tribal studies, forest policies, management, and human-nature interfaces in the region in the colonial and post-colonial eras. Dr Bhattacharjee has contributed articles in reputed journals, chapters in edited books, in seminar and conference proceedings. She has also presented papers in both national and international conferences.

The present book adds one more to the existing titles on North-East India published by The Asiatic Society. Since the beginning the Society has shown some academic commitments for the place and the people of the region under consideration. A fresh initiative has been taken to undertake a few research projects, to organize seminars and workshops in collaboration with some universities and academic institutions, to hold endowment lecture in the name of the great scholar of North-East India, Professor K.K. Handiqui since 2010 and so on and so forth.

Smt. Srijani Bhattacharjee, a Research Fellow of The Asiatic Society had taken up a study on forests and forest communities focussing on three tribal communities, namely Khasi, Mizo and Adi. These are mostly generic terms under which there are several independent tribal groups of people. The symbiotic relationship between forest and tribe is inextricably linked up with and spreads out in different aspects of their life and living. Therefore, any discussion on the subject just specified would generally reflect on the status of forest and the status of the existing economic practices. In the backdrop of the above the status of the tribal communities of North-East India could be easily examined and assessed.

The quotation depicts the idea of environmental sustainability that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi presumed long before the World Commission on Environment and Development coined the concept of Sustainable Development in 1987. Environmental sustainability usually refers to responsible usage of nature to avoid depletion of natural resources for use by future generations. Foreseeing the limitations of the natural resources if not used judiciously, Gandhi made the above statement that the earth has given us sufficiently for satisfying our requirements and therefore nature and its resources should be worked accordingly. Till recently modern ideas of urbanisation, development, and industrialisation have been executed contradictory to the interests of environmental sustainability that have eventually culminated into environmental hazards like global warming, acid rain, urban sprawl, air pollution, ozone layer depletion, water pollution, climate change, flash floods, tsunamis and cyclones among others. Such environmental threats have compelled the humans to ponder on sustainable use of nature and the ways associated with it.

**Contents and Sample Pages**